I would leave fitness room as is and list it as extra bedroom.

Leave as a fitness room.

However, do talk with your Realtor to see what works the best in your area. Do 6 bedrooms command a premium price vs fitness rooms? I don't know your area. Your Realtor will.

If you are on septic, be cautious about showing too many bedrooms. How many is too many? More than what the septic system was designed for when it was built. If you are on city sewer and water you don't have to worry about it.

Is fitness room truly a legal bedroom? Needs closet and exist window/door. I would stage as a “flex” space. Remove fitness equipment and place an easel with a mood board with great pictures of home office, workout space, craft room, super closet/storage area, especially if you are in snow country and guest room. Just get great photos to put on the idea board.

Needing a built in closet to determine a bedroom depends where you are located in the country. You do need an egress window and a minimum size to call it a bedroom. Check your municipality to see what those requirements are for your neighborhood.

"Every appraiser has a little bit of leeway when it comes to interpreting building regs and requirements. But most agree that the International Residential Code (IRC), to which all 50 states in the U.S. conform, contains no verbiage requiring a closet in a bedroom. Among the things the IRC does stipulate, in its definition of a bedroom: "

Stax this does not ring true. In all our buying and selling we were told 'no closet= not an legal bedroom" and it cannot be listed so.

I don’t think it matters, as long as it’s super clean and tidy. If your equipment is well used, move it out. If the space looks great, leave it as a fitness room.

IMO most buyers can use their imagination about how to use the space when they have it. I would just clean every space twice , declutter, take away personal pictures and make your life a little easier. Moving sucks enough as is. I always find it funny that you can’t call a room a bedroom without a closet since Ikea sells 1000s of wardrobes for just that purpose.

arcy_gw

" the International Residential Code (IRC), to which all 50 states in the U.S. conform, contains no verbiage requiring a closet in a bedroom."

vs "we were told"

Don't know what to tell you...

It is my understanding that the “closet in a bedroom” (and certain other) requirements are used in connection with evaluating the number of bedrooms and appraisal/comps for mortgage financing purposes. Generally, if you want the bank to evaluate and comp the house as a four bedroom house for financing purposes, the bedrooms must have closets, they can’t be accessed only through another room, the septic (if applicable) needs to be sized for four bedrooms, etc.

No, the bedrooms don't have to have built in closets. 'Bedrooms can only be considered a bedroom with a built in closet' is a persistent myth. Check any reputable appraisal forum and you will see that built in closets have no bearing on whether it is a bedroom or not. Check with your building department to see if they have such a requirement (generally, no). I've never seen a bank require a built in closet either. They rely on the appraisal from what I have seen.

You are right about not accessing a 'bedroom' through another room though.

You are also right about the septic. If there is a septic, it needs to support the number of bedrooms in the property.

Here is an interesting appraisal blog about the 4 requirements for a room to be considered a bedroom:

http://sacramentoappraisalblog.com/2014/09/09/the-4-requirements-for-a-room-to-be-considered-a-bedroom/

I was taught and used 80 sq.ft. for a bedroom. 8'x10' is a very small room.

There is an local market exception to the no one room leading into the other. The shot gun style houses that do not have a hallway. Unless, you live in Louisiana, you aren't likely to run into that one.

What gets most people is the size of the window in a basement. 5.7 sq.ft.

Typically, when we encounter rooms in a basement, we label them something other that a bedroom. We'll call them dens, offices, wine cellar, anything except a bedroom. What you do with it is your business. The exception being a house on a hillside where the bedrooms are embedded in the hillside. You see a lot of these in lakefront properties, too. That becomes a local market exception, too.

I've got a full inground basement. Half is finished. The basement has den, a full bath and a room with a closet. We use that extra room as a "home gym".

I shouldn't follow the fate of the custom houses I've built. But I do.

One now on its fourth owner in ten years was recently listed. Five bedrooms and a legal basement suite. Bereft of staging ideas, the owners, a couple, staged the library and the former basement fitness room into bedrooms as well. Looked more like a high-end rooming house! (Still sold for $3.270m in three weeks.) So, depending on the market, it may not matter what you present it as, as long as it's sparsely furnished, neat and clean.