Rental Property Investor · San Antonio, TX · Member since 2017 · 25 posts · 9 votes
2 years ago I purchased a 3 bedroom and 2 bathroom property. I remodeled the kitchen and in the process removed one of the bedroom's closet because it was sticking out intto the kitchen. Im about to get it appraised for refinancing. Would that bedroom with no closet be still considered a bedroom?
Real Estate Agent · Garden City, NY · Member since 2016 · 3k+ posts · 1k+ votes
9y
Juan Mendoza
International standards, Fannie Mae, FHA make no mention or requirement for a closet. It's a bit of a myth. Many older homes were built without closets.
From appraisal today:
"The Code refers to "habitable rooms" not bedrooms
The essence of the 2015 International Residential Code is that the code does not specifically use the term bedroom, but refers to all habit- able areas of a home. However, in Code # R310.1, at least one opening must open to the outside. Therefore, it can be said that for each sleeping room, there must be two emergency escape and rescue opening.
A bedroom ceiling needs to be at least 7 ft. tall. It's okay if some por- tions of ceiling are below this level, but at least 50% of the ceiling needs to be a minimum of 7 ft. in height. Most ceilings tend to be at least 8 ft. tall, so ceiling height is not usually an issue (R305.1).
Lastly, the room should be at least 70 sq. Ft., and more specifically the room cannot be smaller than 7 feet in any horizontal direction. (R304.2 / R304.4).
The Closet Myth
Many believe that a closet defines a bedroom. In short, the market defines a bedroom as well as other considerations listed above.
As a practical matter a bedroom should probably have a closet since most buyers expect one, but techni- cally the International Residential Code does NOT mandate a bedroom to have a closet. So the lack of a clos- et does not necessarily mean a room cannot be a bedroom.
However, as Fannie Mae makes clear, the appraiser must consider what is expected in the local market, and what is required by the local city/county."
Real Estate Agent · Cupertino, CA · Member since 2016 · 4k+ posts · 1k+ votes
9y
It needs to be permitted to be qualified as an extra bed room. Otherwise it is UNPERMITTED taking a note by the appraiser as added on W/o a permit. If you remove the structure beam it often is red tagged.
The posters who are saying that the building code does not require a closet for a room to be considered a bedroom are correct. However, the MLS in San Diego as well as the appraisers I've worked with do.
You'll definitely want to check to see how the topic is addressed in the particular locale the property is in.
Rental Property Investor · San Antonio, TX · Member since 2017 · 25 posts · 9 votes
9y
UPDATE: We built the closet and the day of the appraisal I asked the appraiser about the closet. She said a closet is needed for a room to be considered a bedroom in houses built after the 1920s. So it was a good decision to do the closet.
Hello Juan, Im a licensee B, C15, C33 contractor in the Bay Area since 1976. If you google ca. building codes/ does a bedroom need to have a closet to be legal. the answer is NO!
Hovever other requirements need to be meat to be a legal bedroom.
I have renovated 12 houses in my life and just finished renovating a 1939 bungalow in the Oakland Hills and building an ADU on the same property out of the garage.
Anyone who answers the presented question with solely a "yes" or a "no" without first referencing their local city's or jurisdiction's building code would be guessing. Here is the current building code in Oakland, CA:
"In Oakland, California, a bedroom closet is a separate closet in a sleeping room that has a door opening that's at least 2 ft 4 in wide by 6 ft 8 in high.
The Oakland Building Maintenance Code defines a bedroom as a sleeping room with a separate closet.
Other bedroom requirements per California code: A bedroom must be at least 70 sq ft and have a ceiling height of at least 7.5 ft. A bedroom must have a window and adequate heating and ventilation. A bedroom must have an easily accessible emergency exit. A bedroom must have a door that communicates directly with other areas of the dwelling unit."
Therefore, the question becomes exactly how one defines bedroom "closet" because that specific word is not defined in the Code in Oakland, CA. Therefore, if it is solely defined as something with a "2'4" by 6'8" door that is separate from the sleeping part of the bedroom, and inherently that space must be because clothes, etc. is different space than where one sleeps, there are plenty of floor to ceiling closet armoires that have doors that are at minimum that size and would then meet the definition of closet in Oakland, CA. In my case, I had small bedrooms in a small house and took out the small closets to each of the bedrooms because I needed that space to create a larger bathroom, utility room, and create a hall closet that before did not exist, leaving both bedrooms without a traditional "closet". During renovation, I built a traditional "closet" for each bedroom and they take up so square footage from each bedroom they stick out like a sore thumb! I just had a realtor come over who suggested I demo them and put in wall mounted armoires that have external doors that have doors at least 2'4" by 6'8" so that I would meet Oakland's definition for a closet and allow my bedrooms to meet Oakland Code and regain much needed floorspace and get much more efficient closets.
Some codes just do not make sense, and I think this discussion tells us that we have to define a closet a certain way to call a bedroom a bedroom is just ridiculous in current times as long as there is adequate storage put into a bedroom for storage needs. If anyone spends any time in Europe, barely any jurisdiction impose these limitations on homeowners/builders yet people live in much smaller spaces... and very happily.