Does number of bedrooms really matter?
Discussion
We are looking to move and really like a house which isn't too far from us. It is a potton home which from what I gather are well regarded. It's certainly a nice looking home.
Downstairs is pretty big and with a bit of knocking about can be easily be modernised, however the upstairs while fairly big in terms of square feet the bedrooms aren't that great.
It's a 4 bed at the moment, with bedrooms 3 and 4 being IMO the problem. 1 and 2 are good size 3 is ok at 5mx2.5m however 4 is pushing it in terms of size at 3.8x2.1m. Because of the eaves this makes the rooms feel a bit smaller as well.
My favoured plan is to do an extension on the back, knock rooms 3 and 4 together and have a proper large 4th bedroom at the back with en suite etc? it's would then have 4 big bedrooms.
Downside to that plan is cost, the house is around 700k and after lots of searching I have decided is probably the best we can get for our money. However I reckon by the time I'd done the extension, bathrooms, kitchen etc it would stand me in at 800. Now while that would IMO be the best house available for 800 it's not much of a jump now into the realms of some really serious houses at a million and as such I'm not sure it would be worth that.
We aren't sure how long we would want to live there and I know it sounds funny but I have to look at costs like this as if I might have to one day be forced to sell, I.e I don't want to find I have to sell and I've done my b
ks iykwim.
So the other option is to just modernise it and knock the bedrooms 3 and 4 together making just 3 proper bedrooms. It would be 3 bed 2 bath, one en suite in that case.
For us as a family it's perfect, 2 adults can have two kids who grow up there nicely. What worries me is while selling our house we've had all sorts of bizarre comments about bedroom sizes, in all the time we've been here we have never even considered them a problem, but you get people who want a guest room or a spare bedroom to use for god knows what.
Bottom line. Is making it a 3 bed devaluing it? As it's a pretty rural plot houses down this road and local area range from bungalows to recent sales of 1.5 million. So it's not like an estate type house.
Downstairs is pretty big and with a bit of knocking about can be easily be modernised, however the upstairs while fairly big in terms of square feet the bedrooms aren't that great.
It's a 4 bed at the moment, with bedrooms 3 and 4 being IMO the problem. 1 and 2 are good size 3 is ok at 5mx2.5m however 4 is pushing it in terms of size at 3.8x2.1m. Because of the eaves this makes the rooms feel a bit smaller as well.
My favoured plan is to do an extension on the back, knock rooms 3 and 4 together and have a proper large 4th bedroom at the back with en suite etc? it's would then have 4 big bedrooms.
Downside to that plan is cost, the house is around 700k and after lots of searching I have decided is probably the best we can get for our money. However I reckon by the time I'd done the extension, bathrooms, kitchen etc it would stand me in at 800. Now while that would IMO be the best house available for 800 it's not much of a jump now into the realms of some really serious houses at a million and as such I'm not sure it would be worth that.
We aren't sure how long we would want to live there and I know it sounds funny but I have to look at costs like this as if I might have to one day be forced to sell, I.e I don't want to find I have to sell and I've done my b
ks iykwim.So the other option is to just modernise it and knock the bedrooms 3 and 4 together making just 3 proper bedrooms. It would be 3 bed 2 bath, one en suite in that case.
For us as a family it's perfect, 2 adults can have two kids who grow up there nicely. What worries me is while selling our house we've had all sorts of bizarre comments about bedroom sizes, in all the time we've been here we have never even considered them a problem, but you get people who want a guest room or a spare bedroom to use for god knows what.
Bottom line. Is making it a 3 bed devaluing it? As it's a pretty rural plot houses down this road and local area range from bungalows to recent sales of 1.5 million. So it's not like an estate type house.
DeadInside said:
Simple answer is yes. Well very likely anyway.
Have you considered converting the loft? Likely cheaper and staircase could go in the smallest bedroom.
It's a chalet type house so no loft so to speak (well very little from what I gather). Have you considered converting the loft? Likely cheaper and staircase could go in the smallest bedroom.
What makes a big difference with the extension is if it need to be piled or can have strip foundations. I can do strip foundations and a fag packet calculation is about 5k. Maybe less. However if it's piled I reckon that can be quadrupled.
I also think that the 3rd and 4th room sizes are what's stopping it from being sold. The woman is quite vigilant in not accepting our offer of 675 ( for 725) and won't drop below 690.
We decided on 4 large bedrooms with our extension instead of a tight 5. Others who have done similar extensions to us have gone for 5. To us their layouts felt forced and we would have only gone down that path if we had 4 children.
Unless you are planning to sell within a few couple of years, build the house you want to enjoy living in.
Unless you are planning to sell within a few couple of years, build the house you want to enjoy living in.
m3jappa said:
What makes a big difference with the extension is if it need to be piled or can have strip foundations. I can do strip foundations and a fag packet calculation is about 5k. Maybe less. However if it's piled I reckon that can be quadrupled.
That doesn't sound correct. 1.5m deep is usually the cross over point for cost and you have to go 900 deep anyway.Your problem is people will compare pricewise against other 3 bed houses, there is a market particularly for "downsizers" who want the large reception rooms they are used to but don't need/want the extra bedrooms that inevitably go with that.
I sell a few newbuilds, some of them the last bedromm is 2m x 3m which to me is a study, to the vendor it makes the house more valuble as it is a 4 bed or 5 bed so will stand up to comps with other 4 or 5 bed houses.
One of the questions I ask a potential buyer is "how many bedrooms do you need for people to sleep in" many buyers will say three but I want an extra one for a study so they are fine with a small final bedroom as they will use it as a study or dressing room so moneywise you are better off having as many bedrooms as possible
I sell a few newbuilds, some of them the last bedromm is 2m x 3m which to me is a study, to the vendor it makes the house more valuble as it is a 4 bed or 5 bed so will stand up to comps with other 4 or 5 bed houses.
One of the questions I ask a potential buyer is "how many bedrooms do you need for people to sleep in" many buyers will say three but I want an extra one for a study so they are fine with a small final bedroom as they will use it as a study or dressing room so moneywise you are better off having as many bedrooms as possible
I don't think you can ever have enough bedrooms. We have six..our three lads have all flown the nest now, but we put them all to good use, Mrs WR has a nice craft room, plus there is plenty of room for storage.
A four bedroom house is more desirable than a three, a three is more desirable than a two....when you come to sell.
Of course if you are happy with two that's fine, it depends on your personal circumstances, I would be happy with one if I lived on my own.
A four bedroom house is more desirable than a three, a three is more desirable than a two....when you come to sell.
Of course if you are happy with two that's fine, it depends on your personal circumstances, I would be happy with one if I lived on my own.
I would say it is important up to a point.
3 Bed houses are only really suitable for couples with one kid, or who don't mind guests (in-laws etc) sleeping on a sofa. A spare room is not a bad thing to have.
Also, the market will price it against other 3 beds.
Also, frankly kids don't need big bedrooms when young, from my own experience as a child, where my sister and I were given small rooms with the big rooms used by my parents as a spare den/TV room and a study for my mother who ran her own business and thus spent a lot of time in the room.
We bought a 4 bed house, where two of the bedrooms are big doubles, one a small double/big single an 4m x 2.7m, and one very much a single at 4m x 2.1m. We went into the loft to create a large 7m x 5m master suite and a 5 bed house. We could have created two bedrooms in the loft - but my view was that it would be at the very bottom of the 6 bed market with a pair of cramped bedrooms upstairs, whereas it is nearer the top of the 5 bed market with a very luxurious master suite (bed, balcony overlooking park, walk in shower, stand alone bath, proper dressing room).
We have designed it so that it would be easy to reconvert the loft into two bedrooms sharing a bathroom to make a 6 bed house. But that would mean the couple who owned it living in a big double downstairs with no en-suite (or building another en-suite), and I don't think that this is what people want these days. And if you wanted a dressing room, you'd have to lose a small bedroom anyway, taking you back to 5 beds + luxury suite. A lot depends on the design of your house and what your options are, as well as how much you want to spend.
There is a big jump in price between 3 and four beds in our area (even for similar internal area), a decent jump to 5 beds, and no real jump at all to 6 beds, unless they are the huge, £2.5m+ detached Victorian houses that occasionally come up for sale on our street. And those are more than size of bedroom - detached, big gardens and beautiful, with 3000 square feet of accommodation. Does your area have a similar dynamic?
I would ask a lot of estate agents and surveyors before making your choice. If you are planning on moving, this is a financial decision as much as a comfort/convenience decision.
3 Bed houses are only really suitable for couples with one kid, or who don't mind guests (in-laws etc) sleeping on a sofa. A spare room is not a bad thing to have.
Also, the market will price it against other 3 beds.
Also, frankly kids don't need big bedrooms when young, from my own experience as a child, where my sister and I were given small rooms with the big rooms used by my parents as a spare den/TV room and a study for my mother who ran her own business and thus spent a lot of time in the room.
We bought a 4 bed house, where two of the bedrooms are big doubles, one a small double/big single an 4m x 2.7m, and one very much a single at 4m x 2.1m. We went into the loft to create a large 7m x 5m master suite and a 5 bed house. We could have created two bedrooms in the loft - but my view was that it would be at the very bottom of the 6 bed market with a pair of cramped bedrooms upstairs, whereas it is nearer the top of the 5 bed market with a very luxurious master suite (bed, balcony overlooking park, walk in shower, stand alone bath, proper dressing room).
We have designed it so that it would be easy to reconvert the loft into two bedrooms sharing a bathroom to make a 6 bed house. But that would mean the couple who owned it living in a big double downstairs with no en-suite (or building another en-suite), and I don't think that this is what people want these days. And if you wanted a dressing room, you'd have to lose a small bedroom anyway, taking you back to 5 beds + luxury suite. A lot depends on the design of your house and what your options are, as well as how much you want to spend.
There is a big jump in price between 3 and four beds in our area (even for similar internal area), a decent jump to 5 beds, and no real jump at all to 6 beds, unless they are the huge, £2.5m+ detached Victorian houses that occasionally come up for sale on our street. And those are more than size of bedroom - detached, big gardens and beautiful, with 3000 square feet of accommodation. Does your area have a similar dynamic?
I would ask a lot of estate agents and surveyors before making your choice. If you are planning on moving, this is a financial decision as much as a comfort/convenience decision.
I think there is a point at which additional bedrooms don't add much value, particularly if the house has loft potential as well (which I gather this one doesn't).
However, I think that the 'doesn't matter' threshold is probably nearer 4/5 than 3/4.
I think all the previous comments are correct - people will compare to other '3' bedroom houses, and anyone who needs a guest room, a master and a kids room plus a junk room / box room / craft room etc. would just bypass it.
We've been thinking of downsizing - have a 5 bedroom house plus annexe at the moment, with 2 university-aged lads - and whilst they aren't there for 2/3rds of the year, they are for the other 1/3rd so still need a 'permanent' bedroom. We have 1 'guest' bedroom, 1 master, and the box room used to be my study but is now a walk-in wardrobe, but could easily be anything.
We've immediately discounted anything with 3 bedrooms since it could never work with both boys at home plus any requirement for guests... and that's not even considering needing study / office space, so we also had to make sure the replacement house had those as well - either as additional reception rooms, outside annexe space, or additional bedrooms.
We're then embarking on a building project and that will be 4 bedroom too - if only because a 3 bedroom house just wouldn't work for a lot of people, even if we could get it to work in the medium term without the boys at home.
Be very careful about taking a 4 bedroom house and making it 3, unless you are prepared to re-instate for re-sale and/or create at least the same amount of additional rooms to give people flexibility. For example if you're building a side extension for a 'study' or 'playroom' then add a neaby showerroom (even as an ensuite) rather than just a simple downstairs WC, as the extra couple of 'k' to do may mean you could even class THAT as a bedroom when it comes time to sell.
If in doubt, ask local estate agents to revalue the property as a 3 bedroom - but if you honestly think its worth less than the asking price then stick to your guns and let her come down if nobody else is willing to pay it.
However, I think that the 'doesn't matter' threshold is probably nearer 4/5 than 3/4.
I think all the previous comments are correct - people will compare to other '3' bedroom houses, and anyone who needs a guest room, a master and a kids room plus a junk room / box room / craft room etc. would just bypass it.
We've been thinking of downsizing - have a 5 bedroom house plus annexe at the moment, with 2 university-aged lads - and whilst they aren't there for 2/3rds of the year, they are for the other 1/3rd so still need a 'permanent' bedroom. We have 1 'guest' bedroom, 1 master, and the box room used to be my study but is now a walk-in wardrobe, but could easily be anything.
We've immediately discounted anything with 3 bedrooms since it could never work with both boys at home plus any requirement for guests... and that's not even considering needing study / office space, so we also had to make sure the replacement house had those as well - either as additional reception rooms, outside annexe space, or additional bedrooms.
We're then embarking on a building project and that will be 4 bedroom too - if only because a 3 bedroom house just wouldn't work for a lot of people, even if we could get it to work in the medium term without the boys at home.
Be very careful about taking a 4 bedroom house and making it 3, unless you are prepared to re-instate for re-sale and/or create at least the same amount of additional rooms to give people flexibility. For example if you're building a side extension for a 'study' or 'playroom' then add a neaby showerroom (even as an ensuite) rather than just a simple downstairs WC, as the extra couple of 'k' to do may mean you could even class THAT as a bedroom when it comes time to sell.
If in doubt, ask local estate agents to revalue the property as a 3 bedroom - but if you honestly think its worth less than the asking price then stick to your guns and let her come down if nobody else is willing to pay it.
One piece of advice we were given when doing our renovation / build on a 4 bed bungalow was room size proportion was important. The view was there's no point having large impressive reception rooms if you then squeeze small bedrooms in just to hit a certain number.
Also we were very much guided that 6 bedrooms was worth very little more than 5. However, I suspect the jump from 3 to 4 if more significant for the reasons stated already.
We've created the house we want so one of our 4 bedrooms is currently acting as our dressing room but could be easily considered as the 4th bedroom should we want to sell. We also have the opportunity to create a 5th bedroom with bathroom at a later stage which would remove the potential challenge with the 4th bedroom vs dressing room at selling time.
Ours is more of a long term proposition so perhaps not so relevant but I hope this helps a little.
Also we were very much guided that 6 bedrooms was worth very little more than 5. However, I suspect the jump from 3 to 4 if more significant for the reasons stated already.
We've created the house we want so one of our 4 bedrooms is currently acting as our dressing room but could be easily considered as the 4th bedroom should we want to sell. We also have the opportunity to create a 5th bedroom with bathroom at a later stage which would remove the potential challenge with the 4th bedroom vs dressing room at selling time.
Ours is more of a long term proposition so perhaps not so relevant but I hope this helps a little.
That is a good point - a house should be consistent. A trend in London has been to build big open plan areas downstairs in Victorian terraced/semi-detached properties, and then stuff two tiny bedrooms into the loft.
Frankly, it feels weird, and I am not sure that buyers will pay more for a 6 bed house in this vein than a 5 bed with a proper bedroom suite upstairs.
Frankly, it feels weird, and I am not sure that buyers will pay more for a 6 bed house in this vein than a 5 bed with a proper bedroom suite upstairs.
Harry Flashman said:
Frankly, it feels weird, and I am not sure that buyers will pay more for a 6 bed house in this vein than a 5 bed with a proper bedroom suite upstairs.
Agreed. Our current house was a 6 bed until 2 days after we moved in when it became a 5 bed. All the rooms are now doubles and it feels much more balanced and I'm convinced we've increased it's value by doing that rather than reducing it.Bear in mind that Potton houses are structural timber frames. It can be very hard to tell which bits are structural without the drawings and design calculations, but particularly on chalet style places the bedroom walls are often loadbearing to support the roof and therefore very hard to move around...
The fourth bedroom sounds a lot like our third bedroom - too small to really be a bedroom. A house with the same layout as us round the corner has recently sold, where they had knocked the small bedroom and the master bedroom together. With one large and one very large bedroom the sale price seemed to be about the same as the 3 bedroom houses locally, so in this case it didn't matter.
With Potton they should have records regarding the house including detailed plans which would also detail the foundation plan. Also the last time I spoke to them they were amenable to bespoke work.
I wonder if they would design and then build the house extension in their factory to be assembled on site. Would be a very swift build and you know it will fit.
I wonder if they would design and then build the house extension in their factory to be assembled on site. Would be a very swift build and you know it will fit.
It depends if your staying there for life ? If you are then make the house suit yourself and your lifestyle and enjoy it , if you have an eye on a future sale then bedrooms probably do matter . if your selling up in your old age your less likely to be bothered about a few extra thousand for rooms you've never used , or at least I wouldn't .
So the general consensus is as I thought and that it would devalue the place.
Another option that's possible is the house has a 'garden room' which I think is about 4m wide x about 4m long. I did speak to potton who said it would be straight forward to go on top of this and create another bedroom. I'll post a pic of the house and floor plan and see what people think.
Another option that's possible is the house has a 'garden room' which I think is about 4m wide x about 4m long. I did speak to potton who said it would be straight forward to go on top of this and create another bedroom. I'll post a pic of the house and floor plan and see what people think.
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