Demolishing a garage - will it devalue the house?

pgiman

There is a lot of opinion about whether demolishing a garage will devalue a house. We have a 3 bedroom terrace with a fairly small garden, and it has a single garage which takes up a fair bit of space. We don't use it  (neither of us run cars) - nor for storage, house has an ample basement, and the garage roof and guttering is asbestos anyway (we had an asbestos surveyor check - and yes we will be using a professional asbestos removal firm to remove it).
It's basically a concrete / asbestos monstrosity, and the access is a pain up a back alley anyway if you were to use it to store a vehicle. It would only store a small car.
Any suggestions. We don't really have the cash for a proper conversion anyway, the asbestos will still need removing before any of that anyway, removal seems considerably cheaper, and asbestos isn't very appealing anyway!

Squirrelz92

My mum preached exactly the same to me when I was looking for my first home. She told me not to demolish it for that exact reason. I guess if you are planning on living there for the foreseeable future and it really is of no use to you then surely you would want to make the most of the outdoor space for enjoyment purposes? If you leave the garage will you always question your decision every time you look at it? It's personal preference but to me if I had found my dream house and planned on living there for the foreseeable and didn't like nor want the garage, it would be getting knocked down for more garden without question

steve866

What is the parking situation like?

RelievedSheff

There are some people, ourselves included, who would discount any house that didn't have a garage. While it may not devalue your house it will certainly cross it off some peoples list if/when you come to sell it.

AdrianC

By the fact neither of you drive, can I guess you're in a city?
You say you have a basement for storage - that's unusual... but do you have a shed for the stuff you don't want to be dragging up and down stairs? Like your mower...?
You may even gain one off-road parking space from the change.

Few people use garages for their cars now anyway - modern cars have grown in size sufficiently that few older garages are big enough to easily use, plus modern life means lots of junk to store.

So, no, in your circumstances (especially taking the condition into account), I don't think it will be a showstopper.

bellaboo86

My previous house was a mid terraced house with a huge garage (could easily park my car in it and open doors both sides) which was took up a large amount of the garden space. I asked an estate agent whether knocking it down would make he property lose value and he said it wouldn’t. Like a previous poster has said, it just means that some people will discount your property due to the lack of garage. Other people will like a much bigger, well presented garden. 

xylophone

It would seem that the garage is not "a thing of beauty and a joy for ever".

You would prefer to use the space in another way, perhaps for lawn or  shrubs.

The space would still be there for any subsequent purchaser to build a garage. The access remains.

Presumably you have no intention of moving  any time soon.

You need to use your property as suits you best?

olgadapolga

I'm not sure whether it would devalue the house, or just make it less appealing to certain buyers.

When we purchased our first house, we weren't bothered about a garage as the house had an adequate driveway. It also had a very large garden which was important. When we moved, however, we needed a garage as we had bicycles, etc., that needed to be kept somewhere.

I think that, if you are planning to stay there for a while yet then you should adapt your home for your purposes. If you want to get rid of the garage so that you can enjoy a larger garden, then why not?

GixerKate

Put it this way, when looking for our next house we only looked at houses with garages, we didn't even bother looking online at properties unless there was a garage.

Is this somewhere you intend to stay for a very long time?  In which case then do what you want.  However, if its not your forever home then I would think long and hard before getting rid of it.

greatcrested

Depends where you are and what parking is like on the street.

Depends what other off-street parking you have.

Depends whether the space would become garden, or extended drive/off-street parking.

Also how long you plan to live there: if a long time, making the propety ideal for you becomes more important than any potential future market value. If short time, vive-verse!

princeofpounds

It probably would devalue the house a bit. The average purchaser wants a garage, or at least a good storage space. It would cost money to build a new one.

However, I would go ahead and remove it if it didn't suit the way I wanted to live in the property. It is a home. Maybe keep the foundations if you can incorporate it into your garden somehow, so that putting up a new one is easy if desired.