3 bed, 2 bath or 4 bed one bath

[LondonHoBo]

Folks, some advice please. We have just bought a 4 bed 1 bath house in London. It's only the two of us and that's not likely to change.

Original idea was to convert the second bedroom into a walk in wardrobe with en-suite. Still like that plan. However, thinking about future proofing, what makes more sense?

We are likely to be here for 10 years and have the use of the entire house.

Are we being silly with the extra bathroom and walk in? Will that potentially affect the valuation?

What would you do?

Thanks

A floor plan or room sizes would be handy but from a selling it again perspective, I don’t like the idea of losing bed 2 if we assume 3 and 4 are smaller. You’d end up with a presidential master with an en suite and walk in closet and two small bedrooms and a bathroom. If there is a small bedroom next to Bed 1 I would make that the ensuite and just use one of the other bedrooms as a dressing room.

From the perspective of you enjoying the house, do what you like!

Great points.

All four bedrooms are good sizes. We essentially have two master rooms (both same size over 2 floors at approx 20sqm and then two equally large rear bedrooms at 15sqm. The current family bathroom is also larger than the average.

If we lost a bedroom, we'd still retain 3 great size rooms and enjoy the house as we want.

I reckon that's what we will end up with - but keen to hear views.

From Checkatrade:

Yes. Removing a bedroom is likely to devalue your house. In fact, it’s one of the costliest home improvement mistakes you can make! Your house could sell for a whopping 15% less if you put it on the market after removing a bedroom. When potential buyers look for a home, there are two main things they’ll usually use to filter their search: price and number of bedrooms. By removing a bedroom, you’ll drastically reduce the number of homebuyers that will consider your property and immediately make your property less appealing.

https://www.checkatrade.com/blog/expert-advice/does-removing-bedroom-devalue-house/

I mean you say it's just yourselves and you're not planning kids or anything, so there isn't a pressing need for an extra bathroom as there would be for a larger family. Even if you have guests over I assume they will be moving through relatively quickly, so any inconvenience will be minor.

Keep the bedroom.

Couldn't you just take some space out of one of the bedrooms, which all seem to be decent doubles, to make your en-suite leaving you with 3 decent doubles and a single!

I think it depends on whether it would improve the way you enjoy your home. We get very hung up on investment value of our houses but ultimately it’s your home to live in. I’m not sure on value but I live in a 4 bed one toilet house which is currently under offer but what put a lot of people off was there only being one toilet.

If it's practical, I think it would make more sense to stay with 4 beds and create a second, accessible shower room/loo on the ground floor. These are highly desirable to future buyers who are either getting on themselves or have elderly relatives visiting.

I would make an en-suite using space from one of the bedrooms, leaving you with 3 doubles and one single then it's still a 4 bed house. Then use one of the other bedrooms as a dressing room rather than have a walk in wardrobe

Could you create a Jack and Jill bathroom between 2 of the bedrooms by stealing a bit of space from each? That way you could retain 4 beds and have 2 baths.

I agree with partitioning and preferably retaining/creating an entrance from the hallway.

If you could leave an independently accessed room big enough to be an office, nursery, child's bedroom then you retain the flexibility.

But nothing stops you from using it as a dressing room if that suits you. Especially if you kit it out with IKEA style fittings so you can always remove and reuse if you ever need an extra room or want to change the presentation if you decide to sell.

The majority of families (going by average number of children) only need three bedrooms but many would like a WFH space so if you can't fit this in elsewhere you might narrow your future market.

How important is it that you keep value?

I think we have managed to shave off plenty of value in our house because we've done things to it that arent always popular but its for us and we like living the way we do so it suits us

Change it to what you want then if you sell covert it back if its likely to add more value. That's what my neighbours did.

If you're planning on having guests to stay I'd go for the additional bathroom. Is there a loo downstairs in addition to the bathroom? This is also a factor.

I am single person. I am half heartedly looking at a move in the future. If a home has just one bathroom in the details, I look at the floorplan to see where I can fit in another, however small.