What Is A Bedroom?

Ah, a simple question one would ask, what is a bedroom?

Well, a bedroom by definition is generally an interior room; large enough to fit at least a twin-size bed have a closet and a window for ingress, egress type access. Usually a bedroom is going be at least 9X9 in size roughly, albeit that is a small room. An average size bedroom for an average home in our market is probably anywhere between 10x12 and 15x15. Of course there are larger bedrooms out there in different shapes and sizes but this is a good parameter to use.

So, why would I take the time to write all this? Well, recently we had a wonderful deal we were looking to buy. We really liked the numbers off the ad we got and the pictures looked good. However when my project manager walked the property, they simply stated that one of the bedrooms seemed really, really small. And I thought to myself, well could it be expanded? And they said ‘Well, maybe a little but the floor plan will be very, very strange. I am not sure that will work.’ Upon further investigation of the house, the room in question was really not a bedroom but more of an oversize L-shape hallway, with a half bath off of it. It was actually a joke that it would actually be considered a bedroom. It turns out the house was really a two bedroom home and not a three bedroom home. This literally swayed our numbers by $35,000 since to create a true third bedroom would have required creating it in an elevated fashion off the back of the house and there was a basement below it so there was no support existing to support such an addition. It would all have to be built from scratch. Not to mention new plumbing because if were going to do all that, we might as well make it a master suite and bring the bathroom in there too.

So we contacted the agent and they were displeased with our assessment! We told them they were flat out in misrepresenting the house. We don’t think this is a good way to do business especially when it is quite clear it was a two bedroom point. We think it’s very important that people understand what a simple question like ‘what is a bedroom is?’, especially as a licensed professional. When you don’t have enough room for a simple bed and dresser, sorry, it’s really not a bedroom. As a wholesaler or rehabber or agent, it is important to get this point right because misrepresentation is truly a big waste of everybody’s time.