Selling a house when it includes a workshop

[Psi]

When I moved out I did a really good tidy up but I kept the room as an electronic work room with all the test gear.

I setup a hidden camera+mic. Partly in case anything went missing but mostly because I wanted to watch and listen to everyone's reactions to seeing the gear.

No one stole anything, and it was crazy hilarious to watch random people discover the room.

Actually there was one kid who really really wanted to take my foam RC jet plane. His mum had to stop him pulling it out of the wardrobe. haha

[Halcyon]

I've thought about this myself. I have a room which is on the plans as a "store room", but it could also be used for a study or baby's bedroom (it's opposite the master bedroom).

I use it purely for my server rack (all the ethernet cables from around the house run into that room down a cable riser attached to the wall, and all the other walls are packed with garage shelving. To dismantle it all would be a huge task and something I'd only ever want to do if I was actually selling and moving out.

[nctnico]

I agree with the general notion that a house will sell better/quicker with minimal furniture (staged) or even empty (and clean). Unless you are in a super attractive area where it doesn't matter.

[Haenk]

I've thought about this myself. I have a room which is on the plans as a "store room", but it could also be used for a study or baby's bedroom (it's opposite the master bedroom).

I use it purely for my server rack (all the ethernet cables from around the house run into that room down a cable riser attached to the wall, and all the other walls are packed with garage shelving. To dismantle it all would be a huge task and something I'd only ever want to do if I was actually selling and moving out.

Put your server rack *and* a baby bed into that room, problem solved, a potiential buyer would love the idea
(Our son loved higher noise levels to get to sleep. Putting the bed in front of the washing mashine or putting him into the car and go for a short drive made him sleep within a minute.)

[Psi]

I agree with the general notion that a house will sell better/quicker with minimal furniture (staged) or even empty (and clean). Unless you are in a super attractive area where it doesn't matter.

It tends to maters less the more rooms the house has.  but yes.
The house always has to be tidy, but the more clean and tidy rooms there are the less people care if one room is a work room containing lots of stuff.

[langwadt]

I agree with the general notion that a house will sell better/quicker with minimal furniture (staged) or even empty (and clean). Unless you are in a super attractive area where it doesn't matter.

yeh, some pay to get their house arranged, decorated, and even the right furniture put in just to make it sell better

[Psi]

It pretty much comes down to this, "the more you make the house look like rich people live there, the more money you will get for it"

[Kim Christensen]

Where I live, I see these Sea cans, or shipping containers, in people's driveways. Both for temporary storage and moving. They come in smaller sizes too. You could set up your shop in one of those and on the final moving day, pack more stuff from the house into it. Using it as a shop depends on your climate though.

[Psi]

you can also get shipping containers that have AC and windows already in them and are made up inside to be an office.
They are intended for temporary on-site offices but can be moved around as a shipping container.

Unless you live someone very cold you NEED AC in them. Shipping containers get crazy hot during the day.

[EPAIII]

My brothers and I are going through selling our folks house right now. It does not have a shop - well a workbench in the garage.

The first thing the real estate agent said was get rid of:

1. Carpet. Buyers want hard wood floors.
2. Pop corn ceilings. Buyers think it has asbestos even if there is none.
3. ALL the furniture. You want buyers to see SPACE.
4. All the kitchen appliances. (The kitchen cabinets are OK because they are solid wood, otherwise they should go too.)
5. Wallpaper. Paint the walls.
6. Not only the garage workbench, but also the added storage my dad built there. Buyers want to put TWO cars in a two car garage.
7. White rocks in the gardens. They want bark or ??

I am sure there were other things on his list. I was totally shocked. But he said we could get two or three times the cost of these changes back in the sale price. And a faster sale.

So a shop in a bedroom? Do I need to answer?

[Psi]

There are definitely people looking for a house with a workroom. The agent simply tells you what the majority of people are looking for.

It's up to you to decide if you want to sell your house to the majority of people, or hope you find someone who will appreciate it, or just someone smart enough to know they can simply change it into what they want.
Maybe you won't get as much money, maybe not. It tends to end up being pretty random.

So a shop in a bedroom? Do I need to answer?

It depends how many bedrooms the place already has, you reach a point where no one really needs more bedrooms and a work room/art room/project room seems kinda cool. It doesn't have to be marketed as a home electronics lab.  It can be listed as a project room or home office room.

Hell, put a sewing machine on the desk next to the oscilloscope, that will throw people off and probably get them to see the room with a wider lens. 

[coppice]

A workshop room in a house is just a room. People redecorate and change room usage between bedroom, study, games and other uses all the time. Unless you have made a major adaptation its no big deal. People expect some redecoration to suit their tastes. We looked at 2 houses with an integrated swimming pool. Now that is a hard thing to sell. We wanted those swimming pools a lot, but as you start to think of the upkeep implications, and how it might affect a future sale if you need to move, you start to see it as a nightmare. Even the property agents selling those places were giving us estimates for how much it would cost to turn those large swimming pool spaces into more rooms. One thing that struck me as odd was the way property agents presented houses with what in the UK we call a granny flat. A separate connected living space, where an elderly relative can live independently, but very close by. That seems like something that would be in demand, especially in the AirBnB era, but the property agents just talked in terms of the cost of integrating the flat into the main house.

[helius]

In some jurisdictions "mother-in-law flats" are against regulations. For example, in San Francisco, a separated living unit is illegal if it lacks an independent egress, has ceilings below 7.5', or doesn't have its own electric or gas meters. 10% of the housing in SF comprises these illegal units.

[langwadt]

My brothers and I are going through selling our folks house right now. It does not have a shop - well a workbench in the garage.

The first thing the real estate agent said was get rid of:

1. Carpet. Buyers want hard wood floors.

when you tear up a carpet and see how disgusting it is, and how much dirt you can mop off a hard floor, you don't want to ever have carpets again

[coppice]

My brothers and I are going through selling our folks house right now. It does not have a shop - well a workbench in the garage.

The first thing the real estate agent said was get rid of:

1. Carpet. Buyers want hard wood floors.
2. Pop corn ceilings. Buyers think it has asbestos even if there is none.
3. ALL the furniture. You want buyers to see SPACE.
4. All the kitchen appliances. (The kitchen cabinets are OK because they are solid wood, otherwise they should go too.)
5. Wallpaper. Paint the walls.
6. Not only the garage workbench, but also the added storage my dad built there. Buyers want to put TWO cars in a two car garage.
7. White rocks in the gardens. They want bark or ??

I am sure there were other things on his list. I was totally shocked. But he said we could get two or three times the cost of these changes back in the sale price. And a faster sale.

So a shop in a bedroom? Do I need to answer?

This list seems very specific to a certain customer. In hot climates people like hard wood floors, while in cold climates most people hate them. Some people can't imagine how a room would work without seeing some furniture in it, while others are impressed by open spaces.

[Kim Christensen]

This list seems very specific to a certain customer.

Maybe the realtor is trying to double end the deal:
He already has a client looking for those specs, so if he sells your house to his own client he doesn't have to split the commission with another realtor. Illegal in some areas. A conflict of interest in all.

[nctnico]

A workshop room in a house is just a room. People redecorate and change room usage between bedroom, study, games and other uses all the time. Unless you have made a major adaptation its no big deal.

I disagree. You'd be surprised how many people want to buy a home which they like off-the-bat which means not having to do much renovations.

We bought our home cheaper because it wasn't furnished very well. I really liked the blank canvas but also recognised the opportunity to haggle the price down a bit. We didn't use a realestate agent when buying the house. One way to save a lot of money when selling a home is to advertise it yourself and skip the realestate agent. Nowadays you can find all the information about how to buy / sell a home online so it is even easier.

[Psi]

A workshop room in a house is just a room. People redecorate and change room usage between bedroom, study, games and other uses all the time. Unless you have made a major adaptation its no big deal.

I disagree. You'd be surprised how many people want to buy a home which they like off-the-bat which means not having to do much renovations.

yep, but it's worse than that.
Remember 50% of people are more stupid than the average person.
It's common for people viewing a home listed as 4 bedrooms to walk in and see it has 3 bedrooms + a office (that was a bedroom). and say.. "lets go, this is not suitable, we need 4 bedrooms.

It can be obvious to us engineers that once the owner moves their stuff out that that office room will be identical to the other 3 bedrooms, but to some people they just don't see it.

[pdenisowski]

Sadly 50% of the population are below average intelligence, obviously.

Well, technically 50% are below the median, not the average, although my understanding is that intelligence is normally distributed, so your statement most likely still applies

[coppice]

Sadly 50% of the population are below average intelligence, obviously.

Well, technically 50% are below the median, not the average, although my understanding is that intelligence is normally distributed, so your statement most likely still applies

So, you think there might be a Pareto type asymmetry in the IQ distribution, such that the central limit theorem does not apply, and the the final distribution will not be Gaussian? Well there is a good reason to think that may be the case, as intelligence can clearly reach zero when someone is totally non-functional, but has no obvious upper bound. Still, a century of research says the population does indeed follow a Gaussian distribution very closely, both near the centre, and out at the extremes, where the pattern of very low capability people accurately balances the pattern of very high capability people. Overall I'd say you are nit picking.

[Bud]

IQ is a BS metric that has no merit in real world. Over my dozens of years working career I have never seen it used or even mentioned by anyone, let alone HR people. Not even once. Never.

[CatalinaWOW]

IQ is a BS metric that has no merit in real world. Over my dozens of years working career I have never seen it used or even mentioned by anyone, let alone HR people. Not even once. Never.

IQ is a low quality metric.  But the fact that we can't accurately define or measure intelligence doesn't change the general subject of this discussion which is saying that some people are smarter than others and there are a lot of people dumber than the rin of the mill.

[coppice]

IQ is a BS metric that has no merit in real world. Over my dozens of years working career I have never seen it used or even mentioned by anyone, let alone HR people. Not even once. Never.

IQ has great relevance in the real world. Its one of the few stable and repeatable tests in psychology. People who score highly on IQ tests are generally good problem solvers. You might be confusing IQ with wisdom. High IQ people are seldom better at making sensible choices, and can be really good at rationalising stupid conclusions. Some low IQ people are terrible at analysis, but can spot a stupid conclusion very easily.

In many countries there are legal restrictions on HR people saying anything about IQ. They are not allowed to IQ test job applicants, yet use various tests under other names which are just rebranded IQ tests to skirt around the law.

[langwadt]

IQ is a BS metric that has no merit in real world. Over my dozens of years working career I have never seen it used or even mentioned by anyone, let alone HR people. Not even once. Never.

IQ has great relevance in the real world. Its one of the few stable and repeatable tests in psychology. People who score highly on IQ tests are generally good problem solvers. You might be confusing IQ with wisdom. High IQ people are seldom better at making sensible choices, and can be really good at rationalising stupid conclusions. Some low IQ people are terrible at analysis, but can spot a stupid conclusion very easily.

In many countries there are legal restrictions on HR people saying anything about IQ. They are not allowed to IQ test job applicants, yet use various tests under other names which are just rebranded IQ tests to skirt around the law.

afaiu the US military has concluded that they can't use anyone with an IQ of less that 85, that's roughly 15% of the population ...

[coppice]

afaiu the US military has concluded that they can't use anyone with an IQ of less that 85, that's roughly 15% of the population ...

I thought their threshold was slightly lower, and excluded about 9% of the population. Nevertheless the US military seems to have a recruiting exemption that the rest of the US is not permitted. If you want to see what happens when you ignore IQ, try reading about "McNamara's Morons" in the Vietnam war.