We've installed plenty of whirlpools. In the 90's and early 2000's, you could hardly build a home without one. But we kept hearing that they were good for soaking the mini-blinds and not much else.
And so in 2005, we decided to build a spec home that had neither a whirlpool nor a soaking tub in the master bath. Instead, it had a large walk-in shower.
“You’ll never sell it,” said a good friend who happens to be another builder. The house sold overnight without a single peep about it having no whirlpool.
Maybe we were ahead of the trend, but in the years since, few of our buyers have wanted whirlpools, though soaking tubs have started making a comeback.
Even in our luxury homes, most of our buyers have opted to ditch the tub in favor of a larger shower, and they’re often adding all kinds of goodies to the old-fashioned shower head, from rain heads and body sprays to heads that turn a regular shower into a steam shower.
The National Association of Homebuilders recently completed a survey of 1400 builders across the country, and the results confirm what we’ve been seeing.
People still want a tub somewhere in the house but no longer does it necessarily have to be in the master bath.
- Betsy de Parry, VP, Sales and Marketing