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Real Estate Value Question: Tub or Shower?

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Real Estate Agent with HER Realtors

Tub or Shower?

Real Estate Value Question

bath tub

Years ago Inman News columnist Illyce Glink had a very entertaining column .... bath or shower?

Or was the question Tub or Shower? I believe the discussion started with a question from older homeowners who wanted to take out a bath tub in their home and replace it with a shower.  The question was would removing the bath tub ruin the value of the home?  Should the owners crawl over the side of a tub each day to preserve the real estate value or have a convenient walk in shower installed?  A question about value of real estate, of the value of bathroom fixtures turned into a question of do you take a bath or shower? 

or maybe not that personal... do you prefer a bath or a shower?

You gotta love the comment from a Texas appraiser with the sentence: 

Baths are fine as a method of getting cleaner than before, but you are seated in water that is polluted by skin flakes, dirt, deodorant, .makeup and whatever.  After stepping out of the bath and toweling off, some pollutants remain all over your body."

 Ick...it's all over your body? I don't know why but I was thinking of the Texas appraiser as a man... until I saw "makeup and whatever"   Of course I could still picture the TX appraiser as a man. It's just more twisted and funny that way. 

Tub Vs. Shower  - more from a real estate appraiser

 "Showers pound the body with clean water that immediately runs off down the drain carrying what ever can be loosened. Thus, after toweling off you are cleaner."

OK!  There is the value of taking a shower from a real estate appraiser.

I would have thought the real estate appraiser would have sunk his or her teeth into the real estate value question more, but appraisers are only human. 

Tub or Shower - a practical matter

Where will you wash your dog if there is not bath tub in the house?  Where will you wash the children if there is not a bath tub in in the house?  No dog or kids?  You won't miss it but will the next owner?  Will your home have the same value when you go to sell it if it is a 3 bedroom, 2 1/2 bath home with no bath tub?  Both of the full baths have a shower rather than a tub. I believe that was the dilemna of the original older home owner.

About the same time Trulia.com (a national search site) put out a trend report.  The average home listed in Columbus (listed on their site, not all real estate brokers were or are syndicating their content to Trulia.com)  had 2.9 bedrooms and 1.8 baths.  That's averaging! Trulia.com's 2.9 bedrooms and 1.8 baths tickled me.

Truly a 1.8 bath home?

One bath with a tub (or shower), sink and toilet.  The .8 bath would be??? 

Our Central Ohio multiple listing service (agent to agent information re: property, that becomes the ads (listings) consumers read on the internet search sites..(MaureenMcCabe.com, RealLiving.com, Trulia.com, Realtor.com etc where you see homes) the bath count goes, 1 bath, 1 1/2 bath, 2 baths, 2 1/2 baths, 3 baths.... we don't have .75 baths as some markets do

Do you think a .8 bathroom is a .75 bath rounded up?

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Show All Comments
Winston Heverly
Coldwell Banker Access Realty - South Macon, GA
GRI, ABR, SFR, CDPE, CIAS, PA

What did people do before the shower head was invented?  The real threat may not be your bathing in water, it's all the crap you eat from fast food joints after you towel off.

Feb 24, 2012 12:45 PM
Joseph F Pino
Pino Agency - Elmer, NJ

What fraction is an elevated toilet in the basement  

Feb 24, 2012 12:53 PM
Jon Zolsky, Daytona Beach, FL
Daytona Condo Realty, 386-405-4408 - Daytona Beach, FL
Buy Daytona condos for heavenly good prices

Maureen - I am the one who would rather replace bath tubs with showers, and I was surprised that I missed the dogs and children issue

Feb 24, 2012 01:06 PM
Maureen McCabe
HER Realtors - Columbus, OH
Columbus Ohio Real Estate

Winston You gotta wonder when showers were discovered and by who. 

Joseph Most of the time I think toilets, etc. should not be counted.  I think toilets and "shares"* should be a surprise for buyers.  In my experience they are often not included by the auditor here.

John  I am fond of showers personally but I think there is a value to a tub. 

* "share" is how some folks say shower.  I called my dad in the 80s to ask what a share was.  The older gentleman w/a country? or maybe it was a southern accent in an old farmhouse kept talking about the "share." That the share was in the basement.  My dad grew up in the country, on farms in WI and IL but he was able to help me understand what the share was.  

Feb 24, 2012 01:16 PM
Gary L. Waters Broker Associate, Bucci Realty
Bucci Realty, Inc. - Melbourne, FL
Eighteen Years Experience in Brevard County

Seems like everyone wants at least one walk in shower....and one bath tub! Looks like the solution here now is just put one of each n the master bathroom.  Of course then it is a tub in the other...a fractional bath I guess!

Feb 24, 2012 10:24 PM
Nico Hohman
Tampa, FL

I agree with Gary.  I think the best way to go would be to install one walk-in shower and one bath tub.  It is a difficult decision if you were to remodel your bathroom as walk-in showers are typically more expensive to install than tubs.

Feb 24, 2012 10:40 PM
Maureen McCabe
HER Realtors - Columbus, OH
Columbus Ohio Real Estate

Thanks.. this post is part of the give a post another chance inpiration Bob Stewart wrote up about two or three weeks ago... take a high traffic post written for consumers and give it a second chance.  I believe the original post here is 2006 or 2007 and had close to 10,000 clicks when I looked at the traffic a few weeks ago. I was always aware of the original post getting a lot of traffic.  It is not the most trafficed post I found.  One had over 15,000 clicks and I redid that one aweek or so ago.  No great shakes in clicks yet on the new post... 

  I believe the older person asking a question had a tub with a shower, like most homes built in the US in the '50s to smetime in the '80s?  I pictured a room not big enough to add a shower, so they were considering removing the tub. I don't think there was info about how many baths in the house, but it was a question about removing the tub. It was a question about ruining the value of the home b removing the tub.  

I agree, building add a tub and a shower if you have the room, but I don't believe that was the consumers concern

Feb 25, 2012 04:08 AM
Alex Shekhtman
A&A Design Build Remodeling, Inc. - Chevy Chase, DC
Design Build Remodeling, Washington DC, Bethesda, Chevy Chase

When I work with my clients on project design, be it a bathroom, basement, home addition or anything else, one of the main questions I ask is: how long are you planning to stay in this house? My recommendations and design solutions depend on the answer.

If the time horison is long, over 7-10 years, I would not care about the resale value, I would rather give my clients whatever makes them happy.

The time horison of 3-5 years requires a different approach and much more consideration given to the resale value.

Mar 24, 2012 05:39 PM
Maureen McCabe
HER Realtors - Columbus, OH
Columbus Ohio Real Estate

Thanks. Interesting.

Mar 24, 2012 08:13 PM
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