Real Estate Blog June Archive

If you have a garage you don't use to park your car, which is a real scourge on suburban society, since so very many just waste the space on needless storage, you may have thought about converting the old two-car to living space. It's easy, since it's already got windows and a solid, dry floor, but the step down into the garage is beyond conspicuously obvious, it's the sign of the times, and these times are that it's just not time to convert your garage.

I had a client back in the day who bought a three-bedroom house with a two-car garage, and converted it to a four-bedroom, with a zero-car garage. When it came time to refinance, he just couldn't believe that his value had gone down. "But I improved the house and spent a bunch of money, how could my house go down in value?"

It's easy. What he added was an ugly, uncomfortable bedroom that obviously used to be a garage. What he lost was a garage. The addition of the bedroom only added $8,000 in value, but the loss of the garage reduced the value by $20,000. Every other house in the development had a garage, but not this one. It was a bummer, but come on, who defiles their garage like this?

Consider a basement or attic remodel, or even the addition of all-new space, but don't consider converting the garage. Unless you're running a slum property, it just won't pay off in the runs long or short.