Does my house count as two or three bedroom?

moneyistooshorttomention

My house will be going on the market shortly and I wonder which it counts as - as that will affect the price I can sell it for.

It's a Victorian terrace house with 2 bedrooms and 2 reception rooms. The back reception room can be used as a 3rd bedroom if wanted (indeed I've used it that way myself - when I had in 2 lodgers at a time years ago. I was in master bedroom, one of them was in 2nd bedroom and the other was in the 2nd reception room).

A lot of the little Victorian houses in this area don't have a second reception room, so that's an advantage mine has. Both reception rooms are about 10' x 11'. The back bedroom is the same size as that. The master bedroom is rather longer.

The area is popular with both home-owners and BTL'ers.

So - with the fact that that 2nd reception room can readily be used as either dining room or home office or 3rd bedroom - then I would have thought my house would be worth more than another 2 bedder that is not capable of the dining room being used as anything other than a dining room (ie because access to the kitchen is through it or the back door is in it). My kitchen access is off the hallway and the back door is in the kitchen.

A nearby house with the same number of rooms as mine basically (ie 4 rooms, kitchen and bathroom) was recently marketed as a 3 bedroomer (ie because that 2nd reception room was being used as a 3rd bedroom at the time it sold). That house has sold with no trouble at all.

Any thoughts please?

geri1965_2

Two bedrooms.

notanewuser

Two bedrooms. It's a typical "two up two down" by the sounds of it!!

justjohn

It needs too been seen as a bedroom not a reception room.

How you do that, is the problem too be solved.lol

moneyistooshorttomention

So - views to date - it counts as 2.

Guess I didn't phrase myself quite right - as in...it looks like a 2 bedder - but because its more versatile than a 2 bedder with a less "versatile" 2nd reception room (ie that kitchen entrance or back door positioning) - then I am looking to charge more for it than a "standard" non-versatile 2-bedder.

I can't charge a 3-bedder price - but am wondering just how much more I should than for an identical one (but the dining room has access through it/has never been used as a bedroom/is less versatile). I'm guessing that I would charge around one-third of the price difference between a 2-bedder and a 3-bedder at a guess?

I know that an estate agent who valued it a while back instantly said - "It would be buyable to let out to 3 tenants".

geri1965_2

You don't "charge" a price - you put it on the market for a price, and it's up to buyers if they want to pay that price or not. I would be a bit miffed if I went to look at a house which was marketed as 3 beds, and found that one of them was in fact the dining room.

divadee

It is a 2 bedroom house with 2 reception rooms. When you have viewings you can explain how you used the 2nd reception room.

I like geri would be very annoyed to turn up expecting a 3 bed house and seeing that the 3rd bedroom is really a reception room. It would put me right off.

moneyistooshorttomention

Looks - from replies to date - that maybe I have to describe the house as "2/3 bedrooms and 1/2 reception rooms" and, of course, people will see that 2 of the rooms are upstairs and 2 downstairs from the description and floorplan. No-one would turn up expecting the room concerned to be upstairs from that.

Still wondering how much extra I can price the house at for "versatility" or do I just have to price it at the same price as a 4 rooms house with a non-versatile 2nd reception room and at least feel pleased that my house would sell more easily than theirs because of its extra versatility?

Kynthia

Loads of houses have a dining room that people could chose to use as bedroom. However they aren't usually advertised as such and you will have a stream of dissapointed viewers if you do so.

GDB2222

You can get the EA to state that the dining room is dining room/3rd bedroom, and it can be described as 2/3 bedrooms.

phoebe1989seb

Completely agree with the previous posters - it's a typical 'two up, two down' and therefore should be marketed as a two bedroom house. It's only in certain circumstances that downstairs rooms can be marketed as bedrooms - we sold a house last year that had a very long and chequered history and had been increased in size greatly since being built in Tudor times.

By the time we bought it in 2007 it was being presented as a two (first floor) bed house with a further two bedrooms downstairs plus an additional annexe bedroom.........however the downstairs layout comprised a kitchen, two bathrooms and conservatory as well as a further five rooms ranging from 11' x 9' up to 20' x 14'.

Therefore even if three of the downstairs rooms were utilised as bedrooms, this would still allow two rooms (plus the 17' x 11' conservatory) to be used as reception space.

When we sold our EA advised marketing it as 'three/five bedrooms' and indeed whilst we (there's only the two of us since DS went to uni) utilised only the upstairs rooms as bedrooms, our buyers (who had three kids) intended to use three of the rooms downstairs for that purpose, yet this still left them a dining room and conservatory in addition to the 20' x 14' main reception room.

What I'm trying to get at is that if you have ample rooms remaining after apportioning further downstairs rooms as bedrooms, that's fine, but if it leaves you short on reception space it's not a good idea and in the OP's case the house could realistically only be marketed as a two-bed.........or two/three bed (and one/two receps) if you want to maximise potential.....

Unless being marketed as a student house or similar, I guess