Why You Should Always Bring A Clothes Hanger to Tour Homes

If you’re in the market to rent or buy a new home, it’s important to be prepared and shop smarter (not harder) when you’re touring your potential future home. Case in point: One real estate agent is going viral with a video featuring her unexpected $2 hack for making sure you have enough closet space in your new digs. 

In a video shared on the @realtorsocialmediamarketing Instagram account in June, real estate agent Tamany Hall demonstrates why it’s so important to bring a hanger with you when touring a new home. In the clip, Hall, who shows how the hanger doesn’t quite fit in a luxe walk-in closet during a tour, explains that she always brings one to see what will and won’t fit in your home’s most important storage space. 

This is especially important if you’re touring a home with empty closets that aren’t staged with clothes, or a space where the previous owners might have tried to add more storage space themselves through DIY means or altered the original closet design, according to Chadwick Boyd, home and lifestyle expert, real estate agent, and owner of Chadwick Boyd Lifestyle. 

“Rather than new construction, which has to be built to code and cleared before occupancy, I view this hack as helpful in homes that were enhanced by DIY projects,” Boyd told Apartment Therapy. “I have been in homes where closets like this are built too shallow because they were built by a DIY homeowner.”

Boyd also suggests checking some structural elements that might hinder your daily routine or potentially make your new space uncomfortable to live in.

“I’ve seen loft ladders constructed too shallow, making them nearly impossible to climb, and I’ve encountered rooms made beautiful with bright roof windows, but that are boiling hot because the cross ventilation was blocked in the expansion process,” he says. He also encourages people to test the strength of their mobile service and WiFi connection from their phone, and if sound or noise is an issue, to bring portable speakers to see if the walls are too thin from room to room.

In the comment section, other real estate agents also shared what they swear by for home showings: a marble to check for sloped floors, a standard dinner plate to verify the depth of cabinets, a cup to confirm that the building’s water and ice are working, and a blow dryer to ensure outlets are functional.

A cheap hanger — Target sells an 18-pack of plastic white hangers for just $3 — is an easy and compact item to add to your home touring tool kit, which should also include your furniture measurements, a tape measure, a camera, a notepad for sketching out the home’s design elements, and a trusted friend. Boyd also has a hack of his own, although he calls it more of an “important consideration” rather than a tool.

“Look at the areas you use the most and see if there are adequate electrical outlets to support your music setup or your office needs — especially if more than one person works from home,” he says. “I encourage home buyers who are very serious about a home to go through it and think about their daily routines. Oftentimes in this process, those unusual elements become more evident, which become factors in making the final decision.”