When we bought our first home, we were wowed by it because it was the "show home" - first home of the subdivision. It had all the bells and whistles of the time (first house was built in 1990) but it had an intercom system, burglar alarm, whole house audio and a bunch of other things a first time homebuyer would be impressed with instead of things I later would "require."
Our second home, the home which we now live in, has the following things we both strongly wanted after having lived in a hastily built, 2 story, starter home:
1.) All brick, raised ranch - the first home was 2 stories of really cheap vinyl siding. My brother replaced the vinyl siding on his home with insulated, thick vinyl and it's very nice, the installers did a nice job and it made a huge difference on his home but it was 15k like 10 years ago, I can't imagine what that costs now plus it fades and can still get damaged by heavy storms.
2.) Flat driveway. Our first home had a steep driveway, it was awful in the winter time.
3.) 3 car garage with a large driveway. Our first home had a small, steep driveway with a 2 car garage and it was awful. It also had a window in the garage because the house was the first home/spec home and the garage was the office.
4.) Basement or crawl space. Our first home was built on a slab, we had some issues with it, I like our crawl space but I really wanted a basement.
5.) Highest elevation you can find in the area you're building in so you don't have to worry about water runoff problems. My neighbor b$tched at me for an hour one day, complaining to me how all the water runoff from my home drains into his yard, basement, pool, etc. I didn't know how to answer him so I said "you could move?" He walked away. We bought our home 12 or 13 years after it was built, I don't have a time machine but if I did, I'd make more water run off my property into his to pi## him all that much more. . . and I'd build a basement and a pantry.
6.) Pantry - first home had a nice walk in pantry, I kinda miss that. Wifey misses it A LOT.
7.) We have a stupid built in desk in our kitchen, we never use it because it's small, low and useless. If I didn't have legs and a torso it would still be useless but at least I would be able to sit at the desk and not use it for anything. However, at least I could fling my head, neck, arms and hands on it and comfortably gripe about how useless it is there whilst perched on some sort of miniature chair from a kindergarten for torso-less, legless people.
8.) There's a section of our home that gets so much water runoff from the amount of rain and the pitch of the roof that our 5-inch gutter section just gets overwhelmed at times. I need to get that replaced with 6 inch gutter but that should have been designed better.
9.) Every place you have a water valve, I would make D&MN certain it's a ball valve. I've screwed myself so many times on broken gate valves it's not even funny, in fact, I hate those gate valves so much that I replace ALL of them with ball valves right out of the gate. Before the internet, back in the stone age, my water heater broke in our first home at 3:30 AM. I woke up to the sound of a pop / boom and water flooding the utility room. I tried to turn of the water to the water heater, blap, broken valve. Next water valve up the chain was hidden in a closet (WTF. . . Why, just why???) anyway, snap, broke that one too. I called a plumber and the guy said "it's 4 am buddy, I'm not coming over, it's time for you to be a man, get a flashlight, put on a robe, walk around your front yard until you see something labeled WATER. That's your water main into your home, open up the cover and look around for a key, use the key to shut off the water main. If you don't find the key, you're screwed - call another plumber - I'm not coming out. . . you're welcome . . . call me later in the day at a decent time and I'll replace those crappy valves with proper valves for you.
10.) This one is more philosophical. Our first home you parked your car, opened the garage door, walked through a mud room, then the living room, then you walked through the dining room and then into the kitchen. I passionately hated that design because in the rain, cold, winter, fall you're dragging wet, dirty shoes or leaves or snow through the house and you're constantly cleaning/moping that up or walking on throw rugs. Our current home, you park your car and walk through a mudroom straight into the kitchen - it's perfect.
11.) Bonus thing - if I were designing our current home over again, it's pretty much perfect except I would put a basement under it and use the basement for a big entertainment/TV room plus workout room, maybe a couple of offices, utility room, storage, etc. and I would not have a dining room (there's only three of us, we have plenty of room in the kitchen to eat) and we never entertain. Lastly, I would put French doors on our dining room and make it an enclosed office so my wife has privacy. We both mostly work from home, she uses the useless dining room so I have to tiptoe around the kitchen sometimes when I get coffee, if I clang and bang around in there while she's on the phone, sometimes I get the death stare, which always cracks me up.
