Property experts - help please with bedroom conversion

[LeevMarie]

Hi everyone,
We want to market our 3 bedroom house by the end of this year and are thinking of converting our downstairs 2nd living space/office at the back of the house into an additional bedroom so hopefully the estate agent can list it as a 4 bed.

The room is currently partitioned by a stud wall, which I'm going to remove this weekend, so that will make it big enough to comfortably fit a double bed and storage. It has a window, central heating and is accessed via a door from the landing, just off the kitchen. The downstairs toilet is next door, but separated by a solid wall.

The only thing I'm worried about is there is a patio door in the room that leads out to the garden. We also have access to the garden via the kitchen, so I can block this door up if I need to. Does anyone know if this is likely to cause a problem?

Are there any other considerations I've missed? It'd be great to be able to say it's a 4 bedroom - they're so much more in demand around here!

As someone looking for a 4 bed house -nothing more annoying than a 3 bed priced up as a 4 bed like this. We use a downstairs dining room as a bedroom as needs must, but it’s still a 3 bed house and I wouldn’t expect 4 bed money for it. Because it’s not a 4 bed house.

Whilst I understand the frustration, if a house has 4 bedrooms, irrespective of where they are located, it's a 4 bedroom house.

Our friends' home is 5 bedrooms, one of which is located downstairs with an ensuite shower room. They previously had an elderly relative living with them, and prior to that, a teenager occupied the room which worked out really well when he began to socialise and his friends could use the downstairs toilet without needing to tramp through the house.

Identifying what works for you and your family is all part of the process of house-hunting, I'm afraid. One man's trash and all that . . .

I agree with the previous poster. I would not count this as a bedroom and it would annoy me if it was marketed as a bedroom.

Is it actually the dining room?

I would talk to a few estate agents before you do anything - they will be able to guide you. Worth considering that a lot of people want offices with Wfh now.

By your logic, I could turn my sitting room and dining room into bedrooms and claim my house is a 5 bed.

I did see a 4 bed house where one room was downstairs and it had an en-suite that was only accessible from the bedroom plus a kitchenette area. It was more like a little studio than a bedroom. More often than not, it's just a room that others would call a playroom and isn't what people are looking for when they search for 4 beds. Especially if it's a narrow garage conversion.

A 3 bed house with a living room and a dining room is a 3 bed house, whatever furniture you put in the dining room.

A house with 3 upstairs bedrooms, 1 downstairs room with a bed in it and 1 downstairs living room with a sofa in it is not worth any more than a house with 3 upstairs bedrooms, 1 downstairs room with a dining table in it and 1 downstairs living room with a sofa in it.

But if you want to waste your money doing a "conversion", then crack on. You won't recoup it in the selling price though.

Have to agree with previous posters.

You say it's your second living space. So if you make that into bedroom 4, you will only have one living space.

A 4 bed house needs more than one living space.

You will waste time and money doing this, and it'll probably take longer to sell if you price it as a 4 bed.

I think you'd get more interest at the top end of a 3 bed house range with a separate study and second livingroom/playroom. But the people who could really advise you would be an estate agent. Why not talk to one before doing the work, and see what they say about current value vs value after you've done the modifications you have planned.

Market it as a 3 bed as that’s what it is. It’s just silly when people try as pass dining rooms as bedrooms. Sure; people can furnish rooms as they see fit. But your dining room is your dining room.
It will be fine to remove the patio doors. Will be fire regs compliant as there’s another exit door from the kitchen.

You’ll fool no one

I'm afraid I agree with the previous posters. I would spot this when looking at the floor plan straight away and not be prepared to pay the same as a traditional 4 bedroom house. I would recommend discussing with an estate agent before investing in changes that you may see no return from.

Surely with lots of people working from home an office or second sitting room which could be a playroom /games room etc is far better than trying to call it a 4 bed when it isn't.

In a 2 storey house most people expect the bedrooms to be upstairs. Yes someone could want it as a bedroom but as PP have pointed out having one bedroom downstairs and the rest upstairs only appeals to a small number of people.

List it as a 3 bed, if the price seems higher than other 3 beds most people click to see why anyway just out of curiosity. Do you also have a dining room or dining kitchen?

Your friend's situation is different firstly because it has an en-suite off the room so it feels more like a downstairs bedroom (my sister bought a house like this and used that bedroom as a playroom with a handy toilet) but also because it was already a 4 bed. Most families are 2 adults and 2 children so a 3 bed would be fine to accommodate that.

We have a downstairs 4th bedroom, but it's a suite including dressing room and decent en-suite. Perfect for a teen or elderly relative but I'd still hesitate to market as an ordinary 4 bed.

Thanks for the replies. Well, the helpful ones, anyway!

Where have I said that I'm converting my dining room? We have a dining kitchen with a large dining area that will remain very much in situ. 😂

Anyway, I'll have a chat with the estate agent. Actually, I might begin by moving my office in there - good point from pp about WFH. My desk and stuff is in the 3rd bedroom at the moment, which makes everything look really cluttered. Maybe an office space/playroom is a better selling point anyway.

@SheliaBeCalmNow fair point about the ensuite. I really does feel much more like a bedroom than mine ever will (unless I was to turn my downstairs toilet into a shower room which would be a crazy expense when we plan to sell anyway). I'll just stick with setting it up as a proper office space and return my 3rd bedroom to appeal more to families (rather than being overwhelmed with all of my work crap!).

I get what everyone is saying regarding a 4th bedroom in reality being a second reception/dining or playroom and the fact that some sellers are trying to squeeze more money out of buyers by claiming it's a four bed, but what about the following scenario....

Upstairs - two bedrooms plus bathroom

Downstairs - kitchen, conservatory plus five reception rooms and two bath/shower rooms

This is what we had in a previous house. There's only a certain amount of reception rooms you need - even if you have a living room, dining room, playroom and snug/library/study that's only four. Ours was five plus a conservatory.

When we bought it the previous owners were using part of the ground floor as an annexe for elderly parents and we intended to have that part for DS and his GF's use when they came home from university although in reality they stayed with her family/their friends who were closer. We did have lots of furniture as we'd downsized from a much larger house so just filled all those additional rooms with sofas, bookcases etc but tbh we didn't really use the rooms that often.

When we sold the EA suggested marketing as 2/5 reception rooms and 2/5 bedrooms. Our
buyers had lots of DC so used three of the ground floor rooms as bedrooms.

@LeevMarie I would market that room as office/playroom which covers several bases and also means people know that they could easily also use it as a second sitting room.

If you take your own photos you can tidy a room and stage it, take a photo, really study it for anything that screams things like not enough plug sockets, trailing wires, then put the crap back in as long as everything looks neat and tidy. We actually hired a small storage unit where we moved lots of stuff to to make it seem like we weren't bursting at the seams. Well worth the money, means you don't have to get rid of things you still need but clutter up the house.

Sorry another one agreeing with the majority of posters. If I was purchasing a 4 bed property and I saw yours I wouldn't go ahead as lovely as it might be. A study and a playroom imo would be the way to go.

That's a really good idea - thanks! It would really help to see the house like that. We haven't lived here for very long, but even in that short time have managed to accumulate an unbelievable amount of stuff, mainly thanks to mine and DH's work sending us all home permanently (. . . and DS - well not his fault, really!).

It probably looks really off-putting to potential buyers, if I'm honest. Ultimately, we want to move for more space, but the flipside of that is that anyone looking at our house will think that it's not adequate for a family (which it totally is, but not a family where 2 people are stuck indoors working all day).