Even though I like mine, for resale, I wouldn't install one. There are probably a bunch of other little things that you need to attend to. If you're unsure what to prioritize you could have a local, experienced realtor come over and give you a dollar figure to not go over, and make some suggestions on things to do to make your home appeal to the most people possible. Don't over improve. I always hear people saying that you should fix anything that is broken and make your home super clean. But a local realtor can give you more specific advice.

I love mine, but I also have a handheld. I would do both or neither.

Rainhead is a negative for those of us who do not want wet hair with every shower so I'd say its actually limiting for resale.

It's not that much more work to install a 6" down pipe from your ceiling if your walls are already torn apart. If you (someone) doesn't enjoy it, don't use it. Another savings is to skip the $250 rain showerheads and simply screw on any Speakman without the flow restrictor to get the same effect.

It was a big “plus” for DH and a “neutral” for me when we purchased. He still likes it. I hate it, maybe because I’m shorter? Anyway, it wouldn’t be a negative if I were buying again as long as there were other showerheads with oomph.

If we were house shopping and a rain head shower was the sole source in a shower, we would pass and keep shopping. Install a handheld with it, and our problem goes away.

I don't think it would be a deal breaker if you don't have a rain head.

Not a deal breaker.

Thought about installing one in my new build. Decided... a silly thing for my needs.

Won't be installing any rain shower heads in our new build, specially ones in the ceiling. Every shower will get a wall mounted shower head and a separate shower/grab bar with handheld.

I wouldn't necessarily pass on a master with a rain head, but I dislike them for shampooing and would have to have it redone if it was the only shower head in the shower.

Thanks for the feedback, everyone! This is super helpful. Now I just need to find a couple of nice, affordable shower systems that include the head, hand sprayer on bar, and valves/mixers. I'm going to make another post to get some recommendations!

I would pass on a shower without a handheld and most importantly grab bars. Grab bars can not be added after the fact without difficulty because they need to be mounted to studs.

Although not a deal breaker, I would assume that a shower with a thermostatic valve was higher end than one with a pressure balance valve and that other aspects of the shower build also reflected this.

I know that people seem to think rain head showers are the cat's pajamas as least based on shows like House Hunters but I think they make sense only in showers where they are an option and not the only shower head so ideally there would be regular, handheld and then a rain head - not that I want a rain head but so long as it had the components I wanted, I wouldn't care if it existed :-).