Home Buyers' Hot Buttons

I can't help but wonder as I stare at my newly installed bamboo floors how long it will take before home buyers resort to thumbing their collective noses and snickering at bamboo. After all, I'm old enough to remember gold blenders and avocado toasters, which were all the rage right after the chrome toasters that I grew up with went out of style. And guess what's back in style today? Chrome toasters!

Although toasters are relatively inexpensive to replace, most other home features such as floors and fixtures are not. A lovely updated home in Sacramento recently sold at a dramatically reduced price because the carpeting was hunter green. The kitchen counters, ceramic flooring and bathrooms were hunter green, too. Almost everything in the house was hunter green! It cost my buyers a ton of money to tear it out and redo it. Would you buy a home with hunter green sprinkled throughout if the price was low enough? Or would you pass it up in favor of today's hottest designs?

• Looking Twice at Overpriced Homes
  
• Reasons to Buy a Home
  
• Buyer's Market Offers

_{Photo: © 2006 Elizabeth Weintraub, Licensed to About.com}