When does my new family member occupy a new room?

Question

I was playing Agricola the other day and an odd situation came up.

I had three rooms with three family members occupying them. In one round I was able to play these actions in this order:

• Family Growth (even without room)
• Build an additional room
• Family Growth

Now ordinarily when a new room is built, a doubled-up family member would immediately occupy it. But my reasoning was that my new family member hadn't actually come home yet (as that happens at the end of the round), so the new room I'd just built wasn't yet occupied.

None of the people I was playing the game with had a problem with this (in the end, I didn't win anyway)...but was I right, or wrong?

(I'm aware of this existing question, but I'm asking specifically about whether it makes a difference when these things all happen in the same turn.)

Answer 1

According to the rulebook (pg 9):

After Family Growth, also 1 Minor Improvement (Stage 2): A player may only use this Family growth space if he has more empty rooms than Family members. It is irrelevant how the family has grown before and whether the Family members are on the game board or in the farmyard.

Since you had four family members and four rooms, you couldn't have done your second Family Growth action, even though the new family member had not returned home yet to "claim the room".

Answer 2

Even though family members come home at the end of a round, you still cannot take the "Family Growth" action if you don't have more rooms than family members.

This is pretty explicit on page 9 of the rule book, under "Family Growth even without a room":

Note: If a player who uses this card later extends her home, she may not use the other Family Growth card again until she has more rooms than Family members: the new rooms must first be used for Family members that did not previously have their own rooms.

Even though the new family member doesn't end up in your house until the "Return home phase," you still don't have more rooms than family members, so you can't take the "Family Growth" action. In an ideal world, you would want to do these actions in the following order:

1. Build and additional room
2. Family growth
3. Family growth even without a room