Opinion: What younger buyers really, really want

Children and young adults increasingly have a say in big family decisions and developers have long understood the power of suggestion in furnishing showhomes. We amateurs may leave out aspirational coffee tables books, artfully arranged, to suggest the type of lifestyle we hope will impress viewers. Others go further, brewing coffee and baking bread to suggest an urbane life which potential buyers cannot help but envy. I was once advised that viewers with children would be drawn to a home with a musical instrument in each child’s bedroom, the inference being that if you bought this house, you too could spawn high achievers. Certainly looking round a property with a designated library, an art studio or a sewing room would enthuse me with the idea that I could perhaps live the sort of life where I found the leisure time for such pursuits, despite never having managed it in any house I’ve lived in before. Professionals however, never forget the influence younger members of the family have in decision making, when it comes to choosing a new house. It is why showhomes designed to appeal to buyers with children have bedrooms painted bright blue for young boys with features such as climbing walls, dinosaur wallpaper and beds with slides attached. Girls’ rooms tend to be less actively exciting, but princess decor, pink walls and tiny four-poster beds are all displayed in order to persuade your daughters to demand an immediate move to this girly heaven. Teens tend to be a trickier audience to appeal to, but interior specialist, Hillarys, has come up with a feature it suggests this age group would be keen on. A survey they have carried out with young adults in the UK says many report having a designated selfie stage in their bedrooms; a place specifically allocated to taking the sort of flattering self-portraits so beloved by the age group on social media. They report that the essentials for a selfie stage include great lighting, flattering background colours and general tidiness. My own offspring seem thankfully to have eschewed the habit of plastering their own photos, complete with duck pout facial expression, on public forums. Perhaps it is the requirement for general tidiness that has defeated them. But according to the poll, young adults are raising the selfie to increasingly professional levels and a third admit to having a designated selfie stage in their room. Tara Hall, a spokesman for Hillarys, said: “The perfect selfie is all about composition and it seems young adults are happy to stick with a tried and tested location once they’ve discovered the magic formula to gaining lots of likes.” Those selling a home likely to appeal to a family with teenagers take note. You may have an orangerie, any number of ensuite bathrooms, you may have embraced broken-plan living, installed a man-cave and the latest integral kitchen gadgets, but none of these are likely to appeal to a taciturn teen. Instead, perhaps you would be better off making sure that a corner of each bedroom has an interesting backdrop and flattering lighting for the younger members of the family.