Well, my ideal home would be a flat in the centre of the city, with wooden floors, radiators and seperate rooms, one for every purpose. To be honest all those super houses and flats are not for me.

I want a quiet, pretty, calm home, with a terrace and a view. I want minimal furniture, and wide open spaces. Last night I was standing in the foyer waiting for the delivery guy I had just buzzed in, and I glanced down the hall at an unusual angle, and it was so pretty, it startled me. I recently moved, did a cosmetic makeover, and more important, I curated my possessions. Less really is more for me.

The items that top our list are:

-desirable and safe urban location (within a quick walk to shops, restaurants, and grocery stores)
-age of home (the older the better)
-original historic details
-parking

Luckily our current home meets all of these requirements. I just wish we had a little bit more space (one more bedroom and a 1/2 bath on the first floor).

I want a home with wood floors, open spaces and lots and lots of windows with a view of a city. Sigh! I would also love a nicely built older (early 1900s) home too. I wan to magically combine those two looks and make it magically affordable!

I kind of agree with the survey, priorities in approximately the order shown. Although my architectural style might be Zen modern -- kind of Japanese flavored, but more comfortable that the Real Deal. (Not a sitter-on-knees!) With a water view...

I wish it were easier to find builders who REALLY understand green building. The guys we worked with (we bought into their development, so we had no choice) were incredibly reluctant to use green techniques regarding waste disposal or any of that -- and we were (naturally) charged for all the upgrades to more efficient insulation etc.The positively refused to consider cement board (looks like vinyl but isn't). The on-demand water heater was just too expensive, but I'd like to upgrade someday.

Well, the times are changing and it will get easier a bit at a time.

2 bedrooms + den, good sized deck, cool neighbourhood, city/mountain/ocean view (this is Vancouver), room enough to entertain about a dozen people, permissive strata council. I could also take a small beachfront if all the day-to-day shops are nearby.

A detached house usually wastes attempts at energy efficiency, since it'll be larger and you'll probably need at least one car in most cities. Better to have a small place near to where you'll go most often. The greenest stuff is less stuff.

Well I guess many of us Americans are smarter than the media makes us out to be. If you read Boston Globe magazine, the grid is in disarray and more frequent stor,s means only those with solar power can rely on internet, heat and such in the coming years.

My number one wish would be a house farther away from sociopath neighbors, a decent noise with two levels. But a very very close second would be solar panels.

iPad strikes again, sorry. A decent HOUSE with two levels.

A maid, a cook, and a gardener.

Don't put too much stock in this survey, you could obviously pick multiple answers and energy efficiency was simply the answer more respondents picked as one of several desirable traits. Most of the other answers were either/or (you wouldn't check suburban home and urban neighborhood) but no one really argues against energy efficiency if it's a choice among similar dream homes. Doesn't mean most Americans would rank energy efficiency as being more valuable than whatever else is on their wish list.

A low mortgage!

The problem with a survey like this is that it asks about "dream home", not what people are actually willing to pay for.

For instance, water front views are selected by 38% of people. In my local market, a water front view is about 40% more per sq ft than a non view. Are 38% of people willing or able to take that kind of financial hit for a view? Probably not.

Number 1 would definitely be "lots of light". I live in a very dark home right now (so many huge trees!)
Number 2 would be "character", which to me means old style construction, lots of wood and exposed beams

A dream home in our price range and local area is what we got... it mean more than 3 bedreooms (there are 6 of us), some land (10 acres, of which about 3 are usable), and it didn't literally have a stream/river running through the basement. One house we looked at literally had a stone "well" in the wall in the basement, out of which flowed a full stream. Oh, and lotsa homeless cats hanging out. In the end, we ended up with a cape farmhouse rehabbed and not touched since the 60s, an actually dry basement (with cement block walls, even!) and a porch, which we have since turned into another room. Light would have been great, but we are in a tiny valley, and the sun goes behind the hill at about 3:40 in the winter. We do intend to end up off grid, however, as that seems to be the best way to go green.

My grandparents house was very green - no central air, no furnace and they had a sistern that collected water that was used to water the garden and chickens. And the most green thing was the outhouse. Yep, the little building outside and to the back. A pump in the kitchen brought in water from the well for cooking and bathing. My mother left for college in 1942 where she lived with indoor plumbing for the first time. My grandparents upgraded to indoor plumbing around 1950. By the time the 70's rolled around, they had central heat and air. The shame....

T-Violet has it correct. If people are offered a checkbox on a survey for energy efficiency, they will check it. The proof is in home-building statistics. The average size home has more than doubled since the 1950s. There is nothing energy efficient about a huge house, no matter how many solar panels you use to light it up at night.

People want size, privacy and convenience. If they can get all three with a solar panel to make them feel better about it, they're really, really happy.

A paid-off mortgage.

We actually got to build our own house as my boyfriend is a carpenter. It's not exactly our dream house but we did get to do a lot of custom stuff, build it to suit our wants and not we we thought would sell. The kitchen/living room is semi-open. I didn't really want a completely open design. We put in a disappearing corner so we can close it off if we want to.

We wanted to go greener than we ended up doing, but it can be easier said than done, depending on where you live. Some plans were scrapped because we couldn't get them by codes. Definite drawback to living in a small city. And then when we figured the cost on some things vs. savings we realized it would take us 10+ years for them to pay off.

I don't believe that most people answered "energy efficiency". No way.

So House Hunters has been lying to us all these years and it's not actually GRANITE COUNTERTOPS?!?

@Kit_Kat- hilarious! And so true :)

My house got most of the items on the list...

established neighborhood, less than 30 minutes to city, views, quiet, privacy, open ceilings and good flow, at least 2 bathrooms, professional kitchen, parking, quality build.

We got the added bonus of real architect cred. and the added bummer of one set of jerky neighbors. next house needs to be 1 acre or more so neighbors are further away.

My list:

- freestanding house (can't take neighbors anymore, even though ours are very nice people, I hear them going up and down the stairs, and their front door wakes up my son in the morning)
- with large enough room, not necessarily many of them, but all decent sized. I'm tired of hearing walk-in closets called spare bedrooms when you can't even fit more than a crib in.
- with amazing heat insulation. It's very cold right now in the north of France, and my veranda isn't a bit insulated (we just bought the house and mean to change that, but it takes time), so I begin to value heat. Preferably eco-friendly, like the linen insulation we used for walls.
- with lots and lots of natural lights and huge windows.
- not too low ceiling: I have high ceilings now and I love the airiness it gives to the rooms
- last but not least: Though I have a driving license, I don't have a car (husband is using it during the week), so I'd have to be near school, stores or near a public transportation that works well. Right now, I'm 15 minutes away from the historic center of my city by subway, versus 30 minutes by car, and I couldn't live without that.

After living in a poorly-built apartment for a year and a half, and being one of those people who is always cold, I must say that energy efficiency really is at the top of my list! To be able to sit near a window and not be cold, to have hot water in the shower (instead of playing Temperature Roulette like I do now), and to heat my home to the cozy warm temperature I like without paying out the nose would be fantastic.

My other criteria are: Two bedrooms (one for me and one for the kid), lots of light, washer and dryer, and a back yard for the dog.

T_Violet is right. And Kit Kat - I nearly choked on my coffee. ;)

I don't think most of my friends dream of an energy efficient house (except for the ones with awful insulation) but none of them would turn one down. I think what most of those in my circle want is space. I have too many friends who are crammed with their 3-4 kids in a 2 bedroom or small 3 bedroom house.

I'm living in my dream home right now, though there are always things I'd add. It's a bit characterless, having been built in 1989, but we added the character, I suppose. ;)

I love my tiny condo. So what if it has a windowless 9’ x 8’ bedroom? I also have an unobstructed southern exposure with beautiful views of the sky, Lake Ontario and the Toronto skyline; the loveliest neighbours next door and across the hall; and 24-hour public transit in a vibrant, friendly neighbourhood. Oh, and I have granite countertops so I'm really livin' the dream!

FHA approved. haha

So they chose "energy-efficient" over "has walls" and "not on fire"? There are a lot of attributes I want more than energy efficiency. I think this survey shows its bias by leaving out choices such as "more than 25 square feet" and "can be found at same address every day," which surely would have ranked higher than energy efficiency.

i feel like all the Americans I know in Barcelona want a lot of space in their new homes. But this is Europe and flats just aren't built with American conceptions of adequate amounts of space in mind. We just don't have McMansions here and there's a reason for that.

We've got most everything we need (or want) - 1909 home with original floors, doors and cast iron tub, 3 bedrooms, decent closet space, lovely open kitchen with TONS of windows to let in natural light, lots of families with kids and we are 3 blocks from a small neighborhood "town center." We have annoying neighbors, but we can live with them.

It took us nearly 8 years to refirbish, one project at a time, but we love where we live. We feel fortunate, to say the least.

From an environmental perspective, my dream home would:
-Be built to last long after construction
-Take into account the building's entire lifetime "energy footprint" including end-of-life and energy recovery
-Use highly efficient, low-resource impact materials that durably maintain the building envelope integrity over time, reducing energy needed to heat and cool its space

Rob Krebs

American Chemistry Council

http://www.GreenBuildingSolutions.org

My list was a small space (easier to maintain) close to public transportation, grocery stores, restaurants/services. Central heat and central AC. ADA accessible and not on the ground floor. A mortgage that was low enough to pay on one income. The home we just moved to met all of these criterion and more. Eventually I will have to remodel the kitchen a bit, but hey, nothing is ever really perfect.