Does an Aga range cooker Add Value to a House?

An Aga range cooker really does make a house a (dream) home

As we have known for years - the Aga range cooker really does make the house a home; its popularity amongst the ‘celebrity set’ has made it a British institution with the likes of Mary Berry signing its praises on the Chris Evans Radio 2 breakfast programme; Jamie Oliver claiming that it makes people better cooks and even the Duchess of Cornwall saying she would never cook on anything else.

Do you remember young Flora Sheddon from the 2015 series of the ‘Great British Bake Off’ who forgot to turn her oven on as ‘At home we have an Aga range cooker and I’m so used to having it on all the time’?

This (Flora was only 19), and celebrities like the chef Sophie Conran and model Daisy Lowe, have helped move the cooker’s image away from ‘Country kitchen-types’ to being seen as integral to mainstream kitchens.

Those of us who have had an Aga range cooker for many years know how desirable they are; when the Daily Telegraph was reporting on the the housing-improvement market in 2013 they commented that ‘...people are increasingly thinking about improving their home… it brings brands like Aga to the front of their mind’. We couldn’t agree more that adding an Aga range cooker into the home increases its desirability.

We aren’t the only people who hold this view; recent data from the SellingUp/Populus online survey of 2,100 UK adults (aged 18+) [read the fascinating full article here] reported that 38% of respondents felt that an Aga range cooker made the house more desirable, and 49% reported ambivalence reporting that it would make no difference.

There is a tacit acceptance that the cooker is a ‘good thing’ to have, or at least not a bad thing (for the purposes of transparency - 13% reported that an Aga range cooker would make a house less desirable).

The survey reports a shift towards the younger rather than older end of the age spectrum; 40% of 18-24 year olds surveyed said that they felt an Aga range cooker would make a property more desirable to buy, a greater number than the 32% of respondents aged 65+ who agreed.

The survey went on to use the data to devise a ‘Net desirability score’ allowing a number of household features to be ranked according to their desirability when purchasing a new home; having an Aga range cooker was ranked as +25, almost the same as a home-gym (+27) which for many would considered a luxury addition.

We have always felt that our Aga range cooker is truly the heart of the home, and as well as keeping it warm it helps make it a much desired place to be - thank you SellingUp/Populus for reinforcing our views!