Every home needs at least one bathtub and the master bathroom is usually the best place for one. Many young professionals claim that they are too busy to soak in a bathtub and prefer the modern convenience of a quick shower to clean themselves. The short answer, when considering resale, is yes. Ideally, you should have at least one bathtub in your home if you plan to sell in the near future, but this doesn't have to be in your master bathroom.
If you must choose a bathroom to maintain a bathtub, go to the hallway bathroom, as it is normally used for bathing small children or pets. If your master bathroom is spacious enough, consider a freestanding bathtub and large shower as an additional amenity. Whether or not you need a bathtub may also depend on your local market, but keep in mind that removing all the tubs in your home will limit potential buyers. Usually, a bathroom must have a toilet, sink and bathtub for it to be considered a full bathroom.
A bathroom with toilet, sink and shower, but no bathtub, would be considered a three-room bathroom. The master bathroom can be a major selling point or it can be a decisive factor. Most potential buyers expect the master bathroom to be a full bathroom and include a bathtub. While some potential buyers say the lack of a bathtub wouldn't deter them, especially if the shower was decorated with many features, others say that would make them pass by the house.
Some realtors have advised that as long as your house has at least one bathtub, even if it's not in the master bathroom, it should be fine. If the master bathtub is your only bathtub, removing it could be detrimental to the value of your home and exclude many potential buyers. This is particularly true for couples with young children who find it very difficult to try to bathe a young child in a shower. Ultimately, whether you should include a bathtub in your master bathroom remodel will come down to how you plan to use the space.
If you are going to be at home for a while and you are more of a person taking a shower or want to use the space of the bathtub for something else, such as a dressing room or even a sauna, then giving up the bathtub may be the right choice. If your house is big enough for one bathroom to have the bathtub and the other bathroom just a shower, maybe that's okay. A small bathroom with a typical bathtub just doesn't offer enough space for you to enjoy a bathtub, so my tiny bathroom will be renovated with a good shower. As the master bathroom is made for a couple, and since most homes are built for nuclear families, this means that parents will share the master bedroom and bathroom.
I think I'll probably convert the hallway bathroom first and save the bathtub in the master bathroom for soaking. If you want more space in a guest bathroom that only has a bathtub, replace the fixture with a shower to save space, but keep the tub in your master bathroom for resale value. In many cases, you can increase the functionality of your bathroom and even improve the value of your home if you have a large walk-in shower in your master bathroom. As bathtubs take up a lot of space, they can sometimes restrict design plans when it comes to bathroom renovations.
