The house seems perfect. After searching for a new home for months, you’ve finally found a two-story Cape Cod, which has enough space for a home office. It includes four bedrooms so that the kids will no longer have to share sleeping quarters. And the location is perfect, within walking distance of the public elementary school and just a five-minute drive from the train station.
There’s only one problem: It looks exactly the same as the neighbor’s house. And that house looks nearly the same as the house next to it. In other words, this potential dream home sits in the middle of a cookie-cutter subdivision, where each house looks nearly identical to its neighbor.
Should this prevent you from buying what would otherwise be the perfect home? Real estate agents say it shouldn’t.
When it’s time to sell that dream home, there are plenty of steps owners can take to set a cookie-cutter house apart from its neighbors, they say. These steps will help it move off the sales block as fast as any other house in town.
“Just because a house looks like most of the other homes in a subdivision, that doesn’t mean it’ll necessarily be harder to sell,” said John Schmitt, vice president of Naperville’s John Greene, Realtor. “In some areas, these cookie-cutter homes are the only ones that people in a certain price range will be able to buy. We see some production-type homes here, and they do move. Buyers have to be realistic: If they want to live in a certain area, that may be the only type of home some of them can afford. So I wouldn’t necessarily shy away from buying a production-type house.”
Other real estate agents agree with Schmitt’s advice: It doesn’t make good sense for buyers to turn away from an otherwise perfect home just because it looks similar to its neighbors. With the proper landscaping and decorating, they say, even a home that’s a virtual clone of its neighbors can stand out from the crowd.
“Every homeowner can do something to give their house a special look,” said John Byrne, a real estate agent with the Ravenswood office of Chicago independent real estate agency Baird & Warner. “Just on the interiors, owners can do a lot. Colors have come a long way from what they were 10 years ago. Back then, everything used to be off-white. Not anymore. So it is possible to give even, say, a typical Chicago brick bungalow a very distinctive personality.”
Here are some tips buyers should keep in mind when debating whether to buy a cookie-cutter house:
– Location is key. The best of Chicago’s neighborhoods and suburbs offer strong public schools, plenty of parks impressive restaurants and other amenities. Unfortunately, they also feature sky-high housing prices, prices that make living in such neighborhoods beyond the realm of most families’ finances.
But buyers seeking to live in the Lake Forests, Northbrooks and Kenilworths of the world might be able to get there by buying cookie-cutter homes. In most cases, these homes, located in what people might consider drab-looking subdivisions, are easily the most affordable properties in the Chicago region’s most exclusive communities.
“It’s definitely not always a bad decision to buy these type of houses,” said Jeanne Kolas, a real estate agent with Cary-based Century 21 Sketch Book. “It really depends on where they’re located. For some people, they represent the only homes they can afford in a certain suburb. By buying one of these homes, they can live in one of these communities. To them, it’s a way to live in the most desirable location they can find.”
“We’d all like to have a custom-built home in the middle of the woods somewhere,” said Rudy Krueger, owner of Naperville’s Krueger Realtors. “Having said that, these cookie-cutter homes do serve a purpose. They help people get out of a rental situation and into an owning situation. People have to be realistic. There are only certain kinds of houses in a given area that some people can afford. If you want to live in a certain area, you might only be able to afford a cookie-cutter house. But when it’s time to sell, you’ll certainly be able to find people who are in the same situation you were in. They’ll buy your house because it’s one of the few they can afford in your community.”
– Don’t judge a house by its facade only. Some houses look less than spectacular on the outside. This is especially true for cookie-cutters. After all, how exciting can a home be when it features the same windows, front door and porch as 80 percent of its neighboring homes?
But buyers who automatically write off cookie-cutter homes may be making a big mistake, says real estate agent Byrne. Some of these homes, he said, are actually quite unique on the inside.
“We sell a lot of brick bungalows here, and they all tend to look the same on the outside,” Byrne said. “But buyers should always look at the insides of these homes. The floor plans on the inside are almost always unique. Some of them are quite nice. Buyers are wrong if they think every bungalow looks the same. If they look at 10 bungalows, they’ll generally find 10 different floor plans.”
The lesson here is simple: Don’t give up on a home just because its exterior looks familiar. Doing this is one way to miss out on a potential dream home.
– You can add your touch. Many people avoid buying cookie-cutter homes because they can’t bear the thought of living in a house that looks like everyone else’s. Real estate agents call this kind of thinking flawed. Homeowners, even those owning the 10th bungalow on the block, can do plenty to set their houses apart.
The obvious place to start is with landscaping. Some well-placed flowers, trees and shrubs can do wonders in making a home stand apart from its neighbors.
“It’s important to give your house a distinct look. One way to do this is with landscaping,” said Krueger. “You should plant things that will reach maturity quickly if they’re taken care of properly. Once you own a house, you have to look down the road to when you’re selling. You have to create curb appeal, and you do this with landscaping.”
And don’t forget the insides of a home. Here again, a little tasteful decorating goes a long way toward giving a house, even a cookie-cutter, personality. Owners can also dabble in some remodeling work. Updating an old-fashioned bathroom or adding color to an otherwise brown-and-gray basement can make a house seem individualized.
“You can do a lot of inexpensive things with the interiors of a home,” Krueger said. “Many of these things don’t require major remodeling. With Home Depot and other stores like it, you can, for instance, finish off a basement inexpensively and add value to your house.”
Krueger warns, though, that it is possible to go overboard. Owners shouldn’t pour too much money into additions. Adding an extra bedroom may bump a home to a price too high for its neighborhood. This is especially possible with cookie-cutters.
