When it comes to must-have home features, safety may seem nonnegotiable. But in today’s overheated housing market, it’s a luxury that some buyers are willing to compromise in exchange for affordability, new data shows.
A recent Redfin survey asked people who were planning to buy a home in the next year what they required in a home and what they’d be “willing to trade off.” More than one in five respondents (22 percent) said they were willing to sacrifice personal safety, while nearly 30 percent said they were willing to compromise on living in an area with a low crime rate.
But even if a fifth of buyers said they were willing to overlook it, safety still topped the list of new home must-haves, the survey found, with 78 percent of respondents saying it was nonnegotiable, and 74 percent saying that buying in a low-crime area was nonnegotiable. Living in an area with low risk for natural disaster was the third most popular must-have, though about a third of respondents said they were willing to compromise on that, too. Coming in fourth, with 67 percent of respondents unwilling to sacrifice it: access to grocery stores.
Among the other home features covered in the survey — including basics like the number of bathrooms and commute time — the one that buyers were most willing to sacrifice was homogeneity, with 59 percent of respondents saying they didn’t need to live “in an area where people look like me,” and 55 percent saying they’d give up living in an area where the politics and government reflect their personal and political views. Other studies, including recent reports from National MI and Bank of America, have found that buyers, especially younger ones, are also willing to give up space or privacy in order to afford a home in the current market.
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