Silicon Valley Home Tour Scorecard: Compare Your Shortlist
A home tour can leave you remembering the kitchen and forgetting the questions that matter to your daily life. After several showings, the floor plans begin to blur together. One home has the room you need for work, another has the outdoor space you love, and a third leaves important questions about condition unanswered.
This Silicon Valley home tour scorecard gives you a consistent way to compare that shortlist. It is a working set of observations and questions, not a valuation, inspection or formula for choosing a winner. Eric and Janelle Boyenga bring the Boyenga Team’s Property Nerds perspective to the process: look closely, separate what you know from what you assume, and connect each property with the way you want to live.
Set your priorities before the first showing
Write a short description of an ordinary day in your next home. Where would you work? Which rooms would need privacy at the same time? How would you bring in groceries, store bicycles or spend an evening outside? These details make a more useful brief than a list of finishes you like. A home that photographs beautifully may still ask you to work around an awkward route between the kitchen, laundry and garage.
Separate the requirements you need now from preferences you could trade. If a quiet, enclosed workspace is essential, do not let an attractive open living area count as an automatic substitute. If you are comfortable updating surfaces but do not want a major project, write that down before a promising renovation concept becomes part of your decision. Discuss the brief with everyone making the purchase so that you are comparing homes against shared priorities.
Keep the same categories for every property. You can refine the brief as you learn, but revisit the earlier homes when a priority changes. Our Silicon Valley buying guide provides a starting point for connecting your priorities with a focused search.
Use three ratings, and keep the evidence beside them
For each category, use “fits,” “concern” or “unknown.” Add one sentence explaining the rating. “Fits: the office has a door and is separate from the living room” is useful. “Great layout” is harder to compare later. An unknown is not a failing grade. It is a question that needs an answer before you rely on an assumption.
Avoid adding the ratings into a single total. Several attractive details should not cancel out a requirement the home cannot meet. Instead, identify any issue that could stop the purchase, then compare the tradeoffs among homes that remain plausible. Keep observations, document references and professional opinions distinct so you can see how a conclusion was reached.
For example, you may observe that a room has been used as a bedroom. That observation does not establish its permitted use or tell you whether an alteration was approved. Record the question and use our home permit records checklist to organize the next research step.
Compare how the home works, room by room
Layout and everyday movement
Walk through the activities you described in your brief. Check the relationship between the kitchen and dining space, the route from parking to the entrance, and the separation between sleeping, working and gathering areas. Note where doors open, where circulation takes up usable space, and whether furniture would narrow an important passage. A simple sketch and a few measurements can make these observations easier to revisit.
Light, privacy and connection to outdoor space
Record the time of your visit and which rooms you observed. Consider views from inside and sightlines from neighboring buildings or the street. If natural light or an outdoor connection is central to your search, ask for another visit at a relevant time rather than assuming the first tour tells the whole story. Describe what you saw: a usable patio connection, a shaded room or a window facing a nearby wall. That keeps the discussion grounded.
Storage, access and practical fit
Look for places to store the things you actually own. Consider laundry access, stairs, parking arrangements and the path to outdoor areas. Check dimensions where fit matters, and ask permission before testing equipment or entering areas that are not open for the showing. If you have a specific access requirement, record the measurements and questions that need professional review rather than relying on a quick impression.
Give condition, cost and location their own review
Condition and the work you would be taking on
Separate cosmetic preferences from questions about systems, structure and maintenance. Note the location of anything you want explained and connect it to the relevant inspection or disclosure document when available. The California Department of Real Estate’s homebuyer guidance recommends professional evaluation of home systems and condition. A tour scorecard helps organize those questions; it does not replace the work of qualified inspectors and other specialists.
Do not turn an appealing renovation idea into an assumed solution. A room change, addition or major system upgrade needs its own feasibility review. Write “investigate” until the scope, approvals, cost and timing have been checked. For an Eichler or another distinctive home, also consider which original features you want to preserve and which specialists you may need to consult.
Ownership costs and your project capacity
Give each home a separate cost review. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s budgeting guide includes taxes, insurance, association fees where applicable, maintenance, repairs and utilities alongside mortgage costs. Label estimates as estimates, identify their source and update them with your lender and relevant providers. Include any proposed work in the discussion. Our homeownership cost checklist can help organize the categories.
The address and your daily routes
Compare the property’s actual setting with the places you use regularly. Visit the surrounding streets when relevant to your routine and record the conditions you observe. A city name or ZIP code cannot answer every question about access, parking, traffic or noise at a particular home. If school assignment matters to your decision, verify it directly with the district for the specific address. Use our city and neighborhood guides as research starting points rather than substitutes for an address-specific review.
For a condominium or townhome, add questions about shared spaces, maintenance responsibilities and the association documents. The building, unit and ownership arrangements all belong in the comparison. Our HOA document checklist offers a separate framework for that work.
Copy this scorecard for each home
Use the same short record after every visit. Complete it before the next showing, while the observations are fresh. If two people are touring together, compare notes after each has recorded an initial response.
Property address, visit date and time; people who attended.
Priority fit: which essential needs appear to be met, and which remain unresolved?
Layout, light and privacy: rating, observation and any measurement or second visit needed.
Storage and access: rating, observation and practical questions.
Condition and proposed work: what you observed, documents reviewed and specialist questions.
Ownership costs: figures obtained, their sources and estimates still needing confirmation.
Location and daily routes: observations at the address and items to verify.
Three strongest reasons to consider the home; three questions to resolve.
Next action, the person handling it and the date you need an answer.
Keep the record alongside the listing and documents for that property. When a question is answered, add the source and date rather than simply deleting the concern. This creates a useful history of how your understanding changed.
Turn the shortlist into a focused conversation
Bring two or three completed scorecards to your next discussion with Eric and Janelle. Start with the requirements that matter most and the unknowns that could change your decision. We can help organize the property questions, compare relevant homes and discuss the next step in your search. Pricing, financing, inspection findings and contract choices still need their own review; the scorecard gives that work a clearer starting point.
If a sale must happen alongside your purchase, include that timing constraint in the brief. A property can fit your daily life and still require a sequence that needs careful planning. Explore our selling guidance, then connect the two conversations.
Share your shortlist with the Boyenga Team at Compass. Tell us which homes you are comparing, what you like about them and the questions you want to resolve. The goal is a thoughtful next step based on the property details and your priorities.