Venus and Mars notwithstanding, is it true that men and women scrutinize different features when touring a new home? What differences in left and right brained "hot buttons" are there between the sexes? In the thirteen years I was involved in the sales and marketing of new homes, I tried to keep in mind that old saying, "It's really the woman that buys the home." Truth be told, we feminine nest-making types exert a huge influence over the decision-making process, just because the home tends to be our "domaine", no matter how liberated we wish to become. Men, however, have some pretty valid (and practical) desires in new home design.

The first place women tended to gravitate was to the kitchen, while the first place men perked up was in the garage. Is this a Tim Allen 'Tool Time' truism? What amused me was that men tried to act nonchalant about the garage in front of their wives, but when the discussions came around to power tool electrical outlets, lighting, and depth for a future boat in the third stall, the men were absolute chatterboxes. Women, on the other hand, took long hard looks at kitchen cabinet space, countertop work areas, appliances, and the practicality of the kitchen and how it related to the surrounding rooms. Some wanted a view of the backyard, and others wanted a decent view of the big screen, with the sink facing out to the family room. You would think these women were planning to set up a spare bed in the kitchen and camp out from time to time. Men, on the other hand, generally made few comments about any of those kitchen features, having made the simple mental note that, indeed, there was a kitchen.

Laundry rooms were a BIG DEAL to the female half of the equation. When a builder I was employed by happened to pay attention to this important fact, it was a slam-dunk to sell their homes when another female was looking at them. The first requirement was space. Gotta be big enough to sort loads of laundry, have a soaking tub, not be in the way of another door opening (no pass-throughs, please) and have some room to fold dry clothes and hang wet ones. Cabinet space, and not shelves, was the order of the day. The second requirement was location. If it was located in the downstairs of the new home, and the laundry room was incorporated with the kitchen and a spare bathroom, creating a "service porch" area, it usually got a hearty female stamp of approval. Moms had fleeting, but serious thoughts of dirty kids and husbands coming in from riding the range, putting them through the Tide gauntlet before permitting them to go any further.

Another scenario that tugged at the heartstrings of ladies was if the laundry room was located upstairs on a two story home, or near bedroom areas in a single level. The idea of not traipsing back and forth with baskets of dirty clothes could literally bring joy to their hearts. For the men, the idea of an upstairs laundry room could strike terror, however, with the males of the household envisioning plumbing leaks and overflowing washing machines. A compromise was almost always struck if the builder was clever enough to offer an old fashioned laundry chute. No matter that building codes have changed so much that the chute's opening was about the size of a soccer ball in diameter, permitting one good sized sheet to pass through. Determined moms could put up with any version of it.

Another "quirk" I found fascinating when showing new homes was the difficulty of women in general (of course there were always some exceptions) had with both blueprints and "reverse floor plans". As I spread out the builder's blueprints on the sales office presentation table, attempting to point out the home's architectural options, property setbacks and room dimensions, a curious thing happened. Women would glaze over, and men would again step up to the plate with a plethora of questions. And if, God forbid, the home I was tying to sell them had a reversed version of the model the couple had seen, most of the women had an instant dislike for it. They agonized at picturing the home they had just seen in mirror-image form, while their husbands blithely explained the identical, but reversed nature of it to their wives.

When the time came to select options and upgrades, I found a pretty united front, with the men leading the way on electrical and plumbing options, and the ladies with cabinet and flooring choices.

Perhaps because of my innate fascination with human behavior, I found the informal study of these male/female differences both validating (now I knew my marriage wasn't so different) and enlightening. I was able to see two completely different, but oftentimes complementary, perspectives on what new homebuyers look for in home design, which made my job of selling them even more rewarding. The display of compromise many couples exhibited, mixed with the excitement of a new home purchase, was more than enough to send me home smiling every time.

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Published: July 28, 1999

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A veteran of the real estate and homebuilding industries since 1986, Dena Kouremetis first joined Realty Times as a new homes writer in 1998. Since then, she has authored four books, written consumer columns on new homes issues for websites and newspapers all across the country, contributed to builder trade magazines, appeared as a guest expert on several radio shows and even created a ten-chapter podcast for LendingTree.com’s homebuilder website, iNest.com, now available on iTunes, entitled Uncharted Waters; Navigating the Purchase of a New Production Home. Kouremetis recently joined her local Folsom, CA Coldwell Banker office as a broker associate while continuing to write for the real estate industry. For the past three years, she has been training real estate agents for both the resale and new homes industries, putting her experience, research expertise and gift of expression to work to help others entering the business.