I have a friend who is househunting for the first time, and we’re currently househunting. We’ve bought and sold two houses prior to this, so I have my househunting criteria down to a few mental lists. These lists will probably be pretty boring to read.

House basics:

1. 3+ bedrooms, 1.5+ baths.
2. NOT a split-bedroom plan. All three bedrooms should be near each other.
3. A master bedroom big enough for several giant dog beds in addition to our furniture, and it should ideally have a door to the backyard or a window that could be converted into a door into the backyard.
4. If secondary bedrooms are small, there must be a “bonus” room.
5. No indoor stairs, unless they lead up to a bonus room (that and attic space should be basically the only things up the stairs).
6. We prefer carpet or areas that can be easily carpeted.
7. At least a 1-car carport or garage.
8. Preferably, a den that looks out over the back yard, not the front yard.
9. I HATE bathrooms with “toilet closets”. I have to evaluate these bathrooms on a case-by-case basis.
10. Toilet MUST be near sink–not across the room in some vast, toilet-closeted new-fangled bathroom.
11. Our New Mexico house was heavily tiled. I hate to clean tile. I hate floor tiles. I hate ornate bathroom tiles. Tile countertops. Tiles going up walls. Tiles in showers or tub areas. It looks nice, but I’d rather just spray, and wipe, and be done–not have to use bristles on my textured tile, or rub my finger all up and down through all the grout lines. Not have to seal the stuff every few years. Not have to find a replacement tile if one breaks, not to mention doing the actual replacing. I prefer (gasp) single-sheet bathtub and shower enclosures, and linoleum on the floors. So if there’s tile, it should be old enough that I won’t feel bad about chipping it all up and having it replaced.
12. Kitchen should look into den, or be easily modified to do so.
13. No formal dining room, unless it is of the sort that could be easily and logically used as a different type of room (like a hobby room or library).

Yard:

1. No outdoor stairs (ie, leading to the backyard from a deck). One or two little steps might be okay.
2. Trees.
3. A spot without trees, or with only a few immature trees, for the pool that we’ll eventually install.
4. If there is already a pool there, it cannot be too close to the house. It should preferably be off to the side in the yard, in a location that is easily fenced for safety. —This is a big one; you can’t move a pool. Our first house had a great pool, but the location of it was horrible and unfenceable (because of where it was in relation to the back door of the house) and I was always afraid of my dogs falling in and drowning.—
5. Although we both prefer a bigger, country lot (of several acres), we also want to stay close to the Uni. So we will settle for a third of an acre if we have to, depending on the shape of the lot and the relation to the neighbors.
6. If in the city (not the country) the street should have curbs. In Lake Charles city, curbs seem to go hand-in-hand with drainage. No curbs seems to mean that you’ll have green, standing water in your front-yard ditches year-round. If we buy in the country, we’ll buy a big enough lot that the ditches won’t bother us.

I think that’s it…I might be modifying these lists if I suddenly remember I’ve forgotten something.