Want to Buy a House With a Sex Room? This Flip Might Be the Place for You

Remember the Netflix show How to Build a Sex Room? Premiering in July 2022, it was a bit of a sneak hit (spending a few weeks on the Most Watched list) and featured home renovation projects that were definitely on the sultry side. Filmed in Denver, the show involved a design expert who interviewed couples or singles about what they wanted in their sex room, then deployed her crew of contractors, furniture makers and other specialists to make sexy, sexy dreams come true.

While Netflix hasn't revealed whether it plans to revisit this concept for a second season, enough people were intrigued with the idea of a sex room (or an intimacy suite, if you will) in their own homes that some of the behind-the-scenes participants decided to create a full-blown business, Fantasy Suites, that specializes in creating these spaces for both homeowners and businesses. Fantasy Suites caters to clients all over the country — there's a team based in Denver — and in the next couple of weeks, it will be collaborating on a local home flip that includes an intimacy area.
"At the end of the day, there's a buyer for everything," says Mark Mueller, who founded the company with his Arvada-based stepbrother.

After building several pleasure spaces for people across the country, the Fantasy Suites team heard from a home flipper who thought it might pay to add one to a project in southwest Denver. "In this case, the main bedroom has a large room off of it that was probably intended to be an office of some sort," Mueller explains. "The design is going to spill out into the main bedroom itself.

"There's no doubt that this is a niche, but at the same time, there are people out there who are interested in homes that already come with a pleasure room," he adds.

While this is true, it's not the entire truth. In 2019, a McMansion for sale in Pennsylvania was listed with photos and descriptions of a "sex dungeon" in the basement. (There was some sexy furniture involved, but calling it a dungeon was clearly a stretch.) The listing went viral, becoming one of the most-viewed properties of the year, but marketing it through a sexy lens backfired when would-be buyers ultimately decided not to purchase the home because it had a reputation in the neighborhood as, well, a sex-dungeon house.

Even when How to Build a Sex Room was airing last year, Denver real estate agents who specialize in helping kinky and non-monogamous buyers and sellers told us that selling a house with a sex room usually involves dismantling the room and marketing it as a bonus room or office space.

Mueller and his partners are aware of the potential pitfalls of marketing a house with a sex room, but they're not deterred. For starters, this house is described as entry-level; it's not a sprawling McMansion in an upscale neighborhood in Pennsylvania. And listing agent Sarah Bowles is deliberately steering away from describing the intimacy suite as a dungeon.

"It's an intimacy space," she notes. "And an intimacy room doesn't necessarily have to revolve around sexual connotations, but just feeling sensual and having a sensual side of yourself is also an aspect to it." While the house won't be listed until close to the end of October (the contractors are adding the finishing touches), she says that she's already gotten interest from several qualified buyers just by letting her network know it's going to be available soon.

In most house flips, the idea is to make upgrades to popular or potentially outdated spaces in the house, such as the kitchen or the bathroom, but putting in too much personality isn't really ideal. Home stagers typically remove personal items and any "interesting" design choices, because the idea is to create a space that almost any buyers could see themselves occupying. But while Fantasy Suites is flouting tradition, the team thinks it's going to work for them.

"Look at Highlands Ranch," Bowles points out. "It's one of the most cookie-cutter places out there, but they have the most swinger clubs." And that's true, too.

The group has a backup plan in case a potential buyer loves the house but not the intimacy space. In fact, it has four plans for the flipper, one of which includes listing the house as a vacation rental if it gets a lot of interest but not any serious offers. Another plan would involve restoring the space to home-office status.

"This was meant as a test," Mueller explains. "It's probably not something we're going to do a lot of, but we'll probably do it from time to time."