So I got an estimate on a freestanding garage today. It would be an addition to a 3BR ranch, on a slab, and it’s not a cheap garage. It would be a 24x24, loft style, built to match the house, with electrical wiring. My biggest concern, is the return on the investment. We’ll most likely be selling in 2-3 years. I’ve oft heard that the return on a garage is 1 to 1. Is this true? How much extra value on the house will adding a garage contribute? Anyone have any experience with this, and would be willing to share their knowledge? Having a garage and additional work/storage space would be real nice, but if we turn a profit on the house, how much will be eaten by paying off the garage?
You’re in Maine? I’d have to guess that a garage will make the house infinitely easier to sell. I know when I was looking, lack of a garage pretty much scuttled any potential house purchase.
But real estate is very dependent on location and what’s true in suburban Mass may not be true in rural Maine. (Around here, the market has been tight, so you can get away with selling houses with obvious deficiencies at ridiculous prices.) You should really ask your local realtor.
Do it! The time you save in not haveing to scrape snow off your windows in the winter mornings will pay for it. To say nothing of reduced wear & tear on your car.
My personal opinion, not backed by any facts that I can provide, is that the garage would be worth considerably more if is attached to the house. Also, the attachment might cheapen the cost of running in utilities (a sink might be nice to have in there too).
If you think you might sell the place in a couple of years, though, I wouldn’t bother with the hassle. But for your own long-term comfort, I’d lay out the bucks without hesitation if I had it.
I’m thinking of buying a friend’s house. It’s a three-bedroom “cabin” on a quarter-acre lot in northern Washington. When the people bought the property they lived in a travel trailer. They built a cabin onto it, then made two more additions. If I buy the house I want to demolish the travel trailer and build a garage onto the house.
The trailer is right on the property line, but there are walls attached to three sides of it (not on the property line side, though). Here’s what my friend wrote:
So if I can work around the “five feet from the property line” rule (which might be possible, since there is an existing structure – albeit without a fourth wall – I might be able to “grandfather” a new garage in) then I’ll have a 15’x40’ garage. Otherwise it will be 10’x40’.
Will it be worth it? Surprisingly, I didn’t see many garages up in Rainland. As you know I have a 1946 Willys Jeep, I’m restoring a 1966 MGB roadster, I have two bikes and a kayak. Plus the Cherokee. In my case a garage is essential.
My friend bought his house two years ago for $60,000 (bloody cheap by L.A. standards) and it was just appraised at $96,000. His realtor told him he should list it for $98,000 and he will probably sell it for $100,000. But he said he’d sell it to me for $96,000 unless he gets another offer first. Having gone up there to house-hunt, I can tell you that I haven’t seen anything else in that price range that I’d live in. (Well, except for one house on the reservation – and that had some serious problems.)
Given that the county is gorwong and good structures are not cheap to come by anymore, I think a garage is a good investment. For one thing, it will protect my vehicles when I finally move up. For another thing it will make the house worth more if I ever decide to sell it.
What’s the housing market like where you live? How fast are homes turning over? Is the population in your area rising or falling. If it’s rising, demand for homes should rise as well, and so will prices. If it’s falling, it’s going to be a seller’s market, and you will have trouble.
If you can, surf over to www.realtor.com and take a look at what’s for sale in your area, with garages and without. It’s not the same as working with someone who evaluates homes for a living, but it may give you some idea of what the difference in price may be. Understand, however, that there are a lot of factors involved in pricing a home, especially the location.
Considering the weather conditions in Maine, I would suspect that adding a garage would either add to the value of the house (althought not on a 1:1 basis, unless you’re living in a hot market), or at the very least make it easier to sell (because people who absolutely must have a garage will not even take a look at your place, no matter how dressed-to-sell ti is).
Thanks for the responses. The issue is a bit more expensive than we hoped, as we cannot build on the side of the house where it should go. We can’t build within 50’ of the property line, so it’ll have to go somewhere that will require some site preparation. $$$$$. Moving an existing shed, uprooting trees, diverting the driveway. Ugh. But, it would be nice to have. I guess the fact that it’ll be easier to sell ought to be worth something.
We’re in rural Maine. It got down to -34 last winter, but oddly, that doesn’t really bother the wife or I that much. But I could see where with some folks, a garage would be a deal breaker.
I guess my main concern is the resale. If we put 20k into a garage, and assuming that the market stays on it’s upward trend, how much of that could we recoup in 3yrs? Currently, we’re about 26 miles west of Portland, and the population is growing. Fast, it seems. There are houses going up all around us, and 10 years ago, this whole area was just wooded hunting land. I thought we were too far from Portland, but I’m surprised at how many people are living even further west than us. Hmmm.
20k seems ridiculously high. (total cost - site prep, slab, 24x24 on sight stick build, 2 steel doors, loft w/stairs, power, windows…). We’re getting other quotes of course. But if I thought I’d at least break even, I’d do 20k no problem. Am I nuts?
No, IMO you’re not. I got a house with a garage that cost a little extra, compared to other houses in the neighborhood, but the added value of the use is so great I’d have paid ten grand more easy. Course we’ve lived here for awhile now, so I got to experience the use already. My 2 cents
It’s something of a self-fufilling prophecy:I know that when we were shopping for a house, we wouldn’t even look at houses without garages, not so much because we wanted a garage (which is mainly extra storage here in Texas) but because we figured we couldn’t sell a house without a garage, and didn’t want the headache five-ten years down the road.
My advice is to talk to local real estate brokers. Because there are so many local variables, answers from one part of the country (or even state) may not apply to you.
The real estate broker would likely be quite willing to talk to you about this. He or she would probably consider it marketing and building good relations so that you might use him or her to sell your house in a few years. You can use it as an opportunity to meet brokers and see if you feel comfortable with using them when you want to sell.
My 2 cents