House sizes , bedrooms.

[CharlotteCChapel]

I've noticed a trend in the last few month of estate agents over promising on bedroom numbers.

We're currently living in a 3 bed 3 reception room property.

Upstairs we have 3 double one with en-suite and a large single.

Downstairs we have a largish lounge, a dining room, an offIce and family bathroom.

Next door, an approximate mirror image of ours has just gone on as a 4 bed. They have 2 doubles upstairs and their single is now a family bathroom. Downstairs only the lounge and dining room would be big enough for a bedroom. The office would be a squeeze.

To my mind this is a 3 bed at max as having to need 4 beds means the living area would be cramped.

As our house isn't selling, but the competition has all sold ( new builds) we're hoping for movement. I've been looking at alternatives and found a 6 bed, but once again they're taking 2 out of three receptions and calling them bedrooms. Once again there's not enough living area if you need all 6 beds, we only need 4 permanent and the others are suitable for living area,/temporary bedrooms.

OK rant over

If people are looking for 4 beds they'll be excluding your large 3 bed. My friend has a 10 year old new build that was sold to her as a 3 bed but was sold on as a 4 bed. The kitchen diner and separate living room is now open plan living and an extra bedroom. It's mad but they maximised what they could get for it.

That's madness. Surely potential buyers are going to be disappointed when they view these houses. Then again, the floorplans must reveal the reality of the situation.

I'm looking for a 4 bed and we do not exclude large 3 beds at all, if we excluded 3 beds we would have had less than 10 options in 2 years (and several of them would be 'wrongly' listed).

4 beds are rare here (unless they are the big mansion houses way out of budget) so the most likely outcome is we will reconfigure a large victorian 3 bed into a 4 bed.

One thing everyone seems to hate is a house listed as 4 bed where one bedroom is actually the dining room or a downstairs reception room etc... though, those houses never end up selling. There is one here been on the market for over a year because listing as a 4 bed when you are in fact NOT a 4 bed just pisses people off.

Our 4 bed is a proper 4 bed, 3 doubles one with an ensuite and an office/nursery/living room, and one single.

The 3 bed we're currently in isn't up for sale and when it does it'll be a 3 bed 3 reception.

Seems to be very common these days.

Next door to us has recently gone up for sale as a 4 bedroom. It isn’t. It’s a 3 bedroom with a downstairs study / dining room which they are counting as a 4th bedroom.

Ours has been extended and has four upstairs bedroom, as well as the downstairs study. So on that basis can I say I live in a 5 bedroom house?

Don't let it get to you. Nobody falls for the sophistry of calling e.g. a downstairs office a bedroom.

I've noticed an increase in these as well - even in houses which aren't being maybe sold as an HMO - most don't even bother dressing the so called extra 'bedroom' as a bedroom and it is clearly a study or a dining room.

Like this one https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/158690198#/?channel=RES_BUY

In what way, shape or form is that ground floor front room a bedroom??? You could call it a 5 bed if you included the tiny room with the cot perhaps, but I think even that is pushing it.

I agree.

It doesn’t matter what EAs choose to call rooms, buyers can see for themselves how many bedrooms a house really has.

Yeah, and then in the description of the house they say... to the left, the formal drawing room...
#ridiculous

Saw a house recently where they said there were 4 'generous' bedrooms.
One was 6.4m2, the smallest box room imaginable. #alsoridiculous

So in that example if I were a buyer I would mentally be reframing the house as having 3 bedrooms plus additional room suitable as a study/nursery.

Oh 100%

But why not just say that to start with!!!

You'd get in 'trouble' for misrepresentation in any other sales situation

@abnerbrownsdressinggown Is the market that bad? The sale price is the 2016 sold price

EAs are a bit of a law unto themselves.

I guess they would argue that the room could be used as a bedroom but it’s nonsense really the way they try to dress things up.

With your office if it is wide/large enough to take one, can you get one of those study/beds - that converts to a desk and sell it with the house, labelling office as office/bedroom. Thus counting as a 4/5 bed house. Friend did this in pandemic when house prices were rocketing and luckily maxed out what she got to buy her dream home (smaller but far better area and better off street parking) https://www.studybed.co.uk/ She reckons best £2500 she spent as it gained her about 40/50k.

We sold a house with exactly the same issue - a divided up bedroom resulting in a really small one. It was big enough for a single bed and made a decent sized study, but no more than that. You wouldn't believe how difficult it was to agree how to list it. I think in the end it was on as a four bed house, 3/4 bed house and a three bed house. Some people saw it as a box room/bedroom similar to the ones you get in a very standard 30s layout, but others didn't think it was big enough for any sort of bed (we weren't living in it at the time and the tenants had it as a study). There were endless discussions about search results/preferences etc. I can't remember where it all ended up in the end!

London needs to slow down because it's been crazy for the last 25-30 years. The sales price is six times the price it sold for in 1999. The rest of the country hasn't seen that growth, I'm in the NE and prices fell about 30% in 2008 and then didn't move for 10 years. It does mean housing is still affordable, a similar house in my town would be a quarter of the price.

It does but it seems crazy that is hasn't increased & inflation obviously means it really has devalued. Flats I get but i'm suprised re houses

I suppose there is the issue with secondary schools that way. Fewer people have the budget to stretch to the expensive house with higher mortgage costs (much harder to make equity in recent yrs) & VAT plus general
price rises make private too much as well.

I hadn't even noticed that! I suspect the price was quite punchy in 2016 for area (its West Dulwich really, even though technically it is West Norwood) given the sq ftage.

I’m not sure what others will say but I’ve noticed the same trend and I’m on the market for a 4 bedroom house. When I see the downstairs rooms marketed as bedrooms I instantly pass on them. I think it’s a bit cheeky.