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Is a garage a non-negotiable for you when house hunting? It sure is for me.
Even when I was in an apartment, only buildings with garages were even considered.
I'd never buy or rent a house with no garage. (Not if I could help it.)
My days of cleaning snow off the car, or parking on the street (at home) are over.
As the thread title says, I just continue to marvel at the number of people who have garages but don't park in them. Either:
-- they enclose the garage for more living space, OR
-- have so much junk, uh, have so many belongings they need the garage for storage. Some garages are packed to the door. You can't even step inside.
Obviously in Florida, I suppose people don't need to worry about snow. But in parts of the country that get snow people are freezing, leaving their wipers up, heating up their car......while I go to the garage, press the opener to lift the door, and pull right out.
And just as convenient, when I leave something in the car and need to go back to get it, I don't have to get fully dressed to go outside do it.
I'd withhold my judgement if the contents of the garage were more valuable than the cars themselves. If someone drivers a beater but has a brand new set of Snap-On tools (hey, you never know!) this might just be the case.
Storage units in my area are becoming increasingly expensive, especially with mandatory insurance. Right now, the price of a climate-controlled 5'x5' on the ground floor is $50/month (+ another $10 for the insurance, covers $2500).
A unit the size of a garage (depending on the number of stalls) was quoted as $150 a month for a 20x15 and $300 a month for a 20x30. Not having a storage unit and parking the cars outside could be a (temporary) solution while you got rid of the stuff, but I can't think of much you'd need to continuously hold in there that would displace one or both autos.
I personally have only parked my car in my garage once or twice for a photo or during hail. Otherwise, a garage to me isn't meant to store a daily driven car. Maybe a weekend or sports car? When I bought my home its was nasty and old and dark with spiders. Nope! I wanted another room in my home. Its spotless, could eat off the floor seriously. I mop it a couple times a year.
I wanted an extension of my house honestly, its like a furnished room. So unless I know tornado sized hail is coming, not a single car enters my garage. Let alone, water causes rust on metal and tools, why expose them to unneeded wetness and slush and nasty elemental stuff?
You sound like us Attached garages make good offices, rec rooms, guest rooms.
They are perfect for that.
Even if it did, who wants the hassle? Is it not better for everybody that after you pay about half a million dollars for a property that it is only fair to get unhassled by a task such as parking a car into a garage?
Some would most definitely use the garage for parking if it was a) user friendly and b) was even possible.
There are thousands and thousands of homes here built in the 1920's... all with single car detached garages to the very rear of the property and often with little maintenance... first thing I did was termite and foundation work... my 12' x 14' garage is 100% spacious for my Model A Ford... with the Model A inside I have 2' clear behind it and almost 6' clear on the driver side... this is enough for the ancient built in work bench and still room to work...
In addition... the driveway is narrow... especially where the chimney is... tried once to back the pickup in to haul out yard trimmings... I would never try to back up 80' in the dark
When I lived in Olympia WA I did use the garage every night... it rains often there and the detached garage had a nice covered walk from the back door...
I felt like heaven… the garage was just a bare framed garage... but 24 wide by 26 deep... plenty of room to drive in and have everyone open the doors, get groceries... etc.
To me any description for an ideal size would include being able to drive in and open all the doors for people to get in and get out...
All the other garages I have encountered required passengers to get out first before driving in...
I have a 3 car garage with 4 cars and a motorcycle. Luckily, the 5th car doesn't live with us. usually, there's 2 cars outside.
when we first moved to the house, we parked everything outside and the contents of our old house sat in the garage while I unpacked. Only had 2 cars and 2 motorcycles back then.
I'd withhold my judgement if the contents of the garage were more valuable than the cars themselves.
It's not the value of the car you should be comparing it to, but rather the value of storing the car in the garage. Compare that to the value of storing whatever random stuff you have in the garage -- bearing in mind that that random stuff often needs to be stored indoors (unlike a car) and is probably a lot easier to steal.
Hardly anyone in our neighborhood uses their garage either. So crooks have learned to get into cars parked in the driveway or on the street, either unlocked or break into them, use the garage door opener to open the garage door, and then enter the house through the usually unlocked door from the garage into the house. But folks do not change their ways. They still park outside and leave their garage door openers in their cars. We always park in the garage; it also saves your cars from the neighborhood brats messing with them.
I don't know, I've thought about this too. The integrity of the car suffers when left in the elements, every time I take my car to be serviced, they say, you must keep your car in the garage, (looking at headlights). So I will always use my garage.
If I have so much stuff in my garage, maybe I need to rethink about all my stuff!
The Ford F250 long Crew base is 96" without mirrors
So even folding the mirrors will not get the F250 Crew through an 8 foot door.
Our current 2-car garage has 9' wide, 8' tall single doors each and has one long-ish parking space that barely holds our F250's length (1 foot to spare front to back). We measured it all very carefully before making an offer on the place. We kept the big truck because we need it to move our offshore fishing boat on occasion. Truck is a 1996 with only 60K miles on it and looks brand new. The Ford Bronco sits outside in the Florida sun which is a peeve. When we find an enclosed, reasonably priced place to store the truck we will move it.
Last house (that we built ourselves) had 2 3-car garages (3 attached to house, 3 in barn area) contained our 2 daily drivers, the pickup, a small 21 ft. Chaparral ski boat and our kids' cars. Was very glad everything was tucked in when big hail came along in June 2017.
A good friend's 3-car is completely packed/stacked with boxes of clothes and old furniture from front to back, floor to rafters. Their 2 relatively newer cars where totaled in the same hailstorm. But the deceased family members' boxes of old clothes and other crap were saved.
We don't see garages as an excuse to collect crap and clutter. But to each his own.
Netflix. Marie Kondo series. Anyone struggling to declutter. It is worth a watch.
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. But in parts of the country that get snow people are freezing, leaving their wipers up, heating up their car......while I go to the garage, press the opener to lift the door, and pull right out.
