How important is a garage? 12 December 2010 at 6:10PM in House buying, renting & selling 46 replies 6.8K views

alja

I live in my parent's 4 bedroom house & we have a double garage, as I'm an only child I get to use one of the garages for my car...it really puts my mind at ease knowing that my most expensive possesion is all locked away and out of the elements etc, so since having the priveledge of having one now, i'd look for one in future houses indeed

slummymummyof3

Is there room to build a new garage and convert the one you already have?

Is it possible to seperate your large kitchen dinner into distinct areas?

Do you have a study? Or is that bed 5?

hazyjo

There's only 2 of us, but a garage is on our essential list. I've survived without one... a shed's enough for me, but hubby's old flat came with a garage and he's a hoarder. We wouldn't want one for a car, but definitely for storage. Wrote off every house that had converted the garage into a room. We did look at (and offer on) some townhouses that originally had tandem garages, but they'd lost the rear part to make a bigger dining/living space at the back of the house. That was perfectly fine. The house we're buying now has 2 single garages allocated to it. Might use one for a car and the other for storage. Not sure yet. Still discrepancies over what's legally 'ours'. Grrr. With no off-street parking, we need the 2 garages and spaces in front of them. If you have such a large driveway, one garage would suffice, I'm sure. I definitely wouldn't lose it for the sake of another room. Does seem top heavy though. Do you have an ensuite bedroom? I'm presuming yes... but if not, I'd definitely lose a bedroom and make it an ensuite. Might not lose as much money as you think. Would probably make it a very attractive 4 bed house. I'd even be inclined to lose that Bed 5 to a dressing room. Why the 4/5 beds? Is one bedroom off the other?

Jx

firstaspect

I wouldn't consider buying a house without a garage myself, certainly would expect one of a 4/5 bed house.

In the current market, especially as you say you've had offers but turned them down, do you think that for the size you are offering you are just overpriced and that is why it's not selling?

LandyAndy

I also wouldn't consider a house without a garage but I have had double garages for the last 25 years.

As for open plan kitchen/dining/chilling/living rooms. Just no.

poppysarah

One of the most expensive houses in Devon has sold recently and that didn't have a garage.

I wonder at what point the buyers will notice.

mustrum_ridcully

ALJA wrote: »

I live in my parent's 4 bedroom house & we have a double garage, as I'm an only child I get to use one of the garages for my car...it really puts my mind at ease knowing that my most expensive possesion is all locked away and out of the elements etc, so since having the priveledge of having one now, i'd look for one in future houses indeed

If you've used a garage to keep your car in you'll always tend to want a house with a garage and not just for security.

In weather like we've had recently it gives one a great feeling of satisfaction (or is it schadenfreude ) not to have to scrape the ice/snow off your car in the morning. Then in the summer the car is nice and cool when you take it out of the garage.

jackieb

When we moved into this house the previous owners had knocked down a wall between the front bedroom and the kitchen and added an extension. The room was about 32ft long and it was just a nothing room. We put the wall back up and still have a 20ft long kitchen - but now have an extra room. I much prefer this as to how it was before. I do like open plan but I also like somewhere separate too - and if you have 6 people living in a house you don't always want to be all in together in one room. If I had the extra room in the first place I woudn't have put the wall back up - but I had to make a choice - big kitchen/diner/sittingroom or fair sized dining kitchen and separate room.

This is our first house with a garage - and although we don't garage our car I don't know how we managed without one before!

Gwhiz

As soon as I know a house has no garage it's off my list of prospects.

BeauBelle

We have a 4 bed townhouse that had a garage. Kitchen and garage was downstairs living room upstairs. The garage looked great on paper but as soon as we put the car in it it was useless as you couldn't get out! The garage had obviously been fine for older cars that were considerably smaller but for our normal sized family car it was totally pointless.
We spent 2 years filling it with junk before deciding to knock through to create a huge downstairs living room next to our kitchen diner.

Much more practical having 2 small children and just a better layout. It has given us a large upstairs room (old living room) that we can now use as a 5th bedroom if needed. We still have 2 parking spaces on the driveway which is plenty.

In my area the majority of houses don't have garages and if they do have them they are in a block away from the house anyway.

I wouldn't be put off by there not being a garage!

BB
xx