Would you buy a house without a downstairs toilet?

[AmusedMaker]

There is room to put one in ( house is a semi with plenty of room at the side ) but obviously this will cost.

The house is mine & I’m thinking of selling but just interested in your thoughts?
would it be a definite no regardless of whether there’s space to put one in ?

I would.
I'd prefer one but it wouldn't be a 'deal breaker'.
Of course accidents happen and there may be a reason why they're essential for some people but I live alone and am able-bodied. I am sure I am not the only one.
Stairs are a handy way of making sure one can still 'do' stairs. It worries me about 'older' (i.e. fifty-plus!) people buying their 'forever bungalow' or such, stairs are a good way of ensuring you keep semi-fit.
Most people I know have a downstairs loo-but if I am at my parents (for example) I still opt to use the upstairs one.

When I was young and lived alone and most my closest frieends and family were younger, sure.

Now a downstairs toilet is essential. Too many family and friends now have some mobility challenges and I want them to have easy access to a toilet when they visit.

Yes I would and yes we have. Where we live is an area which has a huge number of houses built in the 1960s. None of the houses had a downstairs loo (unless they were built as a bungalow, obviously). Our previous house did have a downstairs loo as it was a much more modern build.

But it's rare that a downstairs loo is a deal-breaker. We bought this house because of the location, because it was in catchment for amazing state schools, because the room sizes were decently large, because the price was what we wanted to pay, because it wasn't too much of a project. Yes in an ideal world it woudl have have a downstairs loo and a garden which wasn't north-facing, but we were prepared to compromise on those because it ticked so many other boxes.

I'd say it was very unusual to write off a house completely one on single factor.

? What a weird comment 😂

Wouldn't put me off at all. I'd much rather have a utility room.

Well, we did, for this house (our first) but no, i wouldn't buy a house without this again (unless it had the space for one we could add, but I think I'd like it already built in really). It's fine for us as a couple but now we have a toddler who is nearly ready to toilet train, I can see it being a pain! Our forever home will have two toilets!

It is😄

Side note - your 3 usernames all go well together😁

When we bought our house the bathroom was downstairs (Victorian) I didn't want this but it's really handy.

My parents and my sister all have mobility issues and visiting without a downstairs toilet would be a no.

Was it on my radar 20 years ago when I bought this house - no!

Surely most houses (new builds excluded) DON'T have a downstairs loo? (New builds only have them due to the legal requirement - I reckon most house builders wouldn't bother otherwise)

It wouldn't put me off

Well this is what I thought tbh. We live in a Victorian terrace and NONE of the houses round here (London) have a downstairs loo unless they're either new or massive. But apparently according to PPs that's "unacceptable" and I'm living in "toilet poverty" Who knew? 😂

I've lived in twelve houses and never had a downstairs loo (or more than one loo!)

Toilet poverty😆😆😆

We have six of us and only one toilet. We manage absolutely fine.

Yeah, this. Pretty much nobody I know has a downstairs loo, and I don't see why it's so essential. Unless you have more than 4 kids and really need an extra, it's no reason to stop you buying an otherwise excellent property. And you can usually add one later if you want one.

I suspect we are now going to enter some sort of "four Yorkshiremen" zone where there is a competition to see how many people can share a single toilet and be "absolutely fine".

What will be the final number ?

14 ?

206 ?

I live in a Victorian house and I do have a downstairs loo. I suspect it was once the outside loo. Now it's a shower room. A house across the road from me has 3 loos. One on each floor.
Now that is luxury!

I'd prefer one, but not a dealbreaker. We're in our first house (small three bed semi) and it doesn't have one - very few of the houses we could afford as FTBs did.

If we were to move on from here and buy somewhere a bit bigger, I would definitely prefer one. But bigger houses tend to have them - there's nowhere to put one in this house unless you did a big extension.

I prefer an upstairs bathroom

@AmelieTaylor But yours are quite specific circumstances, a strangely aggressive response.

Depends on your house and what type of buyer it's likely to attract. It's a bit like having a bath if you're likely to sell to a young family.

I have mobility issues, my last move was into a bungalow so I'm hopefully set for my old age.

If a bungalow had been outside my budget I'd have looked at an apartment with a lift.

I definitely wouldn't have bought a house, so a downstairs toilet wouldn't have helped the decision.

I prefer an upstairs bathroom, but ideally there would be a downstairs loo as well. The main benefits for me would be the nobody waiting to use the loo if someone was having a shower, and guests would not need to wander upstairs.

I remember lodging in a house where someone would hog the bathroom around bedtime, which was a complete PITA.

I'm not interested in en-suites.

My house doesn’t have a downstairs loo. Just one upstairs bathroom. We have three adults living in it, there have been 4 adults at times. It’s fine. Though I admit we do have a working outside loo which I’ve used a couple of times in emergencies when Dd is refusing to get out the shower!

Yes I wouldn’t look at a house that didn’t have one. We. had our first downstairs loo 40 year ago. The main reason I like one is for friends and family visiting. Upstairs can be kept private.

My present home is the first one I've ever had a toilet downstairs. Certainly wouldn't put me off buying if there wasn't one downstairs, other than if I was physically struggling. It's great you've got the space if needs be, I'd save your money and someone can always knock off a bit extra on an offer if they need the money for putting one in.

I got one put in +wired and plumbed for shower after 30 years! I'm getting on a bit now and wanted to future proof things for my dotage lol. Up to that there was just a tiny bathroom/shower room upstairs which worked fine over the years.

I have to say I often forget that it's there and go up and down the stairs as I always did ha ha. But that's good for me, it avoids "bungalow legs"!

The biggest and loveliest advantage of a proper downstairs loo is the fact that I can leave upstairs like a tip if I want, and visitors will never need to see it. That's a huge bonus, and when I think about it, it probably always bothered me that some of the nosey relatives could snoop up there if they wanted to huh. Not anymore!

Stairs are free exercise.