More than four in ten British homeowners transformed their spare bedrooms into offices, gyms, cinemas and more throughout the pandemic.
Zoopla surveyed homeowners across the UK to understand how the nation’s room requirements shifted – and how our homes changed as a result.
Among those who changed their homes, more than half (53%) said they completely repurposed at least one bedroom, while one in five households (22%) said they changed multiple bedrooms.
Nationally, this equates to a whopping 8,856,000 bedrooms that have been ‘lost’ amongst the UK’s 24m privately owned homes during the pandemic.
With remote and hybrid working now set to be a mainstay for many, almost half (46%) of those who have made changes have created a home office.
That means more than 4.5m new home offices have emerged across the UK. And over half of homeowners (58%) say they plan to permanently keep them.
The research shows that UK homeowners who adapted their homes spent an average of £3,714, with home offices costing on average £1,735, gyms £1,568 and home cinemas £3,841. Nationally, this is a total of £36.5 billion.
