The spare room reinvented

Branch Details

Our Branch

21 Bridge Street, Newport, NP20 4AN
e: hello@redkeylets.co.uk
t: 0333 3447850
Newport Area Guide

Looking to buy or sell?

Please visit our sister branch,
Fortis Properties

Out of Hours Emergency

An emergency repair would include issues that need to be fixed as soon as possible. Examples would include: burst pipe/flood, fire, vandalism, broken locks, blocked drains, blocked toilet and no heating/hot water. Anything that would be a danger to your health and safety or likely to cause damage to the property.

In the event of an emergency during a holiday period – or outside office hours – please follow the guidance below.

Smell Gas?
In the event that you smell gas open all the windows, turn the gas off at the meter and call National Gas Emergency Service on 0800 111 999
For all other emergency issues, please call 01633 742371 and our friendly team will assist you.

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.

Home improvements that don’t require planning permission

Published 3 days ago

Earlier this year, it became apparent that home buyers aren’t that fussed about finding the ‘perfect’ property. A Rightmove survey of 34,000 home movers found 73% of those leaving rented accommodation viewed fixer uppers as a more affordable route to property ownership. Additionally, 73% of existing homeowners wanted to buy a property that needed work in order to create their dream home.