When buying a home, the opinion of children matter.  If you also add what the parents think the kids want and need, and include those variables into the home-buying decision, it would be even higher – probably close to 100%.  Centrally-located homes with big yards and pools tend to benefit:

When it comes to purchasing a new home, 55 percent of U.S. homeowners with a child under the age of 18 at the time of home purchase say the opinion of their child was a factor in their home buying decision. This is according to a new Harris Poll survey commissioned by SunTrust Mortgage, a division of SunTrust Banks, Inc. (NYSE: STI). For millennial parents between the ages of 18 and 36, the influence of children is even higher at 74 percent.

What are children lobbying for in a home? Top requests include their own bedrooms (57 percent); large backyards (34 percent); proximity to parks/activities (25 percent), schools (24 percent), friends (24 percent); and swimming pools (21 percent).

“As a parent of two kids, I know from experience that including children in the home buying process is not only fun for the whole family, but also educational for our homebuyers of tomorrow,” said Todd Chamberlain, head of Mortgage Banking at SunTrust.