Thanks for the feedback. I have spoken to a handful of agent friends who work in the area - there really is no consensus. Some are more old school and think number of bedrooms trumps all, while others are more in line with my thinking that my target buyer is the newlywed or newborn crowd. I could *technically* still list the house as four bedrooms as that basement bonus room has a closet and is adjacent to a bathroom. I also thought about just converting that into a master suite, but I think that adds a ton of livable space as a second living room for a relatively small house and 5 bedrooms would be overkill. The whole thing has raised another question - is having a large master with a big bathroom/closet going to be important to my target buyer? Sure, it would be nice, but there are two bathrooms upstairs right next to each other and I don’t see it being much of an inconvenience for a married couple.

Thank you so much everyone. This is so helpful! The window would be on the wall nearest to the outdoor stairs down. It is facing south to the backyard and woods behind the house. But after seeing Mark Bishak’s comment and photos I don’t think I have any room for a window. It looks like there will be a lost of wasted space because of all the corners I have.

Thanks for the clarification and if we decide to send everything to an architect I will be sure to upload. At this point the builder has told us we have to put down a $5,000 deposit on the lot and $5,000 deposit to send the rough sketches to an architect. With the market being crazy, we are trying to compare what we would be able to afford with a new build vs. what we've been seeing come (and go) on the market. So we are trying to get a general sketch/layout idea of our build to see if the estimated costs are going to work in our budget.

Guessing the window is there for curb appeal on the front façade. Have you drawn a mock up to see what that would look like? Sky light /solar tubes add TONS of natural light!! Gotta wonder who the architect was and if it would be cheaper to move the closet so the window is part of the room, than mess with outside walls!!