Converting a 2 car garage into a 1 car garage/bonus room

Hitman81

Hitman81

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I'm a single father/homeowner. My two kids and I live in a 1200 sq ft 3 bedroom/2 bathroom house. I have a spacious two car garage about 24' x 24' that I don't even park one car in because I have a big driveway and extra parking space along the side of the house if needed. Half of the garage is basically my home gym (half rack, treadmill, stationary bike) and the other half I use for storage, bikes, tools, sports equipment, etc. It's insulated and clean but it's still a garage. My kids are getting older and want to have friends/cousins over more often.

So for any other homeowners or people who know about resale value, would it be a good investment to take my two car garage, split it down the middle, make it a one car garage, and turn the other half into a fully finished bonus room/extra living space? I'd move my gym into that room, add a small couch and hang a tv on the wall. Nothing crazy.

I have no intent to sell at this time and just want to make the best use of the space.
 
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I have a small pool table on my other side and only park on one side if that helps . I will go read what u wrote now
 
Hey just read your OP..I think the resale would be better with a two car garage . If you are in northeast anyways . People like to park in a garage in winter
 
Fuzzybabyducks said:
Hey just read your OP..I think the resale would be better with a two car garage . If you are in northeast anyways . People like to park in a garage in winter
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I'm in the Northwest but yeah it can get cold up here and it rains a lot.
 
My house has a built in garage. We only use it for storage as most cars literally won't fit in it, even when empty!!

If you drove a vw polo in to it you'd have trouble getting out the seat!

And if someone was parked opposite on other side of the dropped kerb, the angle would be too tight to exit.

Might as well turn mine in to another room, as it's useless as is.
 
Hitman81 said:
I'm a single father/homeowner. My two kids and I live in a 1200 sq ft 3 bedroom/2 bathroom house. I have a spacious two car garage about 24' x 24' that I don't even park one car in because I have a big driveway and extra parking space along the side of the house if needed. Half of the garage is basically my home gym (half rack, treadmill, stationary bike) and the other half I use for storage, bikes, tools, sports equipment, etc. It's insulated and clean but it's still a garage. My kids are getting older and want to have friends/cousins over more often.

So for any other homeowners or people who know about resale value, would it be a good investment to take my two car garage, split it down the middle, make it a one car garage, and turn the other half into a fully finished bonus room/extra living space? I'd move my gym into that room, add a small couch and hang a tv on the wall. Nothing crazy.

I have no intent to sell at this time and just want to make the best use of the space.
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You need bricks.


@Clippy.
 
Pretty sure you lose money in this scenario but I have never understood that being a primary motivator when deciding how to LIVE in the space you have. It seems like putting the cart before the horse to me.

Sheetrock it paint it and throw a mini split into it for heat an AC.
 
franklinstower said:
Pretty sure you lose money in this scenario but I have never understood that being a primary motivator when deciding how to LIVE in the space you have. It seems like putting the cart before the horse to me.

Sheetrock it paint it and throw a mini split into it for heat an AC.
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That's pretty much how I feel. I already have a ton of equity in the house. I have zero plans to move/sell. Might as well make it as comfortable for myself as possible
 
If you don’t plan on selling, convert that shit into your personalized masturbation station. Might as well put your comfort first.
 
I'm all for your new room bud you should do it 100%

I live in my garage most of the time
 
Hitman81 said:
I'm a single father/homeowner. My two kids and I live in a 1200 sq ft 3 bedroom/2 bathroom house. I have a spacious two car garage about 24' x 24' that I don't even park one car in because I have a big driveway and extra parking space along the side of the house if needed. Half of the garage is basically my home gym (half rack, treadmill, stationary bike) and the other half I use for storage, bikes, tools, sports equipment, etc. It's insulated and clean but it's still a garage. My kids are getting older and want to have friends/cousins over more often.

So for any other homeowners or people who know about resale value, would it be a good investment to take my two car garage, split it down the middle, make it a one car garage, and turn the other half into a fully finished bonus room/extra living space? I'd move my gym into that room, add a small couch and hang a tv on the wall. Nothing crazy.

I have no intent to sell at this time and just want to make the best use of the space.
Click to expand...
I am a Real Estate Appraiser.
A bit of advice, if its not permitted make sure you can easily convert back if you want to sell. My last house, I just put some Drywall on the inside of the garage door and made a room out of the garage. When I sold it I removed the drywall, turned it back to a garage.
Some lenders get real weird with none permitted additions, because they are afraid that the county/city will make you remove it. I had one about 3 years ago, guy converted a carport, added to the carport without a permit. So he took an 800 sf house made it roughly 1800, added 2 bedrooms and 1.1 bathrooms to the addition. I called the county, they told me they know its illegal and has sent notices to either permit it or they will remove it. So dude was trying to sell his house. I made the report subject to the permit, because did not want to be financially responsible when the city tore it down on the new owner. Long story short, he could not sell his house and took him 4 months to get it permitted so it would finally sell. His new house was out of state and had to go back and forth to fix his permit issue.
As far as value goes, I would not know because adjustments are based specific markets. I have been an appraiser for 17 years. Sometimes the garage conversion has been a neutral or positive for the home and a few times it has been a negative, depending on which market that conversion was done.
 
44nutman said:
I am a Real Estate Appraiser.
A bit of advice, if its not permitted make sure you can easily convert back if you want to sell. My last house, I just put some Drywall on the inside of the garage door and made a room out of the garage. When I sold it I removed the drywall, turned it back to a garage.
Some lenders get real weird with none permitted additions, because they are afraid that the county/city will make you remove it. I had one about 3 years ago, guy converted a carport, added to the carport without a permit. So he took an 800 sf house made it roughly 1800, added 2 bedrooms and 1.1 bathrooms to the addition. I called the county, they told me they know its illegal and has sent notices to either permit it or they will remove it. So dude was trying to sell his house. I made the report subject to the permit, because did not want to be financially responsible when the city tore it down on the new owner. Long story short, he could not sell his house and took him 4 months to get it permitted so it would finally sell. His new house was out of state and had to go back and forth to fix his permit issue.
As far as value goes, I would not know because adjustments are based specific markets. I have been an appraiser for 17 years. Sometimes the garage conversion has been a neutral or positive for the home and a few times it has been a negative, depending on which market that conversion was done.
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I would have it done with permits. I don't fuck around with my house
 
I lived in a place where the garage was made into an extra room. It was a bit odd as the room was on side of house not below. So it was a dining room they made it into but u could tell it use to be a garage .
 
i concur with the putting up a "temporary" wall
i did something similar when i was a teen living in a garage
 
I lived in my moms two car garage for two years.

It was built long ways to fit two cars, so I just put a curtain in the middle and made it look pretty decent in there.

I successfully banged 5 women in that garage, I’m proud of that number.
 
The idea of having even a single garage for myself these days does it for me

Get it converted
 
Being in real estate / building for 30 years i can offer you a few thoughts..There is no way to know for sure if the project will help or hurt your resale value, the obvious reason being you have not met them ( future buyers) yet and don’t know their lifestyle.

What you did mention is not having plans to sell in the near future...Life is short, enjoy your home now, create what will make you and your kids happy....Money isn’t everything...as a matter of fact, it’s not even close.
 
I wouldn't do anything permanent since most people want a 2-car garage at a minimum. I would look at other options. You could put up a temporary wall separating the two sides. You could also add insulation to the garage door and then close it in.

If you have enough land and a decent budget I would even consider putting up a insulated 'man cave shed' outside with running electricity.
 
Garages are pointless here. The first thing I'm going to do when I buy a house next year is convert the garage into an extra room.
 
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