Bonus room vs additional bedroom?
We just listed our home for sale in a fairly competitive market. We priced it in line with local area comps, maybe just a little bit lower. It is the lowest-priced house in the neighborhood, even though we have fully renovated it, because we need to move quickly. We are still looking for ways we can improve our listing and make it more appealing for buyers.
One concept we discussed with our listing agent was listing our house as a 4 bed/2.5 bath rather than a 3 bed/2.5 bath. We recently renovated a 350 sq ft bonus room above the garage so that it now meets all of the city and MLS requirements as a bedroom. It has the appropriate sq footage, ceiling height, closet, private entrance, central heat/air, and egress requirements. We specifically asked our agent about listing it as a fourth bedroom. While our listing agent confirmed that it meets requirements to be a bedroom, he advised against it and listed our house as a 3 bed/2.5 and described the bonus room as a room that can be a "media room, home office, play room, or other living space".
He argued that advertising it as a bonus room would be more appealing to buyers than as an additional bedroom because it is in a separate wing of the house than the other bedrooms and full bathrooms, which would make it seem odd to buyers who would come to see the house. I personally think that the separation and privacy would make it a perfect guest bedroom, in-law bedroom, or teenager/college student bedroom. I would assume that it would be more valuable to advertise as a bedroom that could secondarily be used as a home office, play room, family room, etc. What should we do? He says he is glad to go along with what we want, but I don't want to insist on going against his advice if it is not worth the hassle. For additional context, the living room and dining rooms are very large, so we have never used the bonus room for entertaining. It is currently used as our guest bedroom.