John T. Blair wrote:
>
-snip-
>
> I have a simliar problem with my garage only it's 20x18. What I
> wanted to do was knock out the back wall and make a drive through.
> Only my house sits caty corner on the lot and there isn't enough room
> behind the house. Next problem is my breakfast nook, pantry and laundary
> room are actually the back 8 feet of the garage.
Ouch - I've seen houses like this - they really put a crimp on your
building options... doing something to a house like this can get quite
expensive if you want the job to look OK when you're done - forgive me
if this sounds inane, but you might want to pick up some books on
remodeling that describe those "bubble" exercises for figuring out how
you live - I hate to admit it, but sometimes they will lead you to
configurations that you wouldn't have thought of otherwise (maybe you
could eat up the room next to the garage, and just build a house
extension somewhere else or add a floor, or....)
- snip -
> I'm assuming that I could recoup about $8,000 in the cost when I sell
> the house. This may be wishful thinking but I figure that so many
> people would like either a wood shop, or a game room and a 20x20 ft.
> room would be great.
Don't count on it unless the added space can be used for something....
- snip -
>
> Anyone else have any thought about the cost effectiveness of adding
> a garage and the break even time?
>
There are a lot of ways to look at this. First of all, if you decide
you really can't live without the extra garage space, you have only a
couple of options:
1. move
2. add garage space
3. figure out how not to need the extra space
option 1 is really expensive - you have to pay the realtor a piece of
the action on selling your place, pay to spruce up the existing house,
pay to move, pay to do what you need to do to fix up the new place,
pay... (note that the operative term here is "pay"...)
adding up all of these will usually give you a pretty substantial
number for the cost of moving (if your house is valuable, you can
do quite a bit of remodeling for just what the realtor droid will
cost you...). You might be able to come out ahead by moving somewhere
cheaper (say, California to... (not Oregon anymore - the prices
around here are getting up to California levels :-( ), but not all of
us have that option...
Option 2 can be cheaper than option 1 in a lot of cases, though a lot
of the time it ends up costing FAR more (I always love watching "This
old House" on PBS - occasionally it appears that someone actually might
break even on the remodel, but I don't think they've had one like that
on there in years...) - and garage space is only valuable to a
select few, so its unlikely you can collect much of your sunk costs for
building it... (of course, if you could turn it into a rec room or
master bedroom suite right before sale... <g> )
The $100 monthly cost you are talking about amortized over the life
of your mortgage adds up to a fairly substantial sum that could go
to the cost of a bigger house or garage addition (and the government
does give you a discount on the interest paid...)
Option 3 is more of a lifestyle choice, though doing things like
buying a car stacker and arranging storage outside of the garage
probably count too. I've been dejunking lately (now all I have to do is
find someone who wants a Volvo - cheap), and almost have enough room
to work again, though I think I still need a little bit more space...
What you are really talking about is how much that garage space is worth
to you, and that's a bit hard objectively analyze....
Good Luck,
rkg
(Richard George)
> John
>
>
> John T. Blair WA4OHZ email: jblair@exis.net
> Va. Beach, Va Phone: (757) 495-8229
>
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