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Thanks for the nice comments on the house. The way you see it in the photos is how we prep it for showings, so you can see we really pride ourselves on making it look very clean, and staged (to the best of our ability).
I am so glad that someone here pointed out it is listed incorrectly as having 2 bathrooms. I have immediately contacted our realtor and asked her to correct that. It is odd because the MLS listing is correct but everywhere it is listed is incorrect. Our realtor says she will make sure the error is corrected. We definitely do NOT want to mislead people.
Yes, the bed/bath configuration is a challenge. The house is very spacious. Not only does it have 4 bedrooms, but it also has 2 bonus rooms on the third floor which could be made into bedrooms. Perfect for a large or growing family, but the bathroom situation is an issue.
For various reasons, adding a bathroom, or enlarging the powder room is un-doable for us at this time, so those options are off the table. We just have to hope for a buyer who either is like us....small family that likes a lot of space but doesn't need many baths, or a regular sized family who is willing to add a bathroom.
It is a lovely home and I can understand your frustration. A few questions. Are all 4 bedrooms and the one full bath on the same level which I am assuming is the 2nd level? Is the 1/2 bath is on the first level?
If the full bath is on the 2nd floor with the 4 bedrooms then the obvious answer is to add another bath which would mean lose one bedroom. If possible the ideal situation would be to create a master bedroom suite. Bedroom, bath, walk in closets. etc. This would require combining two of the bedrooms. Not that you want to undertake such a project but one consideration might be to have plans and an estimate to do so drawn up. You could pass the plans along to prospective buyers. Make it easy for them to understand what could be done.
3 bedrooms, 2 and 1/2 baths including a lovely master bedroom suite sounds more attractive then 4 bedrooms with 1 and 1/2 bath.
An argument could be made that the two rooms on the 3rd level could be bedrooms.
Wow... it's a 4 BR, 1.5 Bath? That's a pretty terrible BR/BA ratio!
I can imagine larger families being attracted to the home, only to be repelled by that particular problem. You'd have to find a couple or small/new family that wouldn't be too distressed about that or else would be fine with converting a bedroom into a bath.
Sidenote - Property Taxes in Jersey are EXPENSIVE! 7k for a house assessed at 119?!
That's actually a little low for NJ. Taxes can easily get above $10K+
Adjoining "dressing room" (1 room) which has large California closets
2 more bedrooms
3rd Floor has:
2 rooms that are big enough to be bedrooms (we are calling them "bonus rooms"): one has a closet and one does not
So altogether there are 4 rooms with closets, 2 rooms without, so we cannot list the closet-less rooms as bedrooms. Therefore we have 4 bedrooms.
If someone wanted to add a full bath to our house, there is plenty of space to do it and the most logical place, I think, would be to create a master suite on the second floor. Then they could add a closet to one of the closet-less rooms to keep the bedroom count up.
Adjoining "dressing room" (1 room) which has large California closets
2 more bedrooms
3rd Floor has:
2 rooms that are big enough to be bedrooms (we are calling them "bonus rooms"): one has a closet and one does not
So altogether there are 4 rooms with closets, 2 rooms without, so we cannot list the closet-less rooms as bedrooms. Therefore we have 4 bedrooms.
If someone wanted to add a full bath to our house, there is plenty of space to do it and the most logical place, I think, would be to create a master suite on the second floor. Then they could add a closet to one of the closet-less rooms to keep the bedroom count up.
This may be another reason why buyers are not biting. They are expecting 4 bedrooms, but when they tour they see three bedrooms and a dressing room/closet plus some bonus space.
I just checked Zillow and it is listed as 4 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. So that may be why when people show up and tell their realtors they are not interested as it is not what they were expecting.
I just checked realtor.com and the address from Zillow does not come up. You may be missing some potential buyers as many people do their searches on realtor.com.
The reason I ask is that the photos show a clean, decluttered home but the vignettes that stagers typically arrange are missing for the most part.
The fluffy towels and basket of spa products in the bathroom, the coffee tables or hassocks with trays in front of the sofas, the pots of herbs and bowls of oranges in the kitchen, the wine goblets and wine bottle on a tray in the gathering room...
With the exception of drum set and bookcase, the bonus space appears empty. A stager might set this up as a work out area (buying used equipment from CL) or spacious office under the theory that a lot more people are looking for work out areas and spacious home offices than are looking for places to play the drums.
With 3 bedrooms and 1 full bath, a stager might focus on helping the professional couple fall in love with your house. So they would create vignettes that would appeal to such folks, areas they would feel comfortable in.
One of the things that struck me in looking at your photos is that the floors appear to need work. Would your budget allow painting the sun/screen room floor? Is there a product you could put on the other wood floors? It may be just the way the photos are taken. If so, please disregard.
As every real estate agent can tell you, buyers fall in love with homes that are not at all what they say they are looking for. Do it all the time. Staging creates illusions that buyers fall in love with.
If someone wanted to add a full bath to our house, there is plenty of space to do it and the most logical place, I think, would be to create a master suite on the second floor. Then they could add a closet to one of the closet-less rooms to keep the bedroom count up.
I would have a contractor or architect come up with a plan for something like that, and a cost estimate to do the work, and have that information available for buyers, including sketches. Show them what is possible, and how much it would cost, and that would go a long way towards helping buyers to see the possibilities.
And just because there is space up there doesn't mean it is suitable for a bathroom which requires plumbing and sometimes extra structural support, so a competent contractor could answer those questions that a buyer would have about the feasibility of adding a bathroom on that level of the house.
How did you price your house? Is it based on actual comparables of recent sales, in your neighborhood, for homes with 3/1.5? Or is your asking price a function of what you paid for the house in 2004 (zillow says $299,000)? Also, all else being equal, "bonus space" in basements, attics, or enclosed porches almost never adds the same value on a price per sf basis that other homes achieved for the same square footage in originally built out space.
As for pricing: Real estate agents aren't always the best source for the correct value, or pricing, for a house like yours that is a little out of sync with homes in the neighborhood - consider asking a certified appraiser the market value of your home. And what you or anyone paid for a home in 2004 may have no relevance to the value today. You bought at the peak in the "go go" years of rising prices when buyers (perhaps you?) were willing to overlook the bath problem just to get a foothold in the market, but in today's more tepid market buyers are much more particular about deficiencies like that, less wiling to overlook it, and are far less willing to pay (overpay?) for a deficit that they will need to correct if they hope to resell some day.
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