I'm well aware from my estate agency experience that a downstairs cloakroom is on many buyers' lists of criteria and the convenience this adds to a family or even someone living alone is quite obvious. However, I've noticed over the past 10 years that this now tends to be lower down on the list than the 'en suite to the master bedroom'.

It appears that when discussing home improvements, renovations and refurbishments - or indeed creating additional value, the humble 'downstairs loo' has become the poor relation to the more ubiquitous 'en-suite' - but have we been casting our eyes in the wrong direction in terms of return-on-investment?

The best barometer of intangible value could be calculated by the amount of use a downstairs facility gets or the number of people it benefits. The intangible value knows no bounds as it supports the needs of whole family - particularly useful for felt-pen wielding minors and less limber seniors! For those who like to entertain at home but don't wish to invite multiple guests to traipse up-and-down the stairs and give them the opportunity to peer into the boudoir or form a disorderly queue outside the poor overworked family bathroom, then a downstairs loo is a saving grace.

With the plethora of compact cloakroom suites offered by this industry, where or how to position a cloakroom will take a lot of potential customers by surprise. People won't necessarily need to knock down walls or build an extension to fit one into a typical home...

A large cupboard, under-stair space or a portion of a room that can be syphoned off, could offer the perfect place. Asa Bentley, managing director of MakeurMove (www.makeurmove.co.uk), says that the cost of installing a downstairs cloakroom will typically range between £2,500 and £4,000 including materials and labour, and take between one and two weeks to complete. But just how much value will it add to a property?

Asa says we should expect to see around 5% increase in value - which, based on Office of National Statistics September 2015 average house price figures, equates to up to £18,000 (£26,500 in London). Not bad for a small outlay and a little inconvenience, is it? And an idea definitely worth suggesting to people browsing a showroom, who may never have previously considered adding such a useful - and money-making - facility to their home...

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Yours,

Jan Hobbs