Why Do American Houses Have So Many Bathrooms?
I've lived in a 1 bathroom house in the US and i said never again. It was one of the first things I looked at when buying a house overseas as well, and it served me well.<p>Problems with a single bathroom which includes the toilet:<p>If you have kids, everyone is fighting over a scarce resource in the morning.  Showering/shaving/etc all takes time and you're all leaving in a narrow window.<p>If you don't have kids the people buying the house may, and they will care.  It makes selling the house so much harder.<p>The bathroom _must_ be cleaned to be guest ready, and they get to accidentally snoop through everything.  I love my ensuite for this reason. (and if you don't care about it being clean, your partner probably does)<p>If you have the room, why not have an extra bathroom?  So much easier to build in new construction than add later.<p>When I lived in Australia the toilet was in a separate room, so the 4 bedroom house worked ok with only 2 bathrooms.  The toilet wasn't blocked/held hostage by someone taking a shower. (washing your hands on the other hand...)  But this also helped sell the place, since with 2 full bathrooms you can have kids/house mates/etc.<p>My current house has 3 baths with 4 bedrooms.  One is in the in-law suite, which I airbnb, so we have 2 on the main floor.  It makes 2 baths for 3 bedrooms.  This feels like a nice "adult" house.  We have a spare rooms for house guests, and they have a full bathroom they can use.  This means we can host friends/family for days/weeks and we can be annoyed by their personality, instead of annoyed fighting over a bathroom. ;)<p>Of all the weird things in the US, a house having "too many" bathrooms really doesn't seem like a problem.