If you live in a two-storey home, you probably already know one of the advantages of a bungalow-style home. Have you ever been in a rush to get out the door in the morning and realized you left something upstairs?! You’d be on your way in half the time if you lived in a bungalow!
To start at the beginning, bungalows are homes that have only one floor of living space, not counting the basement. In recent decades, with home builders wanting to get larger homes on smaller lots, bungalows fell behind two-storey homes in numbers of new builds.
But bungalows are back in a big way, and there are many reasons for the trend.
The Advantages of a Bungalow-Style Home
These are by no means all the advantages of a bungalow, but they’ll give you an idea of why they’re trending in real estate.
1. Kid Friendly
If you can identify with the “forgetting your keys upstairs” scenario, imagine doing it with a young child in hand. Or seeing your just-starting-to-crawl baby halfway up the stairs. With most bungalows having a door to the basement stairs, you won’t ever have to use a gate or worry about your children falling on the stairs.
2. Senior-Adult Friendly
If the idea of ageing in place appeals to you, then a bungalow is your best choice of home style. Modern bungalows have everything on one floor, including all bedrooms, laundry room and family room.
3. Easier & Less Costly to Clean & Maintain
With everything on one floor, it’s simply faster to clean a bungalow versus a two-storey home of the same square footage. Maintenance, like cleaning your eavestroughs and windows, is a lot less dangerous too! Unless you hire someone to do it for you, which makes it more expensive.
4. Lower HVAC Costs
Hot air rises and cold airdrops. In a two-storey home, that means your HVAC system must work harder to keep the entire home comfortable. The harder it works, the more it breaks down and the sooner it needs to be replaced.
If you enjoyed this post, check out our recent article “3 Reasons why Location is So Important When Purchasing a Home“.