AIBU to not want a bath?

[LouLou789]

Twelve years ago we had our bath taken out and a high quality shower cubicle installed. The room is fully tiled. It also enabled us to put a loo in the bathroom (there’s already a loo in an adjacent room)

It is still immaculate as we’ve maintained it well and replaced the shower head and unit as needed.

House now on the market, it’s a 3 bed semi In a quiet cul de sac and would appeal to a couple wanting a family home to bring up their kids. It’s had plenty of viewings (been on the market 5 weeks) but no offers and several people have mentioned the lack of a bath as a problem.

Of course we are looking for a new home ourselves, but we fully accept we will have to do at least some work on any new house to make it right for us, including changing a bath to a shower room. We’ve had a plumber round to our current house tonight and it would cost 2k to reverse the conversion and the work would take a week. We intend to make this info available to potential purchasers and would therefore fully expect them to knock this amount off any offer. Our agent, however, thinks people won’t want the upheaval of the work and might ask us to install it ourselves as a condition of sale. What do you all think?

YABU = Just put a bath in, and get on with it

YANBU = Leave it as it is, you’re panicking

I've just had a new house built. It's only 2 bed, has a bathroom, en suite and cloakroom. No bath at all.
More and more people are not seeing a bath as essential, even with young children but for some it still is.
I had a new bathroom in my last house about 5 years before selling. There was plenty of room so I put a bath in that I never ever used. The people that bought said they wouldn't have without the bath, even though they fully intend redoing the bathroom.

Depends. If it is a family home and market as a family home then you might need to bite the bath bullet. If it’s more of place for a childless couple of single Edson, then I’d leave well alone.

If it was the right house I wouldn’t be put off by the lack of a bath, as long as the bath room was clearly Big enough for one.

My dsis just bought a house with no bath, but has a beautiful shower. She has 2 kids 6 &13. Wasn't an issue for her. I think our bath has been used a total of 3 times in a year (there's 3 of us) so personally I'd rather a shower - you can't please everyone.

I personally don't like baths at all, but the house we moved into last year has a bath but not a shower. My kids are 5 year old and both hate showers. I would only move into a place without a bath if I didn't have kids.

We bought our house 2 years ago with a 2 year old and a baby. Bathroom was old and grotty and we knew we wanted to do major work including moving it to a different room. But we needed a bath we could live with right away.

Even with having the money put away from our sale for the works and knowing we would be spending well into 5 figures on the bathroom I wouldnt have looked at one without a bath in situ.

We're currently in the process of buying a house without a bath, we have a 17 month old and im pregnant with no.2, it will be a bit of a pain, we will just have to make do with a baby bath until we get round to re-doing the bathroom but it didnt put us off because we're the type that want a renovation project. DH is in a trade as is family. We want to choose how to decorate and design our new home and add value but i can understand a lot of people with young children wouldnt. I think we could just about have afforded the same house if it was already renovated, well maybe just

@nocoolnamesleft

I wouldn't buy without a bath. Wouldn't want the hassle (and trying to get the time off work) to replace it.

^this. I wouldn’t want to move in to a house and go through the hassle and mess.

I was told that not having a bath can lower the value of your house.

I bought a house without a bath and it was a nightmare, ripped out the shower and put a bath in.

New house had a bath, I wouldn't have viewed it without a bath. I couldn't be bothered with the work required to have one put in after the stress of moving with kids.

My estate agent friend once gave me wise advice:

Your asking price is the value of the house as it is. This price is not in relation to how new buyers want to change it to be.

As a buyer I could view a house worth 200K and decide I’d like to gut it all and spend 30K on an extension. That does not mean the house is now only worth 170K! If it’s priced correctly it’s still worth 200K.

Of course faults that show up in surveys can reduce asking prices but just because they don’t like how it’s decorated or in your case a shower not a bath, that’s their personal choice and shouldn’t affect the house price if it’s valued correctly to start with.

As it’s a buyers market right now you might have to wait a while if all viewers want baths. But as long as yours is valued correctly, that’s not an issue.

The big point here is also that you’re must be valued correctly. Be sure to check around to make sure it is.

I think a family home with no bath is very tricky to sell. I also think that whilst many people will have plans to change a bathroom, they don't want to have to do it before DC can have a bath when they move in, so even knowing it can be done fairly cheaply won't encourage everyone. Likewise if, with the current set up with additional loo, it doesn't look like there's even room for a bath, I suspect many buyers would assume your advice may be incorrect. Finally, having just done a bathroom refit, I don't think you can have it done well with quality fittings for £2000 and think most people having a new bath in their new house would want to do the whole room.

I think I'd do the work as cheaply as possible, so there is a bath there, but it will still need to be priced for buyers expecting to refurbish the whole bathroom, unless you do it properly.

Again, thank you to everyone, the discussion is so helpful

I love my bath - I wouldn't view a house without one.

We have 4 kids aged 10 years to 18 months. And no bath. We manage just fine. You'll find buyers, you might have to wait a little longer is all.

We sold our house with a six foot shower cubicle instead of a bath to a family within 3 days of listing the property. The house is now up for sale again (5 years later) and they haven’t put a bath in.

Does taking out the shower room toilet reduce this to a family home with only one toilet? That's not ideal either.

If that's the case, I'd probably leave it. Both scenarios will put off some buyers, so why spend the money?

I personally wouldn’t consider a house without a bath. I’m in my 50s and both kids are young adults but even though I only have a bath around once a month, for me the lack of a bath turns a bathroom from luxurious to just functional. Whilst it may only cost 2K to add a bath, in reality I would be looking for 5K to 7.5K off the asking price for the lack of a bath as in the real world, if buyers want to add a bath they will probably re-do the whole room and that is a far more realistic estimate of cost. You will either need to find a buyer who doesn’t want a bath (probably not a young family) or reduce your price accordingly. I work in property and not having a bath is widely acknowledged to reduce the value of your house.

We are debating replacing the bath with a large shower, no one uses the bath in this house, they all use the shower room. I'd buy a house with no bath, even with kids. Mine all used the shower once they were toddlers, much easier. Although I used to let them play in the bath when we were bored and stuck indoors for ages due to weather. Most of Europe have showers, and a small baby bath to wash babies. I had an inflatable one with a sucker on one end that stuck it to the tiles on the bathroom wall when not in use. Worked great.
2k is a lot, if you are goung to replace get another quote or two.

When buying our house, I preferred houses with outdated bathrooms and kitchen, in need of replacement, so that I could choose my own.

I was put off of houses with recently refurbished bathrooms/kitchens because it would have been wasteful to rip out something new and start again and I didn’t want to be stuck with someone else’s taste for a decade or so.

Agree with PP that i prob wouldnt even view somewhere that didnt have a bath.
God knows why im like that i only have one every once in a blue moon i just like having it as an option & wouldnt want the aggro of arranging the work myself.

I wouldn't view a house without a bath. You're cutting out a large chunk of prospective buyers through your desire to just keep a shower, but it's your choice.

Then you are gently suggesting they can offer 1k less than they would in return for them doing the work.

I’d be expecting a lot more than 1k off if I had to completely redo the bathroom! If a seller made it clear on viewing that they’d only knock off 1 or 2k then I’d simply move on to the next house.

I wouldn't want a house without a bath, and I am over 60 so it is just not 'young families' that like baths, I have a bath every evening.

However if it was a lovely house in every other way I would be prepared to put a bath in - but would budget at least £6-7k for a bathroom refit.

If a house was perfect and didn't have a bath but would be easy enough to have a bath installed, then I would still buy the house.

But if there were two houses which were roughly similar, and one had a bath and the other didn't, I wouldn't even consider the house without a bath.

So unless your house has something extra that other similar houses don't, then you will be missing out on a lot of potential buyers.

I wouldn't dream of buying a house without a bath and when we were looking recently ignored a house that only had a silly corner bath rather than a proper one, Yes we could get the work done but we really don't want the hassle.