Navigating House Hunting: How Location Impacts Homebuying

Estimated reading time: 3 minutes

Your home’s location influences nearly every aspect of your property, especially its value. Afterall, it’s the one feature you can’t change. While purchasing a home is an investment in your own wealth, it’s also an investment in your neighborhood and location.

Let’s dive into the factors that make up a “good” home location to assist you in a successful house hunt!

Five Factors that Influence a Home’s Location

Cities, towns, and suburb communities are constantly changing. A neighborhood can transition from being less desirable to up and coming within just a few years. A neighborhood’s amenities, accessible transportation, and appearance are all aspects that may affect your home’s value and desirability.

Researching a location’s future developments, such as planned commercial development, construction, and new housing starts, can allude to the neighborhood’s property values.

Centrality

How much you’ll pay for your home is affected by whether you choose to live in a large city or small town. A home in a city center may be more expensive than one located further away in the countryside because there’s greater more access to amenities and services.

Neighborhood

The neighborhood you choose will be a personal choice based on your interests and personal life goals. However, “great” neighborhoods often share the same factors:

• Amenities: how close are the grocery stores, parks, or other community spaces? An area that has less travel time to these locations is often more attractive for buyers than those further away.
• Accessibility: if a neighborhood has quick commute times and accessibility to major transit routes, it’s a good bet that homes will be more expensive in that area.
• Appearance: large, matured trees and consistent high quality curb appeal indicates to buyers that a neighborhood is maintained and cared for.

Development

When researching locations, keep an eye out on any developments that are planned or recently implemented. The creation of schools, hospitals, commercial areas, public transport, and other civic infrastructure are all positive changes that would affect a neighborhood’s desirability.

Lot Location

A home that’s located close to the highway or on a busy road may be sold at a lower price, but may be harder to sell later on. The same goes for homes that may be next to or back up onto commercial properties, like a grocery store or gas station. Conversely, a home that backs up to a private view of a body of water is likely to be more desirable and thus sell at a higher price.

Lot Size

Your lot size or acreage is often more important than the quality of a home because land increases in value. Let’s say there are two homes that are right next to each other in the same neighborhood. One home is a fixer-upper, but on a large lot. The other property is a new construction home on a smaller lot than the fixer-upper. If both homes were bulldozed and the lots were for sale, the bigger lot would be sold for more money because it’s a larger asset.

Your New Neighborhood

Finding your ideal neighborhood may feel like you’re juggling a lot of factors, but don’t stress. There are people who can help.

Create a winning homebuying team with a Loan Originator from McGlone Mortgage and a real estate agent! As your real estate agent helps you find your dream home, we can help with choosing the best mortgage program for your financial needs. Contact us today!