Selling Home With Converted Breakfast Nook
REM # A574
By Ilyce R. Glink
Summary: A homeowner has converted their breakfast nook into a play space. They wonder if they need to change it back before putting their home on the market. Ilyce suggests leaving it as is, listing the breakfast nook and taking a picture of the space with a table in place.
Q: I am planning to sell my townhome without an agent and need some advice. We have converted our breakfast nook off the kitchen into a playroom (including rubber mat flooring and safety gate enclosure all around) for our 2 year old son.
Should we disassemble this entire area and leave it empty or will a fairly neat and tidy playroom detract from the interior of our home? There is a nice view from the windows in this area.
A: Either way you go is probably okay, as long as you indicate on the listing sheet that the breakfast nook exists and show in a picture what the space was originally intended for.
What you might want to do is temporarily remove the toys and assorted other junk kids love to play with, put a folding table and chairs into the breakfast nook, put a large table cloth over the table and set it as if it were breakfast. Then, take the digital photos you need for the listing sheet and/or the online listing, disassemble the “breakfast” room and replace the playroom.
Anyone who looks at your property online, or at the photos that accompany the listing sheet, will get the idea that you have an eating area in your kitchen, but that you chose to make the area work better for you.
I do think it's important to list the breakfast nook area as an "eating area" for your kitchen, since that's what most buyers want. But a family with small children will appreciate your ingenuity.
NOTE: This column is distributed by Real Estate Matters Syndicate, PO Box 366, Glencoe, Illinois, 60022. This column may not be resold, reprinted, resyndicated or redistributed without written permission from the publisher.
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