AIBU that calling a Dining Room a Bedroom does not make a house worth more?

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I think we need to stop considering the value of houses on the basis of the number of bedrooms, and marketing descriptions should be regulated to prevent houses from being marketed with misleading descriptions like this.

The two houses with the floor plans in this pic are in the same road, just 3 doors apart. They are both in a broadly similar state of repair.

One is correctly described as a 3 bedroom house. The floor area is 95m2

The other is actually slightly smaller at 90m2, but having put a bed into the Dining Room, and dividing that smaller floor area slightly differently, they somehow think it is worth £80,000 more than the house that is actually larger, and are marketing it as a FIVE BEDROOM house!

This is giving me the rage. AIBU?

They've recently built some lovely new builds opposite our road, marketed as 3 beds...I had a look at the floor plans online...the third bedrooms/studies are all down stairs. I said to DH it seemed really impractical as a family house!

(I guess you'd put the oldest downstairs by themselves?)

Houses should be sold based on square footage or meterage. Whatever measurement, doesn't matter, so long as people can have an actual idea as to size. Too many 4 bed houses are barely different in size to 3 bed houses, just slightly rearranged walls. Yet the price increase is ridiculous.

@MrsDimmond - that is the point. In Portugal, the land registry document stipulates how MANY bedrooms (and bathrooms) you are allowed in that building. It is up to you how you utilise them. So a two bedroom could have one bedroom changed to a dining room, or one with a dining room could be changed to an extra bedroom. But when the house is sold, it is still with the same number of bedrooms - with a plus x number for rooms that coukd be used as a bedroom. In this way, people buying have a better idea of whether the house would be suitable or not.

This problem is best solved by having a square footage search function on rightmove.

Considering social housing agencies are considering living and dining rooms as potential bedrooms, I don't understand the issue. I'm not sure a dining room is something one should always expect will be present therefore it is reasonable to assume any habitual room after the living room could be a bedroom. I see houses advertised as '8 room" now meaning that there are 8 rooms to make into reception,sleeping, dressing or studying rooms. Not all of those rooms will qualify as bedrooms in the official sense in a lot of cases though.

I went to look a house, the dining room was the entry hall and to go outside you had to walk through one of the bedrooms. It need a lot of work and was on for £325, I hinted id pay £250k for it and the estate agent basically laughed at me. Sold 18 months later for £235k

People are insane

Some People are weird though and talk all sorts up and complain later when their grossly overpriced house isn't selling.

We looked at a 5 bedroom house when we were house hunting, but the so called 5th bedroom was essentially a walkway room to access the master bedroom and ensuite. At best it would suffice as a nursery, but really it was a wide corridor to access the master.

Another, they'd halved the garage and called the back half of the garage a bedroom. I'd have got on board if they'd done what other agents/vendors did and said it was a 4 bed house with study/family room. But it wasn't a 5th bedroom and it made no sense there.

We were only looking for 4 bed and looked around because the 5th bed wasn't needed, we did feel it somewhat took the piss a bit to try and argue that they were 5 bed houses.

Believing anything an EA tells you is recipe for disaster. They can't blame complete ignorance and only repeating what the vendor told you.

Cases discussed on property forums are endless. One was a family sold a bedroom in a converted attic - which legally could not be a bedroom because it didn't meet the legal requirements. They bought that space as a bedroom, but couldn't sell it as one.

Trying to flog as many bedrooms as possible to get the best price is not the best solution.

Agreed. It should be how many kitchens, baths and then 'free rooms' in size 1,2,3,5 for example

Does anyone else also object to the current habit of building (as in our village) 5 and 6 bedroom houses (so, family houses, basically) with a garden that is barely big enough for a rotary washing line? No room for a trampoline or paddling pool (at least, if there's washing hanging out) and only just enough room for a small barbeque.

There's all this talk about children staying indoors too much and not playing outside, but when they are building houses with gardens too small for the resident children to actually play, unless they stand side by side and don't move much, is it any wonder?

Depends where you live. If you live somewhere with heaps of public outdoor space then it doesn't matter. I'm thinking of my friend's place in Aus which is essentially a five bedroom beach villa type property with a courtyard for private outdoor space. You couldn't have more than 5-6 round for a BBQ. However, you walk through a gate onto the beach so that's where they spend a lot of leisure time.

Does anyone else also object to the current habit of building (as in our village) 5 and 6 bedroom houses (so, family houses, basically) with a garden that is barely big enough for a rotary washing line?
Yes I do - almost as much as I object to garages which are too small to fit any currently available car into and lack of parking spaces mandated by planners as a shove to get people to use (non existent) public transport. Tools.

And the lack of space overall in new builds. Saw a one bed flat in which the Vaxx was doubling up as a bedside table. Had a lamp on it. Just enough room to fit beside bed. Wish I'd invested in a storage company.

The worst ones I’ve seen, when we were looking for 3 bedroom and 2 reception rooms, once you read the description it became clear that the same room was used in both numbers! Ie used as either 3 bed/1 reception OR 2 bed/2 receptions.

Does anyone else also object to the current habit of building (as in our village) 5 and 6 bedroom houses (so, family houses, basically) with a garden that is barely big enough for a rotary washing line?

oh yes! Mind you, I have seen a couple of houses extended as much as possible and taking over pretty much all the garden, strangely enough (or not), they seem very hard to sell. People are not stupid.

@FrauHaribo yes with you there too. I have a separate cache of grumpiness about the 4 bed houses which are actually 2 or 3 bed houses which have had a loft extension (losing over a metre's width of one of the first floor bedrooms for the staircase in the process)

If a family is big enough to require 4 or 5 bedrooms, it is big enough to need non-bedroom rooms to match. You can't cook, eat or enjoy family time as a family of 6 with all the kids being close to adult size, in a house that has a kitchen barely big enough to swing a cat in and a living room that can't physically fit comfy seating in for more than 4 people.

I do not object to such houses existing, or being marketed and sold to a willing purchaser for a price they are willing to pay. I just want the ability to use house-hunting websites in such a way that I can exclude properties that I have no interest in.

if it makes you feel better, it seems that the market is slowing down in many places, so you will have more choice and more time to find the right property!

Horses for courses surely.

There are often threads on here from people wondering how to fit all their children and stepchildren into two or three bedrooms. A house with 5 'bedrooms' might suit them very well, even if the rooms are small, and they might not be able to afford a bigger 5 bedroom house.

Someone I know bought a "two bedroom" flat recently - sure it's a 2-bed, as long as you don't mind not having a living room

A house with 5 'bedrooms' might suit them very well, even if the rooms are small

but I've also seen threads, or posts on other forums, of people asking where on earth to find a smaller bed because they can't fit a regular size in a box room. There should be a minimum size requirement before you are allowed to call a space a bedroom.

Harry Potter might be amusing, but in the real world it's not acceptable.

I agree that it is annoying, if I were buying that I clearly wouldn't use that as a bedroom as families need reception rooms to live in.

Incidentally one of those floorplans actually has my MOST HATED PET PEEVE about UK houses, which is the only toilet being all the way out the back of the ground floor. I think at the very least a toilet near the bedrooms is necessary.

People are not stupid.
Some people are

true.

It's my comment that was actually stupid!

Where I live new build houses are made with a bedroom downstairs so that they are wheelchair friendly. It is a bedroom not a dining room because they have a built in wardrobe in the room.

So for a 4 bed house you have a kitchen/diner, living room, bedroom and shower room downstairs. 3 bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs.

In central London where I live estate agents measure the entire property main building and price it by square foot. Exceptional features may increase the price slightly but its marginal. Basements are a lower price per square foot than above ground floors. Generally properties do not have gardens or outbuildings so these are not a consideration. It is easy to see if a property price is approximately correct. Properties with very poor layouts always start at the standard price and never sell so the prices drop drastically.