This is the most important feature for home buyers – and it may not be what you think

The most important thing for home buyers may not be what we've all been told. Ever since the pandemic hit last year, people have been rethinking what their dream home looks like – many of us have had to because of home working.

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Probably, you've heard all about how everyone wants to move to a big house in the country with a massive garden, but what do buyers really want? 

A brand-new report by Money.co.uk has the answers, and they're somewhat surprising. Asked what features their ideal home has to have, the majority of the 2,014 respondents did not name the garden as the crucial feature of their dream home. It is true that many did – 39 percent to be exact, but it still wasn't the most important thing on the dream home checklist.

The single most important room for UK house buyers is actually the bedroom. A large proportion of the respondents, 40 per cent, said that bedrooms were the thing that mattered to them most when looking for a property to buy.

So, despite all our presumed newly-found commitment to gardening and the home office, most of us actually want spacious, comfortable bedrooms at the number we need them for our needs. Bedrooms trumped parking spaces and kitchens in importance.

It may be that having had to cook for months on end, many prospective home buyers just can't bear to look at another kitchen for a good while, however nice it is.

Speaking of home offices – these didn't feature in the list of important dream home features at all. It now seems more and more likely that the whole idea of people majorly shifting their perspective of what a desirable home is has been blown out of proportion. A home office may be a nice-to-have, but it doesn't appear to be a deciding factor when looking for a house.

It may also simply be that buyers like to have the option to decide for themselves which room they will use for home working.

Where the impact of the pandemic has made more of an impact is in people's desires for their ideal home's location. It is definitely true that transport links no longer matter as much as having access to open spaces like parks and beaches, by quite some margin. While access to parks and beaches was chosen as the top location priority by 32 per cent, topped only by proximity to local shops (33 per cent), only 28 per cent still prioritise transport links.

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Whether or not Brits are planning to carry on home working, they are now certain that the chance of a pleasant walk matters more than having the shortest possible walk to the train station.