Would you buy a house if . . . . .

[LisaLastic]

Would you buy a house if it had a 2 separate rooms downstairs - 1 currently being used as a lounge/dining room and the other room being used as a playroom? Could you see passed the fact the one room was being used as a playroom and see it as a potential dining room if there were no table and chairs in it?
My estate agent thinks not and that it will knock 10s of 1000s off what someone is willing to pay for it. Any thoughts before I create a storage nightmare and upset kids? Thanks!

I would declutter the playroom if possible then to make it look larger. Can you move some toys to garage/shed/ grandparents etc short term? It only needs to be for 1-2 weeks if you're lucky and get offers quickly. I think making the room look bigger would be an advantage as it will make it easier to see as a dining room/bedroom/office etc, even if the other room can be used for sofas and dining area.

I was going to say it didn't matter but you've subsequently said

1. your kitchen is too small for a dining table
2. your dining table is in your sitting room
3. there is no sofa or table in your playroom

What furniture does your playroom have in it and what are its dimensions? Is it actually a conservatory? We have a playroom but it has both a sofa (for reading) and an art table in it which is the size of a small dining room. Reading through the lines it sounds to me like your playroom is currently just a dumping ground for toys with no furniture in which case, yes, l agree with your estate agent. Clear out the playroom and move your dining table and chairs and a sideboard in there. Make it into a nice family space with pictures on the wall etc. Get an attractive piece of furniture (NOT plastic boxes) to store toys in the sitting room, you'll probably need to have a big clear out of toys. Take photos with it set up as a dining room and family sitting room. If you don't want to live like that you can swap things round again with the dining table back in the sitting room and the new storage unit in the playroom. I'd also want a sofa in it if it's set up as a playroom though.

The house I am in the middle of purchasing now has a front room with lovely bay windows being used as a living room, and a room at the back a foot bigger being used as a playroom, which overlooks the garden.
Moving in I will probably use the back room as a living room as it's slightly bigger and overlooks the garden - I can see past the vast amount of toys that is currently in there now.
I think your agent is being a bit silly :)

I agree with strong cup of tea's DH that it might make it harder to sell.

I think it's far easier to reimagine a dining room as a playroom than a playroom as a dining room, especially a small room with a fireplace.

If I want a formal dining room, I want to be able to see what size table with chairs will fit in and that there is plenty of clearance for pushing back chairs. Some people will just want a small table for the family to eat, others will want a big table for entertaining. If there is a fireplace, I will be thinking is that going to get in the way of the chair in front of it, will it look cramped or strange if the focal point of the room (the fireplace) is behind the table, I'd like to be able to see that. I can't rely on the floor plan to work it out because EA's often use the maximum width and length of the room so it's hard to tell if a table will fit in front of the fireplace because I don't have the width of the room at that point. Fine if the room is huge, but if it is small, I am going to have to go and measure up myself in person at the viewing. Whereas, you can make a room work as a playroom more easily. If it works as a dining room, it will definitely be big enough to be a playroom. The opposite isn't true. You have far more options for furniture placement in a playroom than you do with a huge table that needs ample space around it to be used comfortably.

If there is only a handful of properties on the market, sitting there doing calculations for every property is just what has to be done, as is going to view houses on the off chance and taking measurements. If there is a lot of choice out there and many similar properities, people may not bother.

In my last house I used my dining room as my bedroom - house SSTC in 24 hours with multiple offers. Your EA is being daft I am sure the vast majority of the British population can see past the toys.

I agree with others on here, that I would be able to imagine a dining room in the playroom, even without the furniture. But, back in my childhood, I remember us having a "den" under the dining table, with a sheet draped over it, which was great fun.

It may be an option to get nice "dining room" photos for the EA website, and still have somewhere the kids want to play!

Maybe it makes some sense if the playroom is beside the kitchen that's too small for a table, and the table in the sitting room is further away. He might be trying to show that the playroom and kitchen could be knocked in to make a decent kitchen diner.

When we bought our current house they were using the dining room as a playroom. We could see immediately, past the toys and general clutter, that it would be a fab dining room.

decent sized table and stuff the toys underneath...table clothes an hide a lot

Are prospective purchasers in your area particularly dim-witted or what? All the agent needs to do is list it as a dining room which is being used as a playroom by the current occupants.

Any fool would be able to see that it could be used as a dining room, just the same as they would any other room that is being used as a home office or whatever.

Of course the majority of people have logic and will overlooking these things but for photographs that are the first thing that draws attention on rightmove to a potential buyer, it's worth making space for a dining table somewhere even if it's just temporary for the photos.

Yes - I did....

We have 3 reception rooms and they were all differently purposed when we bought the house.

We now have a lounge, snug/library (I have loads of books!) and formal dining room. It was a lounge, second study and playroom (also has dining kitchen).

Even whilst we have been here we have changed the uses of rooms as the children grew older (the now adult snug/library that was a second study used to be a playroom/teen den).

Maybe there are some people who can't visualise spaces very well, but that should be addressed in the particulars of the property and in viewing - "currently used as a playroom but ideally placed as a formal dining room" for example.

Frankly I think seeing the potential flexibility of the space is a good thing. That's what we liked about our house - that it was adaptable to our needs long term.

Your EA sounds daft.

This is the stupidest advice I've ever heard.
I'd be approaching other estate agents to see if they had the same view on value and probably lost with someone else.
When I sold my last house we had a £75k discrepancy between the highest and lowest valuations and sold for over asking of the highest.

We then bought a bungalow renovation and not one room is the same use as when it was listed as the original floorplan just didn't work for us.

I would say 90% of people can see instantly how a room can be repurposed. I would also say a playroom is more desirable than a dining room these days and people like a multifunctional kitchen/dining/living entertaining space and want a door to shut on all the kids crap 😂

This

You could ask nicely to borrow a neighbours table and chairs just for the photos