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There’s a category of home features that used to signal you’d really made it: extras that cost real money, took up real space, and said something about the household that owned them. Boomers often paid a premium for these upgrades without a second thought.
There’s a category of home features that used to signal you’d really made it: extras that cost real money, took up real space, and said something about the household that owned them.
Boomers often paid a premium for these upgrades without a second thought. Looking at them now, through the lens of maintenance costs and practicality, Gen Z tends to see a lot of these same upgrades as expensive headaches rather than luxuries. Here are nine home features Boomers happily paid extra for that younger buyers actively try to avoid.
A living room set a few steps below the rest of the house, creating a distinct, cozy conversation pit, was a genuinely popular architectural flourish in mid-century homes. It looked striking and added visual interest to open layouts. Gen Z tends to see the sunken living room as a tripping hazard and an accessibility nightmare, one that also complicates furniture placement and makes the space harder to reconfigure as needs change over time.
Built-in wet bars, complete with a small sink, a mini fridge, and often mirrored shelving for glassware, were a common addition to basements and family rooms built for entertaining. They represented a certain vision of adult sophistication. Younger buyers, who tend to entertain less formally and drink less overall, frequently ask for wet bars to be converted into coffee stations, extra pantry space, or simply removed for an open layout.
Paying extra for square footage dedicated entirely to a dining room, separate from the kitchen, used to be a standard expectation in home design. It was where the good table and china lived. Gen Z generally wants that same square footage folded back into a more usable open space, seeing a rarely used dining room as an expensive room to heat, cool, and furnish for only a handful of occasions each year.
Before streaming was universal, a home theater room with tiered seating, a projector, and heavy soundproofing was a genuine luxury upgrade that some households invested significant money into. With most viewing now happening on demand across multiple smaller screens throughout a home, younger buyers increasingly question the value of one enormous room dedicated purely to movie watching, andAn in-ground pool was long considered a premium backyard upgrade and a genuine draw for buyers, especially in warmer climates.
What often gets left out of the pitch is the ongoing cost: chemicals, cleaning, resurfacing, and insurance. Gen Z buyers, generally more cost-conscious and mobile, frequently see an aging pool as a liability to budget around rather than an amenity, sometimes even a dealbreaker on an otherwise appealing listing. A large, uniformly green lawn, kept immaculate through regular mowing, fertilizing, and watering, was a point of pride and a visible marker of a well-kept home for generations of homeowners.
Younger buyers increasingly favor lower-maintenance landscaping, native plants, or simply smaller yards altogether, viewing a sprawling lawn as a recurring chore and expense rather than a feature worth paying a premium for. Jetted whirlpool tubs, often oversized and installed in a primary bathroom, were considered a spa-like luxury upgrade throughout the 90s and 2000s. In practice, many owners found them time-consuming to fill and clean, and used them rarely.
Gen Z buyers overwhelmingly favor a large walk-in shower instead, and a jetted tub taking up bathroom real estate is now more often seen as something to remove than a selling point. Wallpapering every room, sometimes with a different coordinated pattern in each space, was a significant investment in both material and labor, reflecting a real commitment to decorating.
Removing old wallpaper is famously tedious, and younger buyers touring a fully wallpapered home often mentally add the cost and effort of stripping it all down before they’ve even finished the walkthrough. Elaborate crown molding, chair rails, and decorative trim throughout a home were once a clear signal of a higher-end build, adding visual detail that took real craftsmanship to install.
Gen Z tends to prefer cleaner, more minimal lines, and heavy ornamental trim throughout an entire house can read as busy or overdone rather than upscale, especially in smaller rooms where it visually shrinks the ceiling height.
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