The spare room reinvented

If you were lucky enough to have a spare bedroom in 2020, there is a high chance that you shoved the bed to one side (or got rid of it altogether) to make way for a home office.  In fact, ​​a report from Zoopla suggests that some nine million bedrooms were lost during the pandemic to other uses.

While repurposing a spare room for professional purposes was a necessity that can now be reversed, with workers being recalled to the office, a new study has revealed we’re not quite ready to reinstate the bed.

Recent research by Hillarys set out to establish how our revised home habits have changed our approach to space. Its survey of  2,200 homeowners found 43% of UK properties no longer have a spare room for guests following the pandemic. New uses for a spare rooms include a kid’s playroom (41%), a gaming room (27%), a second living room/quiet room (26%), extra storage, such as a walk-in wardrobe (12%) and a home gym (8%).

When pressed on whether they would convert the space back to a spare room, only 21% of those taking part in Hillary’s survey admitted they might or have already, with the rest (79%) keeping the rooms as they currently are.

The big spare room debate

If you’re thinking of selling your property in the future, you might like to know that one property expert warns that hobby rooms may be detrimental to a sale. Gregory Smith at PriceYourJob says rooms that have been given a highly-personalised purpose – such as a gym – may actually put purchasers off as they may not see the space as beneficial to them.

It’s also worth remembering that the marketing value of a property is usually linked to how many bedrooms it has, so a spare bedroom conversion that’s very hard to reverse needs careful consideration. 

And what about spare rooms that are just that….spare? One property platform analysed data to confirm just how much underused space is worth. Boomin’ found that each spare room in the current UK market is valued at £42,000. It poses the question whether more property owners could downsize, cashing in on the current size of their property, to buy something with fewer – but well used – bedrooms.

Before you reinvent your spare bedroom into a self-care space, a yoga studio or a home cinema, ask us how this may affect the future prospects of your property. Our team is available to offer home moving advice and a property valuation.