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An upstairs bedroom with no heat sounds great to me. But then I like a cold room to sleep in. Residual heat wafting up from below is likely more than enough. Heck back in my apartment days on the upper floors I never used the furnace at all and got by with heat rising from downstairs.
I doubt most people would even notice it unless an inspector pointed it out.
I had friends who custom-built their ranch house. It only had one bedroom on the main level. The second bedroom was in the basement.....except the basement kept getting water so the carpet kept getting ruined. I guess in the end it hasn't mattered, as they're still living there 25 years later.
I'd say wallpaper is a bad choice. When people see houses with wallpaper, they know they're in for a lot of time, money and aggravation getting rid of it. I wonder whatever happened to the home I bought in the 80's when wallpaper was huge. I had EVERY ROOM papered, including up the stairs, the attic bedroom, the kitchen, etc. And it was in trendy colors like mauve.
Has no one heard of a portable oil-filled electric heater? If the room gets too cold, just wheel the little guy in.
Who needs oil? I have a Dyson unit that would easily replace the work of the heating duct. It both cools and heats and runs on a fairly accurate thermostat.
It looks like a piece of sculpture, turns and/or aims up or down if I want it to. It's far quieter than this invention used to be when it first came on the market as a cooling-fan-only replacement. It can be placed on a table or desk or on the floor, which works especially well for rising heat. I paid a little over $100 when it was a this-day-only price on one of the TV shopping channels.
Am I surprised so many here would buy a house with a bedroom with not heat? yes. But it is what it is.
I'm asking around among my friends and co-workers about this…so far two say, no heat to a room…no sale.
It is interesting to hear what some people this is acceptable, or not.
And what changes have affected resale, or not.
I'm sure there'll be other things people have done that might be considered questionable by some.
There is a house in a very fancy area of Los Angeles known as Hancock Park which I got to appraise years ago. As God is my witness, the floors on the first floor were replaced with clear Lexan panels, there was about 10-12" of water and there were dozens of grown up Koi fish swimming under the floor. You could just sit and watch them go by. It was the weirdest thing I've ever seen. I'm not even sure just how they accomplished it.
In the spirit of this thread, the OP asked if anyone did anything that hurt resale. I think a lot of people wouldn't admit it or feel they didnt, even though they actually did. So I will fess up. I did something that hurt resale of one of my homes.
I had a house for sale a while back during the start of the real estate bust. Houses were going down in value it seemed by the day. I had several homes in the neighborhood that were my competition. I had a few lookers and no one liked the kitchen. I didn't either. It was outdated with cabinets that were from the 70's. Flat paneled dark walnut. They were horrible but the kitchen was huge and a nice selling point if someone had the funds to update it. I didn't.
After one person looked at the house several times, she passed. That was the closest I got to any sort of serious interest at that point. I was pretty down about it. I decided to paint the cabinets a faux finish to make it a bit more updated. I received compliments on it from family and friends but low and behold that looker came back for another showing a month later. Turns out she had second thoughts and wanted to see the house again due to the size of the kitchen being much larger. I got feedback she freaked when she saw the cabinets. Whoops. We did sell the house a month later to a couple that said they had plans to rip out the kitchen anyway so they didn't care. I have painted many kitchen cabinets but that time, I tried something different which turned off a buyer.
Houses that I have seen that turned off buyers were some gems for us. We found a 2 bedroom home that was previously 3 bedrooms. The prior owners knocked down a wall making the living room larger. it was an older couple that had remarried and they had several children each plus a slew of grandkids. They wanted a really large living room for gatherings. The room was odd shaped and it was obvious the floor plan had been altered. We put the wall back up and gained instant equity as we made the home a 3 bed again.
To answer the OPs second question. Closing off HVAC to a room would be a concern of mine but we are handy an would figure out how to fix it if we were interested. For others, I can see that hurting resale.
........ Who buys a house with no heat going to one of the rooms?…am I the one who's wrong on this, because I NEVER would have removed a heat duct to a bedroom.
It's very possible that the buyer didn't notice that one room didn't have a heating vent. They looked and saw vents in the living room and kitchen. The heat system might have been tested and it worked.
It doesn't occur to people to go around and count the heat vents in a house. If the house had forced air heat that worked, they don't necessarily go around to see the location of every vent. Most buyers do not spend all that much time looking. It would be an easy thing to miss and doubly easy if the house still had furniture in it.
OK, I do count heat vents as I make a list of all repairs to do. Most times vent covers have to be replaced and I want to know a pretty good estimate of the costs to update my purchase, but most buyers don't look at a house the same way I do. I count wall switches and electric plugs, too. And GFI's. And I look under sinks and my agent told me she had never seen a buyer look under sinks before.
Ruining value? I looked at a house that was very freshly decorated just to sell. Everything was well done and brand new. The issue was that the decorating colors were forest green and deep burgundy, and included some green and burgundy wall paper and brand new burgundy wall to wall carpet. The kitchen cabinets had been painted forest green.
I would have had to tear out all the carpet, repaint every wall, redo the kitchen cabinets, and remove the wall paper. I just figured that the seller had just spent a great deal of money with the redecorating and wouldn't entertain my offer priced like the house needed a complete renovation. I walked away and left them to find a buyer who adored a dark green and burgundy decorating scheme.
I think the most usual thing people do that hurts resale is decorate with bright colors, too many different colors, and use "special" effects on the walls and floors. Most people are so awestruck by these things that they cannot even remember what the house actually looked like when they get home. Bad built-in cabinetry in bedrooms and elsewhere is also a turnoff for me.
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