Bedrooms too small to be called bedrooms, how big a reduction in price?

[MojoJojo71]

DD and I live in a 2 bed flat at the moment and I’m looking to move into a bigger property. We don’t need an extra bedroom as such but do need more storage space so was looking at 3 bedrooms. I’ve just seen a beautiful Victorian house for sale just a couple of streets away which is marketed as a 4 bedroom but 2 of the ‘bedrooms‘ are TINY. Google tells me a bedroom under 70 square feet is suitable only for a child and that under 50 square feet is ‘uninhabitable’. Is that correct? In this house the 2 small rooms are 46 and 55 square feet. Do you think they are taking the mick marketing as 4 beds?

House was bought 5 years ago for £140,000, has had no major work that I can see and are now asking £180,000. My top budget is £170,000.

Would you view and try to get the price down due to the size of the bedrooms?

No, such small rooms would annoy me so I would find a different house x

No.

Yes, I would. You should view to see if possible to easily combine the two rooms into a larger 3rd bedroom. And I would offer with a price reduction to 3 bed level for the house (depending on market and assuming it’s priced at 4 bed level).

Here’s the floor plan of the upstairs, all rooms have windows although they are not shown on the plan

Unfortunately not able to combine the 2 rooms. For our purposes they would do as study/dressing room but they’re not big enough for bedrooms

It looks like they’ve sacrificed a bedroom for a bigger bathroom

Loads of new builds going up round here with fourth bedrooms that size.

After seeing floor plan, would probably not view. You could convert the bathroom to a nice size 3rd bedroom and the tiny bedroom by the en-suite into a bathroom. The tiny 4th bedroom, you could make into a small office or storage room or walk in closet OR knock down walls and make that front bedroom into a huge master suite. But that is a lot of work and if property is listed, you may not be allowed to change all that.

That’s a 2 bed house, with walk in wardrobes! I wouldn’t bother. If you only want the extra storage space I would offer around £160k.

It’s 2 bedrooms and 2 cupboards IMO. I’d be prepared to pay the same as for a house with 3 proper bedrooms.

Would the size of the rooms work for you?

If you can't fit a single bed and a storage unit it's not a bedroom it's a boxroom. These adverts do take the mick.

Period properties often have one very small bedroom. Could you move the bathroom to the small bedroom at the back? I think the sizes you mentioned are not a legal definition, and as long as it has a window and can fit a single bed it can probably be described as a bedroom. Can you see the layout of any neighbouring properties that may have sold recently? Might give you some ideas on price and what could work.

@JoJoSM2 the rooms would work for our needs actually, it’s storage space we are after rather than bedroom space but I don’t want to pay over the odds and I worry that it might be difficult to sell on. It’s been on the market since February but with lockdown I guess that doesn’t mean much

@MrsTWH that’s my feeling too, i guess it’s worth a try

I have lived in houses with the same sort of layout - an Edwardian terrace. My bathroom was where the smallest bedroom was with the ensuite as a separate toilet. The back bedroom was a decent size. The front bedroom was one very large room. My second house like that had an extra small bedroom behind the bathroom. It's a common layout for older houses.
The front bedroom is big enough to use as a single bedroom for a guest or child. Most houses have a third bedroom around that size. Modern houses usually have all bedrooms quite small.
You could swap the bathroom and back bedroom back to make a good size third bedroom. You could use the smallest room as a study. It all depends on your needs and how much work you want to do.

I would also say that to me that is unbelievably cheap - where I live these houses are £650k to £900k.

They aren't remotely big enough to be considered bedrooms so unless you're happy to do internal work or have them as storage I wouldn't bother.
This is one of my bug bears with how agents advertise houses. I viewed a house listed as 3 bedrooms and two reception rooms. It was actually one 1 bedroom with two box rooms which had had the internal wall knocked through. The second reception room downstairs was being used as the master. The agent honestly couldn't see the problem when we fed back that failing to mention the need to rebuild a wall to separate the box rooms was misleading. Complete waste of everyone's time. House has been on the market for a year now and the advert hasn't changed.

This looks like my house floor layout but I have two large rooms and large bathroom. It is I think typical for old Victorian terraces where people have done work to increase number of bedrooms ie stud walls but without adding actual sq footage I wouldn’t pay extra.

You could have readily made dressing room or even en suite if you are prepared to do the work. Also is there potential to go into the lift and create proper third bedroom?

I would look at what other 2-3 beds are going for and depending on the condition go from there

@TwoBlueFish unfortunately the only other house on that street which has sold since 2015 was last year for £215,000 but that had 6 bedrooms so not comparable really. The lay out on the first floor had a larger bedroom where the bathroom is in the one I’m interested in and a smaller bathroom so that was probably the original layout but they’d also added 2 more bedrooms and another bathroom in the loft.

@woodlandwalker that's the north east for you. It blows my mind the house prices I see on here sometimes!

Is the small bedroom at the front big enough to be made in to a bathroom? Then the existing bathroom, plus the small bedroom next to it, plus part of the landing (to make the room rectangular) would make a really good sized third bedroom. Lots of work of course but I'd imagine would make resell easier when the time comes.

We used to live in house with that layout. We switched back bedroom and bathroom around (not necessarily a massive job depending on the location of the plumbing and sewer pipe, especially if you’re redoing the bathroom and carpets anyway). That would give you a traditional 3-bed terrace house. I wouldn’t pay more for the so-called 4th bedroom though - that’s just partitioned off part of the main bedroom presumably.

The bathroom is ridiculously big (proportionately) so maybe you could do something there. Swap a room or take space from the bathroom to add to a bedroom.

Have you seen a number of other houses?

If it’s competitively priced and works for you, then get it. I can see it being a difficult sale, though, as anyone who actually needs 3 or 4 bedrooms wouldn’t be interested.

Alternatively, if it’s just for storage, couldn’t you just sth build in the garden or make your loft easily accessible etc? Moving seems like a faff for a bit of storage space.

People with kids may be happy with that as both will fit single bed /cot or cab be used as a study. 2nd bedroom then guest room with a double. Or one room cab be a guest with 2 singles, one under other most of the time.
I'd buy it happily. I assume it's cheaper than 4 beds?

Millions of children in the U.K. live in bedrooms those sizes. They’re completely standard for period third and fourth bedrooms and the owner will be bemused by your argument.

Surely that’s just a two bed with 2 walk-in storage cupboards?
I’d offer a figure based on a 2 bed house.