Room sizes

[Wenway93]

Hi currently selling our home. Haven't had much feedback but a couple viewers have said that the bedroom sizes are too small, to me they are standard for the era of house 80’s. Why don’t people compare the sizes to what they currently have and what’s on the listing before viewing. We have 3 doubles one small double and one single. For reference the sizes are all in feet and inches
bedroom one 11’1” x 11”1’
bedroom two 11’3 x 9’9”
bedroom three10’9” x 9’7”
bedroom four 8’3” x 7’6”
bedroom five 8’ x 7’6”

It's really annoying when people don't look at the plans before viewing but often those sizes would be workable if not for the fact that the plug sockets, windows, radiators etc are in stupid places. Things like that you don't see until you view.

Also definitely put sizes in metric. Very few people use feet nowadays and those measurements won't mean anything to them.

We live in a cottagey 3 bedroom 1920s ex-council house, and all of our bedrooms are bigger than yours OP. Even the spare room/office is 3.3 x 3.3m.

Our previous two bedroom flat also had bedrooms significantly bigger than any of those (our main bedroom was 5 x 3.6m).

If I was buying a five bedroom house, I would expect the master bedroom to be spacious and have an en suite. I’d expect at least 3 of the others to be large doubles. Actual large doubles, not a small double with a king size bed jammed in it.

Otherwise why are you buying a five bedroom house? Unless you have eight kids, the only reason anyone wants five bedrooms is to have a big luxurious house.

Yeah that is so true, but I go by what I would do. I can see through a room that doesn’t have the furniture in like a dining room without a dining table a bedroom without a bed etc, and I study the sizes and floor plan before even considering a viewing. I would even street view the house as that also plays a part. My assumption was that everyone did but clearly I’m wrong

Thank you. Again your house is a different era to mine. If you look at 80’s houses you will see the majority are similarly sized.
but I do agree when someone sees a five bedroom home they are possibly expecting it to be bigger. I cannot do anything about the room sizes. I’m certainly not knocking down walls and buying furniture that I don’t want to dress a room.

Me too
but then I’m 58 so why wouldn’t I be!

Actually my family home was/is a 1980s 4 bedroom Kier home. All four bedrooms are substantially bigger than both yours and mine.

This isn’t it (I’m not linking to my mum’s house) but it’s very similar, and is about the sort of proportions I’d expect if I was in the market for a five bedroom house.

Yes and that currently around twice the price of mine so for that price I’d definitely expect a sizeable house

Whilst Estate Agents will class anything you can get a double bed in as a double room that doesn’t mean it’s actually a double room in terms of space standards
12m2 is a double room
7m2 generally classed as the minimum for a single brm

By those recognised standards you do not have 3 double bedrooms OP

Looking at the two smaller spaces they don’t look large enough for singles either

If the other houses around the area have the same size bedrooms classed as doubles/singles like yours and have sold for around the same price then It’s what is the norm for your area regardless of what is the normal size for doubles etc in other areas.
However for a 5 bedroom house I would expect more than one bathroom and one en-suite particularly a detached house.

Our semi detached house was built in the late 80’s and marketed as 2 doubles and a single :-
4.3x2.7 (14’1x8’10)
3.1x3 (10’2x9’10)
3.4x2.3 (11’2x7’7’) although marketed as the single room you can actually fit a double bed and chest of drawers in it with space to move around.
All 3 rooms have fitted wardrobes which are not included in the room sizes. The upstairs hall also has a storage cupboard.

New builds being built near us would class our smallest room as a double room and some even the master even though the new builds have no wardrobes as standard.

Do your bedrooms have fitted wardrobes in addition to the bedroom floor sizes or do you have freestanding wardrobes/cupboards for storage ?
That will effect how the rooms look, on paper the sizes look ok but when viewing people will see wardrobes etc have to fit in the room as well as a bed.

Can you post a floor plan to see storage etc in the house.

Otherwise why are you buying a five bedroom house? Unless you have eight kids, the only reason anyone wants five bedrooms is to have a big luxurious house.

Well I'm guessing if you have eight kids you wouldn't be buying a 5 bed? If you had 4 kids you might, which isn't a particularly massive family.

Not all houses with a higher than average amount of bedrooms are luxury mansions. That's quite an odd assumption to make.

This house is lovely but there are many people that need 4 or 5 beds and wouldn't be able to stretch to a house like that. Equally if people are looking at OPs listing and still viewing her property they are not expecting to find anything like that house.

There are plenty of 5 beds near me and they're just extended average semis. I'm sure the people that buy them would absolutely love to own the house you've linked to but unfortunately a smaller semi is what's achievable for them.

OP I wouldn't assume that people haven't looked at the floor plans. As others have said, sometimes it's hard to get a sense of size unless you're in the room, and in other cases EAs will measure from the widest points of the room but in reality features like sloped ceilings or chimney breasts make the usable space smaller.

What is most likely happening is that viewers are on the fence about your house and they're viewing to see if there are ways to work around the room sizes, with the view to making an offer under asking. But if there are other things in the house that are putting them off (ie the kitchen/bathroom need updating, the living spaces are also small, things are bit more tired than they appear in the listing, etc) they will mentally start to add all the costs up and realise it's not worth it, or the offer they would be willing to make is too far from your asking price. When the EA asks for feedback the simplest thing to say is that the room sizes are too small, and the rest of the house isn't nice enough to make up for it/make it worthwhile to knock some rooms together.

You seem to also be fixated on whether the rooms are typical for the style of house. Presumably there are other styles of house in the area that people will be comparing yours to? Not everyone sets out to buy on a particular estate or even a particular town so they may very well be comparing your house to houses from other time periods that offer larger rooms.

Thank you. We’ve had no negative feedback in regards to the actual house. Everyone has said it’s well presented we have a new kitchen and both bathrooms are under 5 years old all modern so no money needs spending on those only If buyer didn’t like them but that’s all a personal choice, but they certainly aren’t scruffy.

No built in wardrobes. The dressing room has freestanding wardrobes. We have a large cupboard that originally had the hot water tank in upstairs and an under stairs cupboard as well as another downstairs cupboard so plenty of storage

Pointless if you don’t lower price as same time as changing marketing from 5-3 bedrooms.

Is there a toilet downstairs?

Yes

And not reducing the price or you are?

Not gona ask them to market as a 3 bed. It’s gona be marketed as a 5 bed but will say 3 double bedrooms one small single and one ideal as a study or dressing room. There are . 5 bedrooms regardless of size. When we brought it was marketed as a 5 bed and guess what there’s 5 bedrooms not 3!

Op it’s been on the market a few weeks, you haven’t sold, you have had no offers and just one second viewing. You don’t have any viewings lined up.

If you’re in no rush to sell and don’t actually really want to… then don’t lower the price

but you’ll get there in the end so it’s all down to how quick you wish to sell

When you bought, how many were going to be living there?