Dee,

We have a house, that got buid in 2007, 3BR/2BA 1547 sq. ft with large Master Suite in midtown. At the time we could not sale it. We are renting it now. Rent money recieved basically covers 85-90% of expences. Tenant pays for the ulities. There are number of properties like that around and I'm sure that it is rentable. If you are intersting I can tell you more about our property.

Gene

There are number of preperties

Interesting question. I have a buyer who would love a home of this size. She is a single mom raising three kids. You don't mention how many other bedrooms, but she wants some private time in her own room and her one stipulation was a large bedroom. That is often hard for us to know without viewing the properties because most listings don't describe size of the master. Kitchen size wasn't a factor in her case.

There are just more factors that a buyer considers than just these two, in almost all cases. Does the buyer want a yard, or not, and what do they want to do with it? Garden, entertain, play yard for kids....
Do they need a larger family room/great room, or do they want the formal living room/dining room combination? ...too many other factors to consider when comparing homes of 1200-1300 square feet ...

In terms of rental, the property rental surveys that exist normally give average rental prices on three factors, size of home, and number of bedrooms/baths. They don't consider size of kitchen or size of master. Those become buyer preference issues, not directly related to pricing, in my experience.

I was taught that you need one buyer (single couple or family) for a house, to make a sale. If the house does not appeal to most buyers, it can still sell if it seen by the buyer for whom that house is perfect.

Just as a showing agent tries to find hte perfect house for a buyer, a listing agent triies to envision the perfect buyer for their listing.

For the subject house, I would envision buyers who have busy lives outside the house, don't entertain much at home (with dinner parties), People that eat out a lot, or eat take out food, pre packaged dinners etc. Lots of people have those kinds of lifestyles. I would create a marketing campaign that targeted people with that lifestyle. I would emphasize the benefits of the spacious master suite in my advertising and market write up.

If I was offering a buyer premium for the house, it might be for gift certificate to a local restaurant..

I don't think it will affect the rental as much as it may the resale value. Tenants will more readily accept flaws than owners because beyond a security deposit, most tenants are putting anything of value into the home. They move more often, too. Location means something different to tenants than it does to owners. For tenants, it might mean the home is closer to their work, on the bus route. near friends, restaurants or shopping. That's why you'll see apartment buildings along busy streets immediately rented but a home on that same busy street may take months to sell.

As for resale, how small is the kitchen in relation to the rest of the home? How did the master bedroom get so large? Was space taken away from the kitchen or another bedroom? Was the master added on? How many bedrooms are in this home? How many baths?

If it's a three bedroom, two bath, you'll probably be OK on resale because that's the configuration most buyers want in the area where you are looking. They also prefer larger master bedrooms. But don't kid yourself that the kitchen isn't important. I just sold a home in South Land Park Hills with a very small kitchen. The back yard was a paradise, the bedrooms were spacious, the home had tons of character, but that kitchen was holding back a lot of buyers. It ended up selling to a buyer who didn't much care about a kitchen. It also took almost three months to sell. If that kitchen had been bigger . . .

I'd say as far as importance of rooms, most buyers stack them somewhat in this order (everybody is different, of course):

Kitchen
Family / Dining
Yard
Master
Baths
Living room (I think living rooms are on their way out because nobody uses them anymore)

You probably are expecting the standard answer: "It all depends."

But it does. In real estate, the adage location, location, location still applies. Today, augment that with price, price, price.

How is the market in your area? If it's a hot market, size of the kitchen may not be foremost in the buyer's minds. But in a declining market, focusing on improving perception of the kitchen is critical since that is one of the major factors in a home purchase.

A very small kitchen may be improved by simple rearrangement. If there's room for expansion, you may even consider that, but at what cost? Will you be able to recover the cost when you sell? How long are you planning to keep it before you sell?

There's a good site that provides an analysis of Cost Vs Value, They have an annul report, and it provides regional analysis.

Since you seem to be in the Sacramento area, I'm providing the link to that report.