A 5 bed house but 2 downstairs.. with young children?

[Floorplanhelpp]

We’re currently looking at buying a house that ticks most of our boxes (we have a healthy budget but in an expensive area where we are unlikely to get anything that meets all requirements). However, there are two downstairs bedrooms (and bathroom). Upstairs has three large doubles and two bathrooms.

We have 3 children under 5. We are thinking of having the master plus two bedrooms for the children upstairs (two can share), and once they get bigger, we’ll move the master downstairs and they can share upstairs.

Would this bother you? We’re not sure if it’ll make the house hard to resell incase people view it as a 3 bed rather than a 5 (and it’s just over £1m, so it would be seen as a 5 if reselling rather than a 3!).

YABU - it wouldn’t bother me
YANBU - it would bother me

agree.

I aso don't understand the worry about "losing value" when you sell when you are buying a house you intend to live in for 10+ years. You buy it, and pay for things to make it work for you. Over the 10 years, if the house does not increase in value quite as much because you decided to do x or you decided to do y, that's irrelevant.

I have friends who have lived in their house for 8 or 10 years. They have been talking about doing an extension for that entire time. They have now decided NOT to do the extension as they don't believe it will add sufficient value to their house, and they plan to sell in another 5 years. I just can't get my head around that. So they'll live in a house that has not had the living space they want for a total of 15+ years. Mind blowing to me. Meanwhile, they paid something like 700k for it, it's probably worth at least 950k now and if they did the work, sure, it would cost 100k and it's unlikely they could sell for much more than 1m at this point.... but who would care. Another 5 years and they'll have a house they actually like and that's five more years of paying off the mortgage!

It sounds very practical to me and the family would have many choices as the years progress.

If the layout of the house would make it worth less due to only having 3 bedrooms upstairs that would also apply now while you are buying it - so if you buy at a fair price it should generally move with house prices in the area unless you are considering doing work on the house to change it

absolutely fine. We all have town houses here and kids are on separate floors from little. The only thing I personally prefer is the adults to be lower down than the dc.

Don’t buy it they are an absolute disaster to sell. We had one in Warwick.
All the friggin house is there exactly the same
But because of the way we had to use the rooms and we had no choice people were quibbling at every viewing
We were told if we moved out we could probably sell it within a month if it was empty but funnily enough with three small children. It wasn’t an option.

It’s the same price as traditional 5 beds really. I guess these bedrooms are bigger though.

we are in a 5 bed converted bungalow. 3 bedrooms upstairs two with en-suite and two bedrooms downstairs. When we moved in my kids were 8, 6 and 3. They had the rooms upstairs. My youngest had the one without an ensuite.

we have 4 reception rooms and two bedrooms downstairs. Now my kids are 3 years older and it works well for them. I used a baby monitor with my youngest until she was around 5 just for peace of mind especially when I went to bed.

I'd view it as a 3 bed house with lots of lìving space. But you can have your children share a bedroom upstairs, and have a sitting room, playroom/family room, and study/spare room downstairs. With 3DC once they are teens having a second sitting room is invaluable, when they have friends over they don't need to go upstairs to the bedrooms because they have a public space that is theirs, and you can enjoy your calm adult space but be nearby enough to help if need be.

Not sure how you think fire safety is any different at any level since half of house fires start in roofs...anyway our oldest girls didn't want there own rooms and still share there nice big double happily at teens, of course they have the odd squabble but mostly there chatting and laughing together or watching a film till they sleep and 2 of our boys are the same wanted to stay sharing, the rest prefer own rooms and got them once old enough

curently use upstairs rooms , 1 for your daughters, 1 for you and Dh and 1 for your son, downstairs set up the master bedroom and use as a guest room adding ensuite when able; use 2nd bedroom downstairs as playroom keep lounge as adult space ( could fit in a desk if you need to work from home occasionally and can shut door to kitchen livingspace day to day living in your kitchen living space

in a few years when childrens fun stuff gets smaller but more expensive it can all live in their bedrooms so no need for playroom, each child has bedroom upstairs you move into master suite, downstairs 5th bedrrom becomes guest room / office

My son uses a downstairs room as his bedroom. When he’s got the windows open at night he can hear wildlife like badgers in the garden (his room is at the back of the house) is it safe to sleep with the windows open?

This is a good point! I’m not sure how safe I would feel sleeping with the windows open. We do live in an area where there has been a big increase in car thefts unfortunately.

Hi,

I've actually never thought about this before but in my last house we had an attic conversion and all 3 children were downstairs.

In this house we have 5 bedrooms split over 3 levels. We are at the top with 10 year old in her own room. 12 and 7 year old on middle floor and almost 3 year old on bottom floor. So it wouldn't bother me! Never really thought about it until I read this. Good luck OP and no I don't think it would make a difference for selling.

I would love this setup a lot actually - lots of flexible options and more privacy if that's a better setup for your family. I think it's great to have the options you have available to you now for playroom / etc.

How is it being marketed to you, is it one of similar properties on the row. I think it sounds like a perfect fit long term for ur family and that's important to ur family in the long term 10-15 years I should imagine property prices will still rise x

I find it odd that people don’t see them as bedrooms if it were a bungalow would they all be just “rooms”? 🤣

This. Also a downstairs bedroom is a huge advantage if someone becomes incapacitated.

Would this bother you? We’re not sure if it’ll make the house hard to resell incase people view it as a 3 bed rather than a 5 (and it’s just over £1m, so it would be seen as a 5 if reselling rather than a 3!).

Future buyers will view it as such, just as you are now questioning whether to buy because of the bedroom situation. As you say, not all boxes can be ticked when looking for a house, but this house was designed and built as a three-bedroom, with two extra rooms added on during later renovations.

You have three under fives - it will be a long time before they can sleep downstairs; and you intend to have the girls share for 8/9 years which is daft when you have 2 empty 'bedrooms', but they're downstairs!

What’s important when you’re selling is to stage/arrange/present the house in the way that appeals most to people most likely to buy.

We’re in our 50s/60s, Ds in his 20s, so our home is a forever home, one of the reasons being that as our main is on the ground floor, we’ve built a fuck off en suite etc etc and most of the home is on one level or with only a couple of steps from one room to another. What you describe is infinitely more doable than even our home, you’re close enough to the kids upstairs but distant enough so you’re not on top of each other.

not sharing a bathroom is perfect! The only thing I’d think I’d have done differently is that perhaps I should have built his and hers bathroom so I don’t get disturbed by OH who inexplicably can’t use any of the many other bloody loos we have. But that’s another story 😆

i do often look at other big posh houses as a bit of property porn on occasion and now wouldn’t compromise on having the main suite WELL away from all of the other bedrooms, no guest rooms close by, no kids etc etc

I think your house sounds like it really does work for you all.

I have 2 “empty” rooms, 3 if you count the weird room above the dining room, used as office/study area.

when we bought our house, the downstairs guest was marketed as a snug… next to a ln immense main reception barn/lounge. But we also saw pics that the room had been used as a bedroom. There was another weird room off a corridor linked to our bedroom. This is now our en-suite, with a division wall and shower room for the former snug. This could just as easily be used for an office.

it’s about presenting houses in a way that appeals to as many people who are likely to buy it. When we came to the open house, a family with small kids came but left immediately, it wouldn’t work for small kids because of the distance between parents and kids.

The OP isn't selling the house - she's thinking of buying it! And she has three under-fives.

Sounds fine to me

From a fire safety perspective I wouldn't want my kids on a different floor to me until they were old enough to get themselves out in a fire, including going out a window if needed. Fires can sweep through a property so quickly and ferociously that there is a significant risk of not being able to get up or down the stairs to get to them. I know someone that this happened to. Thank god the children were rescued by a neighbour via a window.

But I think it could work if they're happy to share. But in terms of moving downstairs I'd be inclined to put the oldest child down there at an appropriate age provided they are sensible and happy and stay up with the younger ones. A good alarm system can address the security concerns, and in a fire they can just hop out the ground floor window.

I’d see it as a 3 bed with lots of living space .
kitchen/ breakfast room, dining toom , living room, study / snug .

Seems ideal to me.

FWIW, I also view it as completely fine and normal with younger children to be on different floors.