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

Opinions from mumsnet might be a bit skewed because so many mumsnetters have young children. However, the majority of households in the UK do not contain young children, A family house may be bought by a family with teenagers or young adults who prefer showers. It may be bought by a single person who intends to take a lodger. There are also many older buyers for whom a 3 bed house represents downsizing.

Baths are a particularly British thing; most people on the continent bring up families with only showers.

In terms of house selling; saying lack of a bath may deter buyers may be a self fulfilling prophecy, so even buyers who never take a bath may be put off as they think about when they come to sell.

I am sure there is a buyer out there who would prefer a good quality shower and as others have said if someone wants to install a bath, it is best to leave things so they can make there own choices.

This sort of thing really annoys me and I wonder whether people are using it as an excuse. Presumably it's perfectly clear from photos and description that there is no bath, so people shouldn't view the house unless they have no objection.

I'd ask the agent to make absolutely clear to anyone wanting to view that there is no bath, and to ask them to confirm that that is not a problem before allowing them to view, then see if viewings dry up.

I wouldn't buy a house without a bath - kids or no kids.
My SIL spent an absolute fortune remodelling her house - she has 4 bathrooms and not one bath and it was the first thing I noticed.

There was no bath in our last house when we went to view it. There was no photo of the bathroom on the website.

We loved the house but had a baby and so told them we couldn’t buy it without a bath. The sellers agreed to do the work themselves and we bought the house and lived there for 7 happy years.

Now our children are a bit older, it wouldn’t necessarily matter so much but at the time we needed the bath and in no way wanted to do the work ourselves.

As the opinion of a late 20s and early 30s working couple I wouldn't have any interest in a house that didn't have a bath, I grew up in a household that only had a bath, no shower until I was 20 and still choose a bath over a shower most days unless it's boiling hot and I just need cool water splashed on me.

If you can spare the 2k I think you should put in a bath shower hybrid so atleast there's the choice of both, plus you can advertise it as a recently remodeled bathroom which is always a plus to buyers right?

What you need to remember is that knocking £2 k off the price of the house doesn’t mean the purchaser has an extra £2k in their pocket to pay for the work unless they’re buying with cash. They only actually have the deposit in cash which could be 25 - 15% of the valid the house so it doesn’t help at all.

Like everything when it comes to house hunting, it's down to personal taste and what people are looking for.

As PP have said, I someone likes it enough, they might haggle on the price of a new bathroom.

Personally I’d buy a house without a bath if the bathroom was lovely otherwise and there was space for one.

We are also in the process of looking to renovate our bathroom and going through the same discussion, put a bath in for future buyers even though we wouldn’t use it, or put a major massive luxurious shower in and have more space.

I suspect we might just put a bath in but it just feels silly to pay for something we wouldn’t use. I’m early fifties and our home would probably in future sell to someone in the same age bracket, and none of our friends take baths either, so I think I personally would just remove it,

I'm not sure if anyone mentioned it yet but it's not necessarily about the cost of putting in a bath that puts people off. It's about the inconvenience of having your bathroom out of action for a week when you have young children.

We only have DS who is 11 months old. We've also fully gutted and renovated 2 properties whilst living in them. Even with our experience, now we have our son I wouldn't touch a house with 1 bathroom where I needed to put a bath in unless I absolutely had to. Unless of course I could stay somewhere else in the mean time. I remember when we were renovating, the first time we got subscriptions to the local gym and showered there, the next time we were lucky that work had showers so showered at work. But it definitely wasn't convenient.

So although I'm sure you'll be able to sell with your current setup, you'll be making your house a lot less attractive if most potential buyers are likely to be young families.

Offering to knock the money off won't be enough. If I were you and you want to sell quickly then I'd do the conversion to add a bath yourself.

Let the new purchaser decide if they want to put a bath in and don't even mention it.
It's highlighting something that many wouldn't ever see as a problem in the first place.

Just be receptive to offers under the asking price because of it.
Move forward!

Depends on the age of the children. Mine are now 8 & 9 and no bath isn't an issue. If they were babies/toddlers I might have though twice.

I'm not a bath person at all they are purely for my children.

I don't have young children but would never buy a place without a bath. I hate showers, but I did have an electric over the bath shower installed for convenience but that cost about £300. It's a lot harder/more costly, to install a bath where this is none. I couldn't manage long term with a shower only. The house would have to be super special to not make me just look elsewhere. I wouldn't want the disruption of the work.

I've been binge watching "property brothers" lately and it's amazing how a little investment can help sell your home at the price you want. It shocks me how people viewing just do not have the capacity to imagine how a home would look if they made changes. Most people seem to want "move in ready" now.

I have a 2 year who loves a bath and screams if I put him in the shower.
Having said that if I loved the house not having a bath wouldn't stop me buying, it would just be the first thing we get changed and it would be exciting making the bathroom how we like it. I would ask to knock the cost off the asking price though.

The estate agent always asks for feedback from every house viewing and lack of a bath is an easy thing to say if someone didn't think the house was right for them so it will be the thing that gets mentioned most - doesnt mean all the people that mention it wouldve snapped the house up if it had a bath.
Personally I wouldn't live in a house without a bath (and a nice long one at that, cant stand a short bath) but it doesnt mean I wouldn't buy one if I could get one installed easily enough and it was a great house otherwise.

Dunno what the market is like where you are but round here it is totally a seller's market so you wouldn't need to worry about people asking for a discount etc as there should be plenty of people happy to buy without bathroom negotiations

Personally don't understand why a bath is absolutely essential with children. We did exactly the same as OP when we bought our house - have a lovely huge shower tray and space for toilet in bathroom. We are also fussy and wanted our own bathroom, not one that had been used by countless before us (our property was a rental before we bought it)

We then had children - now 22 months and 3.5yrs. Used a baby bath in early days then seat in the shower. Both now happily walk into the shower themselves.

I appreciate there are some people who themselves prefer to have a bath, it would certainly not be a dealbreaker for an otherwise perfect house in terms of size and location

@Dontforgetyourbrolly key word here: flat. Depending on its size and location in the building, this might not appeal to families with children.

@LouLou789 is trying to sell a 3 bed house, which presumably would appeal to families with kids. Were I in that bracket, I would see it as a disadvantage that such a home was missing a bath, not least because bath time is so often part of a solid bedtime routine for many children and they associate it as being a precursor to sleep time.

I wouldnt buy without a bath even without young kids. Its a basic to me and I wouldnt want the added hassle of adding one later.

We don't have bath either. I think people with little children would prefer one otherwise I can't see it being a reason not to buy.

I wouldn't buy without a bath and first time buyers are unlikely to have the cash to do it themselves, so knocking money off doesn't help. I'd just get it done, personally.

I'm currently looking for a family home and I wouldn't view a house without a bath. I have 2 children age 3 and 5 months and I would need a bath straight away, 3 year old is terrified of showers.
The thought of doing the work once we have moved in is what puts me off most, also the cost. Your taste may not be my taste so if I was going to put in a bath I'd probably want to redo the whole bathroom and I don't have the money available for that atm. If it had a bath but wasn't to my taste I could live with it for a few years.

I bought a house when my son was 1. I saw a few nice properties on Rightmove without a bath but wouldn't view any of them. I think it's pretty essential to have a bath when you have young children.

Childless and in my 30s, love a bath. Wouldn't but a house without one unless it was a dated Fixer upper and I was going to redo the bathroom and it was priced accordingly as a fixer upper. If the bathroom was new it would put me off as I could not bear the waste of ripping out a new bathroom.

I haven't had a bath in ten years, can't stand them so I'd buy a house without one in a heartbeat.

Lack of bath would be a deal breaker for me. Having said that easy to change.