Is a bath worth a shower?

Are you considering redoing your bathroom and replacing the bathtub with a shower, but you hesitate for fear that your property will be devalued? The answer of the Professional Association of Real Estate Brokers of Quebec (APCIQ) is clear, but yet…

Emmanuelle Mozayan-Verschaeve
special cooperation

Marc Lacasse, real estate broker and president of the APCIQ, would like to point out that renovating a bathroom always adds value to a residence. “It produces a wow effect when a potential buyer visits a property, which will facilitate the sale. If there is no shower, he will see that as a weakness and may offer less when submitting the offer to install one in order to cover the cost.

“That said, it’s important to keep at least one bathroom with a bathtub,” he thinks.

The broker also notes that many people like to take a bath from time to time in winter to warm up and that, depending on their physical condition, the majority of seniors will prefer a bath to a shower, to which they will add bars of support to help them get in and out. So according to him, if the absence of a bathtub does not really devalue the value of the property, it can encourage a buyer to lower the sale price to compensate for the cost of the work if he wants to install one.

Identify their needs

For her part, interior designer Sophie Tremblay, of ST Design, has noticed a craze for large showers over the past two years. His clients often ask him to assess the impact on the value of their property if they remove the bath. “I think people are more aware of things, so they question themselves and prefer to invest in what they really use,” she says.

She points out that it takes an average of $3,000 for a freestanding bath and its faucets and that people prefer to invest in a large 4′ x 6′ shower, then add a heated floor to maximize their comfort in the bathroom. .

The designer also has requests from seniors for large shower projects. “They want to improve accessibility, but don’t want a bath with a door. I add a bench for them to sit on and an alcove to store hygiene products at the right height,” she explains.

Thinking about resale… or not

Clearly, if you are lucky enough to have two bathrooms, it is better to install a bathtub in one of them and a shower in the other, or to combine the two if space allows. If you only have one bathroom and want to resell your property quickly, opt for a bathtub, in order to cater to a larger market share of buyers. On the other hand, if you plan to stay there for a long time, choose the solution that really meets your own needs.

“Do not hesitate to treat yourself if you want to stay more than 10 years in your house by replacing the bath with a shower, in the same way as creating a very daring decor that will make you happy,” advises Marc Lacasse.

For the more cautious, Sophie Tremblay offers a wise solution: “Choose a shower whose floor drain will match that of the bath. This will be a selling point if the buyer wants to hand over a tub, as it will be easy to install. »