I’ve recently been working with a couple buyers in the $1M-$1.5M range and we went out this week to look at a few homes in Eden Prairie.  While they all were very nice and had some great finishes, they also had some bad features too.

#1 – Combination lock boxes.  Agents are securing a home with a $30 manual lockbox that can be opened by anybody with the code and leaves no trace of accesses?  Some of the homes we saw were very nicely furnished… I’d hate to hear that a home was burgularized and then be a suspect simply because at some point I had shown the home.

#2 – Master bathtubs that face the front of the house.  Honestly – there was a house that had a 1/2 acre back yard looking out onto open fields and they put the master bath in the front of the house looking over the rest of the neighborhood and the street.  That’s just a bad decision.

#3 – Skimping on kitchen storage.  Few of these homes have dedicated pantry space, which seems odd given that these kitchen often have $50k+ into them.  What good is it all without enough storage?

#4 – A picture window in the main floor bath overlooking the front entry.  This is true as well – a full-size window, right next to the toilet, which overlooks the front entry to the home.  Don’t know about you but I don’t think that rooms should be designed with windows that always need to have their blinds down!

#5 – Small master bedrooms.  One of the houses we saw had a master bedroom space that couldn’t have been more than about 13′ x 12′, while the bath and closet were at least that size.  Today’s bedroom furniture is typically oversized and consequently the room should be sized appropriately.