have four bed houses replaced three beds as the norm for a family post Covid

[45fseh3]

Post Covid and everyone increasingly working from home - has the ideal of a three bed house been replaced by a four bed? Am I being greedy? We are currently thinking about moving and need extra space. All of our friends are also now looking at four bed houses rather than the usual three beds. Is this now the norm? I get this is first world problems. But are we seeing a new trend or is this just our part of London?

What leads you to beleive that a 3 bed semi was ever "the aspirational goal" , as if such a thing exists anyway?
I've got 4 kids and work from home, a 3 bed semi is far below an aspirational goal, it would be a nightmare!

A 3 bed semi is probably what a lot of ‘average’ people live in, years ago you started off in one bed flat, then probably moved to a 2 bed terrace and then the 3 bed semi with a garage and garden, so yes it probably is an aspirational goal for a lot of people, just because a 3 bed semi is your nightmare does not mean it’s not someone else’s dream house, which many these days cannot even achieve.

@ MissusMaisel I just meant that families with two kids tend to end up in three bed.....etc. Or at least in London - this used to be what people aspired to until recently. I appreciate that lots of people cant even afford a two-bed flat or that some people have lots of children. I just meant as an average, but everyone's circumstances are different

3 bed semis are the most in demand, and just about affordable in my search area (£650-£800k). So much so that's there's none currently in the market!

Larger houses (£800k plus, 4 or 5 beds) tend to hang around for longer, or require at least 1 price reduction to shift.

• none currently on the market

I would say that 4 bed is pretty standard in my world. Lucky I know but most people go to 4 beds when they have 2 kids. Most people not bothered about garden size, just needs to be big enough for a goal but most people want a big kitchen diner and space to convert a garage to a playroom / office / gym

We bought a 4 bed during lock down. Before covid we were looking at 3 beds, but we quickly realised we would need a 4th bedroom for an office. I also think open plan designs will become less popular as a separate dining room or living room will be needed for separation for people working from home.

I have a 3 bed with a study downstairs. So don't rule out 3 beds, as you might find something that still suits you.

We bought a 3 bed townhouse with "study" on the description/price list in 2013. This was a bit weird at the time. They resell as 4 beds on Rightmove now, but as someone said at 5ft6 wide I couldn't really class it as one!

A lot of new build detached developers here are putting a study on the ground floor.

I only speak for myself but it's clear to me that WFH is here to stay, and my house shopping criteria effectively increases by 1 bedroom/study as a result.

The problem is that many people can’t afford any extra space but still have to find space to work from home.
I find it really intrusive. We didn’t buy our house expecting it to become our office, and it wasn’t a situation I ever wanted. But my office has been closed and DH is only allowed in 2 days a week, so we’ve had to turn part of our home into a workspace. We can’t afford anything bigger.

If we're talking about London commuters then you stretch to it by looking for somewhere further out with a worse commute - which is acceptable if you're not doing it five days a week.

You don't magically find an extra hundred grand or more on your budget: you offset size against location.

Of course not everyone works in London though.

Have brought my family up primarily in 3 bed semi. 20+ yrs in that house with 2 good bedrooms and a 3rd box room. We loved that house. It got to the point where my 15yrs old daughter had never had a full size bed and my family were outgrowing the house with pretty much 4 adult size people living there even though we had built a huge conservatory and altered as much as we could within the house. We looked at extending but in the end decided it wasnt worth it.

Best thing we ever did was buy a new 4 bed detached. The smallest (Spare) room is double the size of the room my daughter had for 14yrs. The rest of the house is nearly double the size of the old house. We all have double bedrooms.

In terms of outgoings, its a lot more efficient so my bills, although increased are not that much more and i had been paying the old house off as quickly as i could to be mortgage free so i have actually ended up with lower mortgage payments on the new house.

Now the real big reason for buying the house

Now that my kids are 19 and 15 i am looking at a household of 4 adults for the foreseeable. Even if they go off and do whatever they need to, i picture the possibility they will need to come back. I wanted to be able to offer them a home for as long as i am here and be able to live as comfortable as we can. This has enabled that. With housing market so difficult, i picture kids living at home longer and longer. If thats the case, i couldnt do that in the 3 bed semi

In my small group of friends we all live in 4 bedroom homes but are a mixture of either new build or a 3 bedroom that's been extended with the exception of one who's saving up for a larger house. At least one partner in each couple works from home though.

Surely depends how many kids you have? I'm a lone parent. Even pre-Covid I worked mostly from home. So I needed a house with a bedroom each for the kids and one as a study for me, or a downstairs study. As with all things it's about priorities. Ideally I would have liked a playroom too, to shut away all of the children's toys. But I figured that was a short-term issue as they'll grow up and have less "stuff" so I put up with the living room being chaos for now because the space we have is what will work for us long-term. Nobody's budget (or very few) stretches to everything they want. But yes, with more people wfh than previously there is a trend towards wanting more space for that.

I think it's had an impact. We were living in a 4 bed detached (family of 3) with one bedroom as a small, shared, study which we ended up sharing to WFH during lockdowns. Otherwise two bedrooms and the final bedroom was storage, play, hobby, laundry, spare room (it had terrible WiFi so no good for working in). Downstairs was open plan so no space you could separate off. What had worked when one or other of us did WFH maybe twice a month stopped working when we both needed to all the time.

We're in the middle of buying a 6 bed semi!

What we've been looking for when house hunting is 'at least a 3 bed' with at least 2 reception rooms, so really it depends on room configurations. A garden room/converted garage would also have worked.

I'm surprised more places aren't making more of space for a study to be honest - EAs are still up to their old tricks of including a downstairs room as a bedroom for the number of bedrooms, when you think a study is as valuable at the moment.

We're very much looking for a 4 bed with space for working from home for at least one person. We have 3 DC so want the 4 bedrooms, but our criteria is also some space that can be used as a home office, either a fifth bedroom, a study, a separate reception room that can be used as a workspace in the day, or room for a garden office.

The number of bedrooms is a red herring. We need the US system of comparing sq footage and £ per sq.ft. Putting up a stud wall is easy and unfortunately too many houses have shoe box sized bedroom that barely fit a double bed but not much else. A bedroom hang cannot fit ample wardrobe space etc is not really a bedroom at all.

Depends how many are living in the house we have a 3 bed, which is 2 large bedrooms and a box room but only had one DC who has now left home so was entirely suitable for us but had we chose to have another child we would have wanted a 4 bed house. We both wfh for a while and that would have been difficult if DS had still been at home and using a bedroom.