How Many Bedrooms In Your Home Can You Legally Advertise?

OK, so it varies. But what are some common bedroom requirements?

The rules on bedroom requirements vary from state to state, county to county, and even town to town. However, there are some common bedroom requirements in building codes that can give you a ballpark idea if your questionable space can qualify as a bedroom.

Square footage:

One thing every bedroom needs is room for a bed. While some municipalities don’t set a minimum square footage standard, it’s commonly accepted that a single occupancy bedroom should have at least 70 square feet of floor space. This equates to a 7-foot by 10-foot room (or an 8-foot by 9-foot room) at the minimum.

In addition, some cities and states have additional requirements depending on how many people will occupy the bedroom. If a room is expected to accommodate two people, for example, regulations might mandate a minimum of 100 square feet, or at least 50 square feet per occupant.

Windows:

Windows provide much more than a view — they serve three main functions in a bedroom: lighting, ventilation, and egress, which is a fancy word for “a means of escape.”

That’s why most municipalities have size requirements for windows, including that windows must have a total combined glass area of at least 8% of the floor area, and open at least halfway. And one window in the room must be at least 5.7 square feet and can’t be installed more than 44 inches above the floor.

Temperature control:

This is one of those “requirements that varies depending on where you live. In most areas where the temperature drops below 60 degrees F during the winter, building and zoning codes require bedrooms to have a heat source.

In toasty states, like Arizona, rental tenants are entitled to A/C in their bedrooms, a requirement that some municipalities have adopted to residential bedroom requirements, too.

Access:

Here’s another tricky one, especially for historic homeowners. Most modern building codes require that bedrooms must be single entry — meaning that you don’t need to pass through another bedroom to access the space.

Hallways weren’t a feature of residential houses until the late 19th century, though, so some historic homes, especially on the East Coast, have bedrooms that are only accessible through other bedrooms. In these areas, zoning laws typically account for these historic floor plans and do not include access in the bedroom zoning codes.

Closets:

Requiring bedrooms to have a closet seems like a given these days, and some states and counties do require spaces labeled as bedrooms to have a built-in closet.

However, this feature has a relatively short history in American architecture. While closets and dressing rooms have existed for centuries, it wasn’t common for bedrooms in historic homes to have closets. For this reason, municipalities with a high number of historic homes may waive the closet requirement or not have one at all.

Can you call a room a bedroom without a closet?

Some states, like Alabama, do list closets as one of the few requirements that a bedroom must have. But that’s not true across the country.

In other areas, like California (which has a sizable number of historic homes), a bedroom does not need to have a closet, although many buyers prefer their bedroom to have one.

Whether or not you can call a room a bedroom if it does not have a closet, all comes down to your local building codes and zoning laws.

There is a way around this issue for historic homes with spaces that don’t qualify as bedrooms due to the lack of built-in closets:

“Start off by not focusing on how many bedrooms there are when writing up the MLS listing,” suggests Chipman.

Focus instead on the fact that it’s a charming 1920s home with historic quality and character, so that buyers know to expect that it’s not the typical three bedroom, two bath house.

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  Susan Chipman Real Estate Agent

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  Susan Chipman Real Estate Agent at Huntsville Real Estate Professionals

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  • Years of Experience 11
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What happens if you misrepresent your number of bedrooms in a listing?

For the most part, there won’t be legal ramifications if you misrepresent the number of bedrooms in your home — but there will probably be financial ones.

After price, how many bedrooms and baths a house has is typically the highest priority for homebuyers in their search. If you advertise yours as a four-bedroom house when it really only has three true bedrooms, you’re marketing to the wrong buyer pool.

You may get a lot of four-bedroom buyers through the door, but they won’t be making offers — and you wind up missing out on the buyers who want a true three-bedroom home. In the end, you’re stuck with a house you can’t sell that sits on the market so long that you’ll eventually need to drop the price.

Expect legal trouble though, if you misrepresent the number of bedrooms your home has if it has a septic tank. The size of the septic tank your home is required to have is in large part determined by the number of bedrooms (as bedrooms impact occupancy). Septic systems are designed based on usage of 110 gallons per day per bedroom.

Sellers who add extra bedrooms — or even claim an existing space as an additional bedroom — without upgrading the septic system may find themselves headed for a lawsuit.

How does bedroom count affect home value?

“Whether your home has three, four, or five bedrooms doesn’t make a huge impact on its value. You will see a difference in value if your house only has two bedrooms, though, because they’re harder to sell,” explains Chipman.

According to the National Association of Realtors (NAR), the typical home purchased has 1,860 square feet, three bedrooms and two bathrooms, and was built in 1985.

While you may not add a lot of value by claiming an additional bedroom in the MLS, where the bedroom count really matters is when you’re pulling comps.

Agents gather comparables based on factors like square footage, neighborhood, and of course, number of bedrooms.

If you’re claiming that a bonus room in your three-bedroom house bumps it up to four bedrooms, then your comparative market analysis (CMA) will be created based on other four-bedroom houses in your neighborhood.

That can work toward the benefit of your home’s listing price, if four-bedrooms are selling for significantly more than three-bedrooms. On the other hand, your house is likely to be outclassed — which means you’ll probably need to list at a lower price than the true four-bedroom homes on your block.

You are much better off advertising what you’ve got to buyers looking for a home your size, rather than trying to fudge another bedroom simply to raise your asking price by a few grand.

Marketing non-legal bedrooms: How can you show their use?

Let’s say you technically have the square footage and number of rooms for a true four-bedroom home, but one space simply doesn’t qualify due to a building or zoning code technicality. You may not be able to include bedroom four in the MLS’s bedroom tally, but that doesn’t mean you have to automatically downgrade your home’s value to the three-bedroom bracket.

“If I’m selling a three-bedroom house with another sizable room that’s just missing a closet or a window, I do not include it as a bedroom for the MLS count, but I definitely advertise that it could be used as a bedroom,” explains Chipman.

“What I do is, I list it near the beginning of my ad, and I paint the picture that it could be an office, or a playroom. This implies that it could be used as an additional bedroom without calling it a bedroom.”

In fact, you can even stage that extra space as a working bedroom, even if you haven’t counted it in the MLS. Simply adding in a bed, and an armoire if it’s missing a closet, helps buyers visualize how the space could accommodate their family. That way they’ll see your home’s potential regardless of their exact wish list criteria.

The not-so-legit extra bedroom gamble

The gamble taken by a seller who claimed a non-qualifying space as a fourth bedroom paid off in Robin’s case. Her family wanted that extra bedroom for a home office, and the isolated space in the basement turned out to be the perfect set-up for them.

But there’s no guarantee that the gamble of claiming a non-qualifying bonus room as an extra bedroom will pay off for you. As a matter of fact, it may actually hurt your home sale in the end.

Claiming an extra bedroom isn’t going to let you list your home for more than a few grand more, and you may be attracting the wrong buyers who are never going to make an offer on your home.

You are much better off showcasing your home as a star in its appropriate bedroom count bracket than getting outshone and outsold in competition against bigger homes.

Header Image Source: (Chastity Cortijo / Unsplash)