Buying on floor space vs bedrooms

Grenage

My preference is for bigger rooms - provided there are enough bedrooms to go around. Our house is only a three bed, but they're large doubles, and there's a bathroom of the same size.



Bedrooms are rarely just for sleeping - it doesn't take long for wardrobes, chests and dressers to appear.

pinkpiglit

Linton wrote: »

Are you looking for an investment or a home?


For a home I would put the priorities in the decision as:
1) Number of rooms
2) Usability of rooms
3) Layout

.,..
....
10) Total sq ft

I'm the exact opposite. When we were selling our flat a few years ago and looking to buy our next one, I wouldn't bother looking at ones where the square footage was too small.

Also, if the listing didn't include floor space I would ring the agents to find out as I have seen too many shoe boxes in my time!

Luckily we ended up with a pretty big two bedroom flat ("big" by London standards that is..... tiny compared to everywhere else I'm sure :rotfl:)

Beenie

We use the square footage as our point of reference. As others say, if you have 4 bedrooms but they are pokey little horrors, they are of no interest unless you actually need 4 bedrooms.

When buying our current home, 6 places were in the running. We worked out £ per sq ft on each, and then did a comparison. It helped us buy the home we are in, bought for space and pleasure rather than 'bedrooms'.

NaughtiusMaximus

Thrugelmir wrote: »

Bedrooms are just just rooms to sleep in. Far more importantly is the downstairs layout. The use of space and the flow. Outlook on the garden. Never bought based on floor area. Nor a home as an investment.

Not necessarily, there are just the two of us in our larger than averaqe 3 bedroom house (the combined square footage of the 3 bedrooms is greater than that of many 4 bed houses) and only one of those rooms has a bed in it. We regard total space as more important than number of bedrooms, when house hunting I've always found it a little annoying that many listings don't mention total floorspace.

lincroft1710

3,000 sq ft is ridiculous for a 3 bed house! The average 3 bed is about 1,000 sq ft.

A 3,000 sq ft house will be expensive to heat, take a long time to clean and take a long time and cost a lot to decorate.

phoebe1989seb

pinkpiglit wrote: »

I'm the exact opposite. When we were selling our flat a few years ago and looking to buy our next one, I wouldn't bother looking at ones where the square footage was too small.

Also, if the listing didn't include floor space I would ring the agents to find out as I have seen too many shoe boxes in my time!

Luckily we ended up with a pretty big two bedroom flat ("big" by London standards that is..... tiny compared to everywhere else I'm sure :rotfl:)

Same here.

Our current house (rural 400 year old cottage) only has two bedrooms but is 1400 sq ft. We have a serious amount of stuff having downsized from a 3500 sq ft house eleven years ago (with a couple of other houses - 2000-2500 sq ft - inbetween) and as there's only the two of us at home these days, the number of bedrooms is less important than overall property size.

I think we were spoiled by the fact our first flat (mansion block type) had a huge 30' living room. By comparison, the only bedroom was just large enough​ for a double bed and a wardrobe - there was about 1' each side of the bed - but from then on we sought out homes with decent sized living spaces!

andrewf75

Always found it odd how little notice we take of floor space area in the UK. In most countries I have experience of they use it as the main thing and everyone can “picture” these sizes.

I suspect the fact that our houses are comparatively small and getting smaller has a lot to do with it!

Measurement confusion probably comes into it as well. Anyone involved in designing, building or measuring would use sqm, but those with a vested interest in exaggerating the size of a property rather than actually communicating the size like to use sq ft.

LondonSi

So you all mostly agree that price per sq/ft is the best way to go!

Ebany

We just paid more for a 4 bed house than a nearby 5 bed house cause the 4 bed one was bigger - I keep pointing out to people that we wanted more space, not more rooms!

In this case both were new builds, and the only bedroom in the 5 bed house that was bigger than any of the bedrooms in the 4 bed was the master of the 5 bed was slightly larger than the smallest one in the 4 bed. The flow of each was much of a muchness, but the 5 bed had the standard new build approach of 'Its a bedroom, you only want to put a bed in it, right?'

arciere

LondonSi wrote: »

So you all mostly agree that price per sq/ft is the best way to go!

It's a combination, I would say.
I'm from Italy, and when I bought my first property here in the UK I admit I struggled a bit. In Italy, the first thing you see is sq meters.
Imagine you have two properties, both 100 sq meters, one 3 bedrooms, the other two: why does the first one have to be more valuable than the other? I think that's probably why you get tons of tiny rooms in the London area: same space, but more value if you add another bedroom.

That being said, I did end up buying a tiny 50 sq/m maisonette with 2 bedrooms