Selling a house when it includes a workshop

[mdubinko]

OK, no rush here, but in ~ a year, we'd like to move. That will mean putting our current place on the market, along with a parade of realtors, potential buyers coming through to look, and so on.

Currently I have a spare bedroom in service as my workshop. Any one reading this would appreciate the space, but to the uninitiated it's kind of intimidating. I have managed to fit quite a lot of electronical stuff in this small room. If you've ever seen pictures or video of "staged" houses up for sale, arranged in such a way as to be attractive to general buyers, it's like the exact opposite of that.

So turning to the community here for advice and suggestions. Not expecting Better Homes and Gardens photoshoot results, but something that won't send potential buyers fleeing in terror. I'd love to hear anecdotes from any who have been through this.

Depending on the mechanics of the move, the transitional stage could linger on for months. I'm imagining some kind of container system, with most everything packed up and labeled, but not in a way that's difficult to find and get-stuff-out if needed. Ideally something robust enough that the moving crew can just pick them up and put 'em on the truck. Does anything like this even exist? Or is some other approach a better option?

Thanks for reading,

-m

[PaulAm]

If you want to sell quickly and get your price, remove ANYTHING that could be considered clutter.  Then remove anything that you might actually use.  Stage the house and go live in an apartment while it's showing, you're going to have to pack up everything anyway.  If you have to live there, rent a storage facility and pack everything and stuff it in there.  If you really need a lab, pack up everything you don't absolutely need immediately and put it in storage.  If you can fit everything on a desk and make it look like a normal type office you might be OK.

99.9% of the people looking at your house have zero imagination on how it might look different.  They'll see what they see and make their decision based on that.  They're not going to look at your lab and think, " gee my 3 year old will love this room, what a lovely view!"

Moving sucks, moving your lab really sucks and the longer you stay in a place the worse it gets.

[Kasper]

Cheap plastic drawer towers work well if you wrap them in strong tape.  Wrap all the way around on the vertical posts so they dont pull apart when you lift them.  I've had 4 of them full of tools for years and they survived multiple moves.

For wires and projects, I put them in ziplock bags in file folders in boxes made to hold file folders.

[ejeffrey]

You definitely want to remove any signs of a workshop from a spare bedroom.  For presentation you could have light bedroom furniture or light office furniture but not both and keep it low density.  Or you can just have it mostly empty if you don't have appropriate furniture and you don't want to pay someone to stage it.

The basic way to think about it is that when people come looking at your house they are imagining how they will put their stuff in it.  Your stuff doesn't help with that beyond providing a basic idea of scale.  Even if they want to put an electronics workshop in there they don't really need to see how you did it.

From what I have seen most people just cram their garage full of all their excess junk.  The theory is nobody looks in there, they just care how big and is it attached or detached.  If you don't have a garage or shed then consider renting some storage.

[ajb]

If you want to maintain some amount of work space while hiding all the clutter, there are some interesting pieces of furniture marketed to crafters designed to do exactly that.  Basically a big storage cabinet with some sort of fold out work surface.  This one is particularly extravagant, but was the first google result that shows the basic idea, there are similar products in different sizes that may be a more suitable size for a small room.

You could of course get a standard storage cabinet at whatever size suits and add your own work surface too it, or just have a nice looking desk next to it.  Maybe get a few trays that fit in the cabinet that you can use as portable work surfaces that can be pulled out to work on something and then placed back into the cabinet without having to completely clean up.

[CatalinaWOW]

The only time when keeping your shop intact will not hurt sales is if the buyer shares the same interests as you (not just the same area, the same.  Hams are different from robotics guys who are different from...).  As you well recognize finding that guy (or gal) with a spouse who likes the rest of the house is pretty rare.  The advice above is excellent.

As an example of what happens:  In one house I owned I added a 12 foot extension forward in the two car garage to make room for a decent size shop.  The purchasers of the house immediately ripped out the wall to make the already enormous family room larger, while totally eliminating the workshop.

[nfmax]

“I’m working from home, and this is my work room. For confidentiality reasons, I can’t let you in, but here are the dimensions”

[langwadt]

“I’m working from home, and this is my work room. For confidentiality reasons, I can’t let you in, but here are the dimensions”

iow, I kinda wanna sell my house but not really ...

[Kasper]

I don't think it's that big of a deal to have a workshop setup while selling.  My wife and I bought a house that had a fly making workshop (for fishing) with shotgun and ammo laying around and crayon on the ceiling in another room.  We made an offer the day it was listed.  When I see a workshop, I wonder if they've been doing diy renos and what kind of quality to expect from that.

It's hard to tell what quality of work has been done on any house.  Even some pros do shitty work sometimes.  Seeing someone's workshop gives some indication.  If it's a high quality workshop, that gives me a good feeling about the house, depending how long the owner has been there.

What does bother me though is if they have lots of furniture, specially if it seems to be in strange places, I wonder if they are hiding things.  For example a bookshelf kind of blocking a window, under the bookshelf there is flooring with water damage, likely from a plant they used to have near the window.

[rsjsouza]

We went through a house move recently and, if you can afford it and has no kids (or at least they are not too young), PaulAm's suggestion of living in an apartment and renting storage is the best. We did that before having kids and it was an excellent transition, as we were able to relieve the pressure over choosing a new house while worrying about selling the older one. If you have little children like us (and other compounding issues such as allergies, etc.) and you can afford it, you might want to explore the option of buying your destination place before actually moving - this reduces the pressure to find a place as well and avoids the double move.

Empty/staged houses tend to have more appeal, but they may also show imperfections that are usually hidden behind your own furniture, appliances, rugs, etc., so keep in mind that some painting or wall cleaning might be in order.

Regarding the office/lab space, if you are able to keep it moderately populated with test gear and/or tools, that might help someone envision the whole space as a work or office space. Uncluttering the space (no wall-to-wall test gear and boxes, for example) usually does not prevent someone from having the perspective of using the room for an actual living area.

However, IME at the end of the day (and depending on how hot is your area or market), the price and the infatuation of the prospect buyers will count much more than any first impressions.

Good luck in your transition!

[Gregg]

The OP’s profile states silicon valley; the odds are that a bedroom will bring a sales price tens of thousands of dollars more than a workshop.  Use that differential to buy whatever is needed to make the house as sellable as possible. 
For organizing and moving workshop stuff, look into the modular tool systems such as Dewalt, Milwaukee, Husky etc.  These feature wheeled base units and a lot of different organizers that clip to them making a hand truck type of easily moved unit.  Go to places like Home Depot, Lowes and Harbor Freight to check them out.
If you already have lots of the organizers with little plastic drawers, clear packaging shrink wrap is your best friend.

[mc172]

I don't see why having a workshop in what was a bedroom is such a potential issue for buyers over there. Surely it'll just be an empty room when you leave, just like all the other rooms in the house?

When I bought the house I'm in now, the room I wanted my stuff in had a bed in it as it was a bedroom. I didn't need to "visualise" anything, I just bought the house as it had enough rooms and made one of them my electronics lab.

[Fred27]

I think people can see past a cluttered room. When I've looked at houses I think the floorplan is more important than the photos - because that's the bit that's expesive to change. When I sold my last place my workshop was a large garden office. I'm sure the buyer coudl see past the CNC mill, laser cutter and lathe and envision a gym / home office or whatever he wanted.

Also, if th eworkshop is too busy to tidy up you could move all the "cluttery" stuff from the rest of the house into there so just one room looks messy.

[tpowell1830]

OK, no rush here, but in ~ a year, we'd like to move. That will mean putting our current place on the market, along with a parade of realtors, potential buyers coming through to look, and so on.

Currently I have a spare bedroom in service as my workshop. Any one reading this would appreciate the space, but to the uninitiated it's kind of intimidating. I have managed to fit quite a lot of electronical stuff in this small room. If you've ever seen pictures or video of "staged" houses up for sale, arranged in such a way as to be attractive to general buyers, it's like the exact opposite of that.

So turning to the community here for advice and suggestions. Not expecting Better Homes and Gardens photoshoot results, but something that won't send potential buyers fleeing in terror. I'd love to hear anecdotes from any who have been through this.

Depending on the mechanics of the move, the transitional stage could linger on for months. I'm imagining some kind of container system, with most everything packed up and labeled, but not in a way that's difficult to find and get-stuff-out if needed. Ideally something robust enough that the moving crew can just pick them up and put 'em on the truck. Does anything like this even exist? Or is some other approach a better option?

Thanks for reading,

-m

This is the same conundrum that I have, so I can identify with your predicament. However, I have been pondering this and delaying the sale while trying to come to terms with this for some time now. In a nutshell, I have decided to try to move out completely when I pull the trigger to try and sell the house. This will leave an empty house for the buyer to see bare and assess for themselves without the influence of seeing the clutter of my workshop/bedroom. My workshop is exclusively a workshop that was the master bedroom, which is the largest bedroom in the house. Most people will not be interested in a master bedroom workshop, IMO.

This approach is a bit risky if you have a tight budget, but in the current high demand situation for real estate in my area, I think it is doable, YRMV. I am a retiree on a fixed income, so I need to be very careful with my budget. Although I only have a few years left on my mortgage, paying rent or 2 mortgages (depending whether I buy or rent) will be a strain, but I will be betting on a quick sale. The last piece of my puzzle is to decide to rent or to buy another home, which area, what type of property, etc. The reason that I am considering selling is simply to get further out of the Houston metroplex area, since i do not need to live so close for work. I don't like living so close in a neighborhood where the next closest house is 10 feet away (although I like my neighbors). The cost of living is higher here than outside the area. There are better alternatives where I can get some breathing room and still be close enough to major hospitals and city life within reasonable distance. In Texas, reasonable distance is relative because everything is spread out, so an hour drive, IMO, is relatively reasonable. My ideal property would be somewhat rural with a few acres of land and an external workshop, but I am still flexible, weighing my options, looking for opportunities/alternatives.

Hope this helps...

[CatalinaWOW]

OK, no rush here, but in ~ a year, we'd like to move. That will mean putting our current place on the market, along with a parade of realtors, potential buyers coming through to look, and so on.

Currently I have a spare bedroom in service as my workshop. Any one reading this would appreciate the space, but to the uninitiated it's kind of intimidating. I have managed to fit quite a lot of electronical stuff in this small room. If you've ever seen pictures or video of "staged" houses up for sale, arranged in such a way as to be attractive to general buyers, it's like the exact opposite of that.

So turning to the community here for advice and suggestions. Not expecting Better Homes and Gardens photoshoot results, but something that won't send potential buyers fleeing in terror. I'd love to hear anecdotes from any who have been through this.

Depending on the mechanics of the move, the transitional stage could linger on for months. I'm imagining some kind of container system, with most everything packed up and labeled, but not in a way that's difficult to find and get-stuff-out if needed. Ideally something robust enough that the moving crew can just pick them up and put 'em on the truck. Does anything like this even exist? Or is some other approach a better option?

Thanks for reading,

-m

This is the same conundrum that I have, so I can identify with your predicament. However, I have been pondering this and delaying the sale while trying to come to terms with this for some time now. In a nutshell, I have decided to try to move out completely when I pull the trigger to try and sell the house. This will leave an empty house for the buyer to see bare and assess for themselves without the influence of seeing the clutter of my workshop/bedroom. My workshop is exclusively a workshop that was the master bedroom, which is the largest bedroom in the house. Most people will not be interested in a master bedroom workshop, IMO.

This approach is a bit risky if you have a tight budget, but in the current high demand situation for real estate in my area, I think it is doable, YRMV. I am a retiree on a fixed income, so I need to be very careful with my budget. Although I only have a few years left on my mortgage, paying rent or 2 mortgages (depending whether I buy or rent) will be a strain, but I will be betting on a quick sale. The last piece of my puzzle is to decide to rent or to buy another home, which area, what type of property, etc. The reason that I am considering selling is simply to get further out of the Houston metroplex area, since i do not need to live so close for work. I don't like living so close in a neighborhood where the next closest house is 10 feet away (although I like my neighbors). The cost of living is higher here than outside the area. There are better alternatives where I can get some breathing room and still be close enough to major hospitals and city life within reasonable distance. In Texas, reasonable distance is relative because everything is spread out, so an hour drive, IMO, is relatively reasonable. My ideal property would be somewhat rural with a few acres of land and an external workshop, but I am still flexible, weighing my options, looking for opportunities/alternatives.

Hope this helps...

Be sure not to count on too quick a sale.  Recently had to sell the mother-in-laws house in a hot market.  Had multiple offers day one on the market.  And then for various reasons buyers fell through and delays occurred.  It was nearing three months before funds cleared escrow.

Your planning should include this long or more in whatever condition you choose to leave the home (living there with everything in place, living there stripped down to minimum, moving into temporary quarters or whatever.)

[NiHaoMike]

“I’m working from home, and this is my work room. For confidentiality reasons, I can’t let you in, but here are the dimensions”

Just put a tarp over the mess that you call "confidential", then they won't think you're trying to hide a big defect in that room. Or just make it neat and leave it out in the open.

[rsjsouza]

I had a similar scenario with my current house move - a long delay to sell the old one. Not a fun time...

[Brumby]

I think people can see past a cluttered room. When I've looked at houses I think the floorplan is more important than the photos - because that's the bit that's expesive to change.

Some people are able to do that - not all.  And even those who are able will still be influenced by the appearance, especially if they have a couple of properties on their short list.

Visual first impressions are extremely powerful - and long lasting.

The only time clutter will be less of an issue is when they really want your property (for other reasons) and will make the effort to look past it.

Also, if th eworkshop is too busy to tidy up you could move all the "cluttery" stuff from the rest of the house into there so just one room looks messy.

Make that room the garage.



Understand that the first thing you are selling is space - so show off as much as you can.  The floors, walls, ceiling and roof are just the bits that enclose that space and anything that intrudes into the space will detract.  You can have two properties with identically sized rooms, but the empty one will been seen and felt as being bigger.

[SmallCog]

something that won't send potential buyers fleeing in terror.

If it's a nice big room set it up as a bedroom. If there's space have a desk as well. If you can fit a scope or soldering iron or something neatly on the desk great keep hobbying but no "clutter"!!!

The comments about buyers imagining their stuff in the space are correct - but they're also bad at imagining and need a prompt - yes our bed / desk will fit just fine. Most people suck at looking at a space and knowing what will fit

If on the other hand it's a tiny little room empty can work in your favour. If you put a bed in there they'll see just how little space is around it. Leave the bed out and they lack the perspective to realise it's a small room.

RE storage for moving it depends what you've got now. If you have parts drawers pack everything in each compartment into envelopes or bags. When the time to move comes do something to hold the little drawers in place and off you go.

You can't trust that they wont lay the silly things down or whatever. Keeping things in bags will save chaos if they're layed over or heavily jostled.

A method I've used for keeping stacks of tiny drawers shut is heavy cardboard or light plywood across the front secured with tape or straps.

[ejeffrey]

I think people can see past a cluttered room.

There is substantial evidence to show this is not true. Impression / instinct / feelings have at least some influence on almost all people.   It's not necessarily overwhelming, and in this market you could sell a dump truck full of horse shit as a "charming fixer-upper with a distinctive ambiance" but even when you have no problem selling good presentation can increase the sale price by thousands of dollars.

Other seemingly minor presentations issues make a big difference too.  Higher output, higher temperature light bulbs make a difference.  Same with having the lights on when a prospective buyer first walks into the house rather than walking into dark rooms and turning the lights on affect their impression of how "nice" the house is which in turn affects how much they are willing to pay for it.  But anything that makes the space feel cluttered or cramped, or makes it hard for the visitor to visualize their needs is a big no-no.

[bdunham7]

There is substantial evidence to show this is not true. Impression / instinct / feelings have at least some influence on almost all people.   It's not necessarily overwhelming, and in this market you could sell a dump truck full of horse shit as a "charming fixer-upper with a distinctive ambiance" but even when you have no problem selling good presentation can increase the sale price by thousands of dollars.

Exactly true.  If you want to sell your house soon for the most money, take your realtors advice and move all your stuff out, clean up and eliminate anything religious, political or colorful.  Even if someone like me spots a garage full of old Tek scopes that are included, I will still offer less for the house because my perception is that other buyers will see that as a detriment, a mess to be cleaned up.

Todays market is absurd and until very recently everything was selling instantly for too much money, so some sellers might think they did great and didn't realize they left $100K on the table.  Here's an example of todays market--this is in my ZIP code and was listed for a million dollars, although they've now dropped the price 10%.  No word on when the open house is...

[mdubinko]

Then there's this once-in-a-lifetime find...



The follow-up is pretty incredible too.

[Psi]

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

If you have repurposed 1 bedroom of a 3 bedroom house into an office/work-area, and you try to sell it, you will get people walking through the open-home saying stuff like..

"I really wish this place was 3 bedroom, 2 just isn't enough. And I don't need an office. Lets try the next place".

Some people just do not think things through to the level that us engineers do.

[hneve]

It sounds like you have an exciting year ahead! To make your spare bedroom workshop more appealing to potential buyers, start by decluttering and organizing your items. Keep only the essentials and consider donating or discarding what you don't need. Use clear, labeled storage containers to keep things tidy and accessible. Create a defined workspace area for your essential tools, making sure it looks clean and functional. This will help showcase the room's versatility without overwhelming potential buyers. Good luck with your move!

[CatalinaWOW]

It would be interesting to hear how this turned out for the OP.  It has been a year and a half and either he has sold the house or decided to stay by now.