Using your home to impress a potential partner? It’s a good plan but beware, there’s strong feelings about cleanliness and the ability to maintain your property.

People judge prospective partners based on the appearance of their home and 93% of people rate a clean and tidy home as an “essential” quality in a partner.

Almost 90% said the same of a well maintained home.  Twice as many respondents prefer cosy homes to trendy ones, but fashion beats size hands down.

Deirdre O’Reilly, head of consumer marketing at Propertyfinder.com said: “Seeing the home of a partner for the first time can make or break a relationship – first impressions are everything.” 

“A home can be indicative of a person’s character, but also reflective of any bad habits – at the very least, a quick clean and tidy is highly advisable before inviting a date back to your place for the first time.”

The survey also revealed that men and women look for quite different qualities in a partner’s home.  Whilst both sexes specify they look for a partner with a clean, tidy, well maintained home, men are much more likely to judge on its size and material contents.  22% more men than women rated a large home as an essential quality in a partner and 12% more men than women look for a partner whose home is expensively furnished.

“Choosing a partner is very much like buying a home,” commented Deirdre. “In fact, the qualities people look for in a home closely mirror what one would assume are people’s immediate wants in a partner.  Is it any surprise that men place far more import on size and wealth than women do?!”

The survey also shows that 71% of 18-25 year olds have lived with a partner and that 89% of people have lived with a partner by the time they are 30.  Nearly 50% of couples moving in together have known each other less than nine months before they take the plunge and the majority move out of individual rented accommodation to buy a love nest together.

Deirdre O’Reilly said: “With house prices and interest rates so high now, buying with a partner is often the only way to make home purchase affordable and people are moving in together after only short periods of knowing one another, in order to get on the property ladder.”

“Some may say ‘act in haste and repent at leisure’ but our survey suggests otherwise. 72% of couples surveyed said that moving in together had had a positive effect on their relationship and 75% of those living with a partner plan to marry them.  Perhaps the Monetary Policy Committee has been playing cupid with all the recent rate rises!”