Amenity

An amenity is any aspect of a property or its surroundings that can be expressed as a favorable feature. Amenities are used to describe a building or residence so as to make it more desirable for a potential buyer or renter. Amenities are frequently used as focal points for agents or sellers listing a property for sale/rental.

Amenities do not have to be limited to physical components of the house or structures themselves; the common thread of amenities is simply the additive aspects of the property.

Features of the geographic region and locale are also important amenities—nearby facilities or attractions, a low crime rate, proximity to schools and places of business, and more. Even an affordability advantage to similar properties in the area is an amenity, vis-à-vis those other properties.

Nobody puts “has heat” or “sinks all work” down as an amenities. Such things are considered base expectations of a building or dwelling.

But items like the square footage, the architectural style, and how many bedrooms and bathrooms a property contains are amenities. These “boilerplate” facts of a home could still stand out and differentiate the property from others. Prospective buyers or their agents will commonly use search functions to filter results in a given area, so that only properties with specific amenities are shown.

Other commonly cited amenities include whether the property has a garage, basement, expansive kitchen, new appliances, an open floor plan, central air/heating, a pool, and multiple floors. Commonly cited geographic/locale amenities include:

In a world where the most baseline of all houses would be considered vanilla, amenities provide the flavors. They offer variety. The most sought-after amenities will shift from state to state, region to region.

Municipalities and states can also spend money on public amenities (parks, bike lanes, recycling programs, community centers). They have a vested interest in seeing property values rise in their area, and increasing amenities will increase demand from people who want to live in the area.

If someone is pursuing an income/cash flow real estate strategy such as a buy and hold rental, it’s vital to study and learn the key amenities sought by your target renter base. Using local knowledge can help enterprising homeowners and investors add specific amenities, which can increase the value of the home more than the cost of adding the amenity.

If you’re listing a property for sale, a simple exercise is to simply write out all the things you’re going to miss about the property if you sell it. Those are the types of things to choose from when listing out the property’s amenities.

And if you’re listing a rental property on the market, think about the kind of renter you want and what’s most important from their unique perspective. A good listing agent can be invaluable in sorting out which amenities add the most value to the sales potential (both speed of sale and price realized) of the property. Always be thinking how a prospective buyer/renter is going to first come across your property. In most cases, they’ll be using a mass listing service’s search function and filtering properties based on specific amenities.

Is parking at a premium in your area? Put a dedicated parking space down.

Hot summer weather? Put your pool near the top of the listing.

It may be advantageous for you to make a high-value investment in the property, such as taking a half bathroom and renovate it to a full bathroom, so a 1.5-bath home can be bumped up to a 2-bath home, have more intrinsic value, and get included in much wider search results from prospective buyers.