How much have I devalued my house? I want to move!!

[Crumbsinthecarpet]

We moved into a house 3 years ago and I'm hoping to move in the next 2 years (before DS goes to school) but we have had to convert our smallest bedroom into a bathroom, going from 3 to 2 bed, and I want an idea of how much the house will be worth without getting a full valuation! ( Don't want pressure from estate agents just yet)

How can I get an idea how much it's worth?

We now have 2 massive double bedrooms, a good sized bathroom upstairs (it was a box room barely big enough for a bed, for perspective, but makes a decent size bathroom) ok living room and a big kitchen diner with a walk in pantry where we knocked through the kitchen to the old bathroom, which was less than 1m wide by 4m long.

If I could go back I wouldn't have bought the house to be honest as we had no end of problems with dodgy work and damp in the miniscule bathroom,we were first time buyers so definitely got taken for a ride! Anyway, happy with the house now but I'd like DS and DD to have their own bedrooms if possible and want to know what budget to look at for next house!

Sorry for blathering on!

are the bedrooms big enough to carve up into three smaller ones?

We have a tiny third bedroom and in hindsight we should have taken some space from the bathroom next door to make it a bit bigger.

I live in an area with lots of two bed terraced houses (the two-up, two-down type), and houses with an upstairs bathroom tend to sell for about £10-20k more than the ones with downstairs bathrooms, even when one of the bedrooms is smaller as a result. They’re ‘starter’ homes rather than family homes and it’s unusual for them to have three bedrooms.

We added value to our first house by losing a bedroom and moving the bathroom upstairs. It had previously had a tiny bathroom in an extension thru the tiny kitchen. We turned the old bathroom into a utility room which meant more space in the kitchen and the bathroom upstairs was a lovely size.

Downstairs bathrooms are not desirable and depending on the area may knock money off. Can you do a right move search for similar properties?

Victorian terrace you may not have devalued the house. That's not say you did you not over pay in the first place.

Also you can get a valuation from zoopla online - you have to ‘own’ the house so find address then claim it’s yours. Then you make an changed you’ve made to the house and then it creates a guide of what price range you’d expect.

A word of warning on this - it can be hopelessly inaccurate. It valued our house at over twice the actual value, closer to one and half times.

Depends on where you live, and what kind of house? I live in East Anglia, 1930s semis and my neighbour has a 4 bed, we have a 3 bed and their house is worth about 40k more.

Assuming this is a Victorian terrace then I doubt you've devalued it.

I think it very much depends on the condition of the house and the potential target market in your area.
A 2 (big) bedroomed cottage with an upstairs bathroom has recently sold for more than a 4 bed standard house in our village.
In its favour was a gorgeous garden and the fact that it was beautifully renovated. It was bought by a retired couple.

Who wants to run downstairs in the middle of the night when they're having a heavy period...?
I don't think you've devalued it - if anything it sounds much improved
I could not live in a house with only a downstairs loo unless all the floors were wipeable I'd leak on the stairs (sometimes I sprint to the ensuite...)
Maybe decide which local EA you won't use and get them to give you a valuation?

Sorry, forgot to add I’d far rather have a decent bathroom in our box room, than pretending it’s a bedroom - it really isn’t. So it might well be fine.

@Crumbsinthecarpet I agree with a PP who suggested checking Rightmove or Zoopla. There will probably be a lot of houses that were built in the same way as yours was? And I'd imagine a lot of people have made the same modification. You'll be able to see old listings and sale prices of similar houses and that should enable you to get a rough feel for how much yours is worth. It's important to look at the listings as well as when the sale was and how much it sold for. Because you'll want to look at the finish on those houses compared to yours and also any potential inflation/fall in price depending on how long ago the listing is from.

This should give you the best idea of how much your house is probably worth.

Personally I don't think you'll have devalued it much (if at all) if you've put in a nice bathroom because most buyers wouldn't want an old 1m x 4m bathroom downstairs and off of the kitchen if they could have a larger kitchen and a nice modern bathroom upstairs.

I live in an old stone cottage, two double bedrooms and an upstairs bathroom are the same price as a three smaller beds and a downstairs bathroom in my area. The double bedrooms are popular for holiday lettings. It depends on your target market. If its appeal is only to a buy to let landlord than it might be an issue but not to anyone else.

Sorry - just to be clear. Check Rightmove / Zoopla for house sales on your road and any surrounding roadsthat have the same style of house as yours.

Rightmove for sold prices, there may well be links meaning those properties were featured on Rightmove so you can see the state of the property from the photos etc.

Zoopla is a weird one, for my house it shows what we bought it for and the assumed value now. But I have extended and added rooms, Zoopla cannot take that into account when guessing my value.

Putting a bathroom upstairs will have added value, removing a bedroom will have reduced the value. Ring an estate agent tell them you are only looking to see what your house is now worth and get them round.

Downstairs bathrooms are not popular so it's probably evened out? Also, if downstair bathrooms are a feature in the properties in your area, it won't be uncommon to do what you've done.

Would there be potential for future buyers to convert the attic to a bedroom, if there's the head-height in the attic? (using either the original staircase as the footprint for another small flight of stairs to the attic, or a slice off one of the bedrooms for a staircase?) You obviously probably don't want to undertake this yourself, but it could be used as a selling point for potential buyers if it was feasible in principle.

Depends massively on area, for an idea though we're moving to a house with 2 beds, the whole area is houses with almost identical layouts on a 70s estate but some of them have an extra (box) bedroom by cutting the master bedroom down, those are going for a good £40k+ more than the 2 beds (which are around the £230-240k mark)

Put your property details into zoopla and it'll give you a good idea

I live in a 2 bed that was originally as you described. There is now a downstairs loo, utility room and the bathroom is very spacious in the old 3rd bedroom. It is valued around the same as a 3 bed but does also have a drive and garage which isn't the norm

Two bedrooms and a box room isn't really three bedrooms and if you've added an upstairs bathroom, when before there wasn't one, IMO that adds value. A box room is a shit bedroom, unless it's just for a baby/toddler and most people would much prefer not to have to traipse downstairs when they need a pee in the night. You've also enlarged the kitchen and that will definitely add value. Prices are hard to judge at the moment though, with nothing much being bought and sold since early March, but you can get an idea from Zoopla or Mouseprice by looking at similar homes nearby that have sold in the last year.

I don't think it sounds like you'll have done much "damage" to the value at all. A good sized upstairs bathroom is more desirable than a poxy box room for a lot of people, especially if the only bathroom was previously downstairs and you've now got good storage for the kitchen diner. The downstairs living space sounds really good for the number of bedrooms.

The only thing that might happen is that people may be on the look out to be able to create a dedicated office space if WFH is going to be a more permanent feature for lots of workers. But realistically you've probably done what a lot of people would rather the house had to start with.

Best thing to do is look at similar 2 bed properties within a mile of you on Rightmove which should give you some idea on what your house is worth.

If there is potential for a buyer to convert the loft, then I don't think you will have devalued it - most people would prefer a house where the bathroom had already been located upstairs I would imagine. You can get an estate agent to come and do a valuation - we had our place valued recently even though we are not necessarily planning to move just yet. We were upfront with the estate agent and there was no hard sell or pressure. I think that the only way you can really know.

I would very much doubt you've damaged the value TBH. I think these days people are more concerned with having decent-sized kitchen and bathrooms, and someone looking for a three-bed would have see the old rooms as something they'd need to fix. Whereas someone looking for a two-bed will see your current layout as perfect!

i agree you've probably increased the value, because plenty of people want a 2-bed house, and a second bathroom (or at least toilet and washbasin) downstairs is an asset. But if the only bathroom is downstairs, I think that puts many people off unless they're planning to do improvements.

We sold a four bedroomed house 15 years ago. One of the subsequent owners has converted one bedroom into an en-suite and swapped a couple more round so that there are now two double bedrooms, a box room which is only big enough to be a nursery or a study. So it's now a two bedroomed house. It sold last year for 50k more than we sold it for (200 as opposed to 150k).
House prices really haven't gone up that much and the area is much less desirable than it was but I guess it goes to show that you can always ask for a higher sum and it only takes one person to be happy to pay it.