Keep the Tub or Convert to a Shower? What Resale Says

The rule of thumb

Keep at least one tub in the house. That one rule covers most of the resale risk. Most buyers do not care whether the primary bathroom has a tub; many prefer a large shower there. What some buyers will not accept is a house with no tub at all.

On the Peninsula, many three-bedroom ranches and Eichlers have two bathrooms. Converting one of them to a walk-in shower and keeping a tub in the other is a common, low-risk choice.

When converting makes sense

• Nobody uses the tub. It has become a place to shower while standing in a tub, with a curtain and a high step.
• Stepping over the tub wall is the problem, for you, a parent or a guest.
• The house has another tub, or you plan to stay long enough that resale is a distant concern.
• The bathroom is small, and a glass-walled shower would make the room feel larger.

When to keep the tub

• It is the only tub in the house and you may sell within a few years.
• You have, or expect, young children. Bathing a toddler in a shower is harder than it sounds.
• You actually take baths. A deep soaking tub in the same alcove may be the better upgrade.
• The buyers in your neighborhood are mostly families. Ask a local agent what buyers in your area look for.

The middle options

• A new tub with a better shower over it. A deeper tub, a thermostatic valve, a handheld on a slide bar and glass instead of a curtain.
• A soaking tub plus a separate shower, when the bathroom has the floor space, usually in a primary bath.
• Convert the primary, keep the hall. The most common choice in our two-bathroom houses.

What the conversion involves

Converting a tub to a shower means removing the tub, replacing the walls behind it down to the studs, and installing a new pan, valve and drain, with either acrylic walls in about a day or tile in about five. Glass goes in about a week after tile. Every conversion we build has blocking in the walls for grab bars, so it can serve an older owner later without opening the walls again.