PLEASE, let’s try to keep this off the topic of the PC-ness of labeling beds/baths as master or primary. Trust me, I get it… I’ve resisted as long as I can but finally got some pushback lately and, in the interest of keeping some clients happy, I’m looking into it.
Primary bedroom replaces master bedroom. Easy enough. I typically (used to anyway) refer to bedrooms as “master” or “spare”. I struggle with “Primary Bathroom”. For some reason that just doesn’t sound right. Do you poor souls that have fallen prey to the woke mob call the master bathroom a “primary bathroom” and everyone knows it’s the master bathroom you’re talking about?
I have no problem with continuing to use the word master. Obviously if it hurts your business then changing to the more woke garbage may be necessary. I don’t think that this is a battle worth fighting if it hurts your bottom line.
“The bathroom attached to the primary bedroom”. If they say “oh, the Master”, you can use that. If they say “the primary”, just say “yeah, that one”. I’ve just started calling them main bedroom, back, front, left front, right front, etc. Sorta avoiding the language entirely. There’s also grunting and pointing but it doesn’t work in the report.
I would argue that the primary bathroom in my house is the one off the living room. Other than a morning shower, it gets used more than the other one throughout the day.
I switched from using “master” to “primary” a few years back. The reason being is because it’s now the norm around here and I’m not going out on a limb and risking business by thumping my chest and screaming, “see, I’m not woke,” by going against the grain and using the word “master” when describing bedrooms and bathrooms.
To me it’s a stupid thing, but I have white skin, so I can’t really understand how people with brown or black skin feel about it, although I’ve asked a couple REA friends with dark skin about how they feel and they told me the use of the word “master” didn’t bother them.
So, the bottom line for me is to “go along to get along”.
It took me less than 5 minutes to make the changes in my software.
To be honest, this i the first time I’ve thought of it as a racial thing.
I always related “master” bedroom like master or captain (think parents) of the home. Like when we used to put phone lines in homes, one would go in the kitchen and maybe den or office and for sure in the “master’s” or “captain’s” bedroom so the ship could be run from there as needed.
When I had the plans for our addition drawn up by a draftsman, the extension said “master bedroom”.
The fact that there is very little evidence that the term is actually linked to something discriminatory is good enough for me to keep using it. It seems like there are people who sit around all day and do nothing more than try and come up with this kind of nonsense.
It is all pretty stupid. I feel no need to change to satisfy some stupid correlation between the word “master” and slavery. So no more “master” keys? No more “master” Inspector? It has nothing to do with “beating my chest,” as one woke inspector has put it (who does that?). I feel no compulsion to change just to be a “people pleaser.” The only pleasing I need doing is to God and my wife!
The same people who will change their language on such a stupid idea, will compromise their values and principles just as easily!
Good point Bob, as with many words in the English language they can have more than a single meaning. Just because the word master was at one time rooted in slavery does not mean that has anything to do with a master bedroom, master plumber, master electrician, etc.
Having a name for a single bedroom or single bathroom doesn’t seem to be very important, as it still leaves the others without a name that you have to identify by number. So I just number all of them.
When the MLS started using “primary bedroom”, I did the same. Not a hill worth arguing over, much less fighting for…imo.
I rarely have a house with more than 5 bedrooms, so using terms like “NE bedroom, middle bedroom, rear corner bedroom”, etc works for me in identifying them for clients.
I stopped using master years ago when multiple bedrooms in the home started having a bathroom attached to them. Everything is labeled by floor and compass direction. It’s easier and it eliminates the politically sensitive from both parties getting their feelings hurt.
In our report we still have and will continue to use the term “Master” for the bathroom in the Master Bedroom, it has been this way since 1995 and for over 15,000 inspections! We have never had a complaint or request to change to Primary so I see no need it even consider it to make a few minions happy.
Even with multiple ensuite bathrooms, you will have one that is the Master or owners. When we have this on a home, we still denote the Master suite and list the others by floor and location(middle, rear, front, etc.)
If you want to call it the Primary, then go ahead and do that. But just to change what has worked well for three decades in order to make a few happy is not somthing I will do, especially when nobody has ever said anything to me, my staff or my inspectors!
We just follow the local industry naming norms, and it switched to “primary” couple years ago. If there is a room layout plan in the online listing I’ll try to use those names because it gives it a convenient visual reference.I had a mentor give me the good advice years ago to keep politics out of your business. Working in the DC metro area you meet people of every political stripe and persuasion and quickly get used to rolling with whatever the client and their agent are talking about.
I hear you Larry, I never thought of it as racist either, and had been calling master bedrooms and master bathrooms that for 60 years without any thought of racial intentions.
When I first heard about it, a Realtor actually brought it to my attention, like I said, I thought it was stupid and had no plans on changing the wording in my reports.
But the more I thought about it, I realized there might be some people who may find it offensive, and they could be my clients, so for that reason alone I decided to make the word change in my reports and as I’m talking during the inspection, it’s a simple thing to adjust to and I haven’t look back since making the change.
For me, it’s not about being woke, it’s about respect for others that might be offended by something I never had a clue about in the past that could have offended them.
