5 bedroom homes increasing in value? (San Jose, Santa Clara: townhomes, neighborhoods, buying)

[slappy_joe]

i live in a 5BR home and use the 5th BR as a home office.

With COVID, and increasing work from home set up, shouldn't 5 bedrooms homes be much more valued that 4 bedroom homes? in other words, 5BR is the 'new 4BR'

I can't imagine setting up my home office in a common space.

[spicydreamt]

Originally Posted by slappy_joe

i live in a 5BR home and use the 5th BR as a home office.

With COVID, and increasing work from home set up, shouldn't 5 bedrooms homes be much more valued that 4 bedroom homes? in other words, 5BR is the 'new 4BR'

I can't imagine setting up my home office in a common space.

We have a 3/2 with one kid. My office (3 monitors) is in the 2nd smallest bedroom, the living room is dedicated to projecting movies on a pull-down screen, and the family room is my wife's "corner" and my son's "remote learning" setup. If my wife required her own office, we would need a 4/2 or use shared space. A 5 bedroom would only make sense if we had 3 kids, or 2 kids with both parents working from home, and even then we'd probably consider having the children's corner office be in their own bedroom before that... Just my 2 cents.

[slappy_joe]

thanks for the info. so 3BR only works for you because you have 1 kid. do you live in SFH?

for SFH, i think increasingly there will be a limited market for 3BR. many families have have more than 1 kid, or have 1 but expecting to have more. assuming a need for 1 home office, 3BR is the equivalent of buying a 2BR house 10-15 years ago. (and there's no market for 2 BR houses).

so 5BR is the new 4BR SFH, 4BR is the new 3BR SFH...

[spicydreamt]

Originally Posted by slappy_joe

thanks for the info. so 3BR only works for you because you have 1 kid. do you live in SFH?

for SFH, i think increasingly there will be a limited market for 3BR. many families have have more than 1 kid, or have 1 but expecting to have more. assuming a need for 1 home office, 3BR is the equivalent of buying a 2BR house 10-15 years ago. (and there's no market for 2 BR houses).

so 5BR is the new 4BR SFH, 4BR is the new 3BR SFH...

Yes I live in an area of Santa Clara where the entire stock is 3/2, unless remodeled. Across the park the entire stock is 4/2. Further up on Benton St. a long stretch is 2 bedrooms built for returning war veterans eons ago. Scanning the nicer neighborhoods further east along Tanoak Dr, it's still all 3 or 4 bd, but with 2.5 or 3 bathrooms. It's really rare to hit a 5 bedroom anywhere.
Then there's the duplexes alongside the streets parallel to Stevens Creek, and the newish townhomes where they squeezed 3/4 on several levels (yes, 4 bathrooms 3 bedrooms... guess once you reach a certain age, the bathroom is the new office).
Santa Clara is what I know. I've no doubt that your assertion applies to many San Jose neighborhoods, but around here it's still a very long shot.

[jk88cal]

Originally Posted by slappy_joe

i live in a 5BR home and use the 5th BR as a home office.

With COVID, and increasing work from home set up, shouldn't 5 bedrooms homes be much more valued that 4 bedroom homes? in other words, 5BR is the 'new 4BR'

I can't imagine setting up my home office in a common space.

Maybe to you. But not everyone needs 5BR. Just like any other times, there are people who wants 3BR, 4BR, or 5BR. So why would 5BR be in higher demand today than before?

And there are homes with office (room with door but no closet). So that might be 4BR+ office, but that is not 5BR.

So housing price will follow overall market demand. I don't see anything special about 5BR.