what drives the value of house - number of bed rooms or well planned living space

[Kolkata3]

would you rather buy house which has substantial living space /storage but a bedroom short. it has high specs and well planned living space. The bedroom missing is the extra one required for being a study/ guest one. the house is an excellent location with transport and schools. would its value not rise as much become its a room short?

You haven't offered an alternative - would you rather buy a house with a bedroom short... or what?!

I think a house needs to be balanced in size - if you're spec downstairs is for a modern family house with good storage etc, then it needs to have enough bedrooms to "match" - so 3 or 4 (or more). Doesn't matter (in my view - think I'm a pretty typical family buyer) if the ground floor was gorgeous if there were too few bedrooms. I might still go for it, but the value would only reflect what I'd have to spent on it to extend / do loft conversion to get extra bedroom.

If you're going for a young professional market (i.e. starter home with no need for extra bedrooms) then that might be different.

Depends on who you're aiming it at and how many bedrooms it has so whether the loss of 1 bedroom is significant.

Depends where you live. In London price is largely driven by location and square footage so one less bedroom would not necessarily mean it wouldn't go up in value as much.

Really depends. In many areas it is the simple price per footage calculation.

We live in an area vv popular with families due to its proximity to a particular primary school. Most of the houses were originally built as 3 bed. Almost all have been turned into 4 or 5 beds by building over the garage, converting lofts. Ours is still a 3 bed with a downstairs study.

We were able to buy ours because it was a 3 bed and so not as popular. We will eventually extend like everyone else.

The best source of advice for your particular circumstances may well be your local, independent, long established estate agents.

It's really location and local market driven. I second speaking to a good local agent that really knows their stuff. There are a few out there and they are the best to answer that question.
An area which attracts big families is going to want houses with more bedrooms but somewhere like we used to live with mainly professional couples with 1-2 kids, living and outside space pushed prices up as did houses that needed nothing doing. Where we are now it's again living and outside space rather than bedrooms, oh and period features, utility rooms and huge kitchens.
But the new build estate my friend lives on at the end of the village is all about bedrooms and bathrooms.

I would say most people buy houses based on how many bedrooms there are first as the number of people in a family dictates that - second would be the living space. But if the house has 4 + bedrooms and only a kitchen/diner and 1 reception room that is top heavy and there isn't enough living space for the amount of people that would probably live in it. you will hardly ever get as much money for a 3 bed house as you would for a 4 bed house, no matter how well it is done downstairs.

I think bedrooms are more of a driver. When we view victorian 3 bed houses sometimes the seller has decided to make the third bedroom into a big luxury bathroom, while others have a small bathroom and a single bedroom in the space. The houses with the extra bedroom and smaller bathroom are invariably pricier and more desirable/ sell faster. (SE)

thank you all. okay perhaps i was not very clear in my query- have shortlisted a house - which has 3 bedrooms 2 large receptions kitchen and dining and study . ideally we would have preferred four. Now the location is just so right and living spaces in size and spec more than make up for the lack of the 4th room. BUT the third bedroom is a small by any measure - it's a little bit bigger than a study -which can fit in a bed and cupboard. it would have to go to one of my kids and they are 10 and 12 . my concerns are

1. am wondering is it fair to give a child that room and expect them to be happy. as they grow older here say is that they like to hangout in their rooms when friends come over and also require their own space. now the ing spaces are substantial and the can hangout there and find space there ??????

1. my other concern is that the house ticks all boxes except the fact of this bedroom being small. a friend remarked that in future, the value of the property would suffer because of this aspect - for a like to like size comparison - so a proper sized 3 bed house with average living space and avg specs will outdo a house very high on specs and living space? this house otherwise like i said ticks all boxed of locality/ schools/ transport - it's in teddington, in a place called langdon park which is a gated residential place. our option to this would be to select a bigger sized house in not such a hot location and spend some money renovating etc. This some say is a safer choice.

my gut says incase i need to sell in the next 5-6 years a family will find the langdon park property appealing, as there are multi segments emerging in the property market - one formula does not fit all...

is it foolish to buy house in which the third bed is actually not a full bedroom but living is very very good.

I think number of bedrooms. Poorly planned living space which I couldn't remedy would then kill it. For 4+ bedrooms an extra bathroom (or space to put one in) would be important too.
For dh it's all about the right location though.

Do you have the measurements of the room?

I have 2 children and when we were looking for a 3 bedroom house last year, the ones with a small third bedroom were immediately dismissed. Unless there was another room downstairs that could have been a den/teenagers hangout that would have been for their use, I wouldn't buy a house with a tiny third bedroom. I know third bedrooms are generally small so you are limited but there are small bedrooms and then there are barely a bedroom at all. One we looked at was literally the length of a single bed and had a small set of drawers in it. That was it. Even if the rest of the house had been perfect (it wasnt) I wouldn't have been interested. It was our driving force really.

thanks for that share, very helpful ... yes i do have size its -10'10 x 7'7. bad size ? There is a room on the ground floor which can be converted into their den/ hangout later on. this room is part of the living space that i have written about. For now this would be gaming/ media but eventually i see the kids hanging out here.

So 3m X 2.3m (sorry I work in m so had to convert it). That doesn't seem a bad size at all! DDs room is 2.49 X 2.49 and I think it's fine as a bedroom. This was the biggest third bedroom in the houses in our price bracket. I don't know anyone else with a bigger third bedroom so I'd say your size is fine. Plus you do have the space for a den/hangout downstairs. I'd go for it.

Oh and DDS room currently has a toddler bed, bedside cabinet, many big toys at the end of her bed, a double wardrobe with drawers in it and a good size bookcase in the shape of a house. When she is bigger we are going to get a mid sleeper which will be in the space where her current bed and toys are. It will have a large set of shelves underneath. She still has space to play. Oh and she has a toy keyboard on a stand and a stool. It certainly isn't cramped in there.

I think it depends on what other properties are like in a comparable price bracket in your area, and to harp on about what you have downstairs. Lots of houses here are 19 30s - so will have 2 large bedrooms and a smaller 3rd bedroom, then 2 receptions and a kitchen. If you have 2 large receptions, kitchen, dining area and a study it sounds bigger on the ground floor than on the 1st floor.

Having said that, those dimensions are bigger than the average 3rd bedroom. Will be long and thin but more than adequate for a child / teenager.

Great to know that it's not smaller than average... thank you for each of your inputs...

The bedroom I lived in aged 3-18 was 7' by 10'.

It was small but not the end of the world.

thanks thats helpful to know