house with just one-car garage

[retire-early]

There is a house in a 55+ gated community.

It has enough living space.
The one big drawback is that it has only an one-car garage.
And the lot is not wide enough to even expand the driveway to a two-car driveway.
It has been on the market longer than the other single-family houses that have been up for sale.

I noticed that a similar one-car garage home in the same community pre-Covid also sat on the market a long time.

Is a two-car garage a must?

.

 

[Bamaman]

I've got so many tools and stuff that a triple car garage is full.

I'm building a 24' x 36' garage at my lake house an hour away.

 

[Jim59]

No, why would it be a must. I built a house and garage 30 years ago. The garage has never had a car in it.

 

[W2R]

I love having a two car garage, even though I only own one car. It's nice to have lots of extra space in the garage, especially when transporting lots of packages or people. Also I don't have to try very hard in order to park with plenty of space on both sides.

For me, a two car garage is a "must" or at least it is something that I value having and prefer.

My realtor told me that having a two car garage adds $10K to the resale value of a home. But that was 20 years ago, so maybe things have changed.

 

[Tom52]

In our +55 community it is more difficult to sell a house with 2 car garage than the exact same house with a 2 car plus a golf cart garage. Three car garages are a premium. Storage space is at a premium when there are no basements. I can understand why a house with a one car garage would be a tough sale. I would never consider it, especially if there was no room to add on.

 

[karen1972]

It may not be a must but it certainly is a minus to only have 1 car. Most people use their garages for storage. Its nice to leave the bikes on the ground or have a work bench etc and most 1 car garages you can barely fit a compact car in and it often means only 1 car fits in the driveway so you can't have multiple guests park. Then you add to the fact some people are not the best drivers so get nervous driving in/out of that small space... we have several one car garages in the neighborhood (not 55+) and its there are lots of tire marks in the grass as people try to get in and out and a few dings in the molding around the garage frames, most fold in the mirrors and there are several people that said its impossible to even fit a mid-size vehicle in theirs.

 

[Dtail]

It depends.
For us, we have 4 cars for our 4 person household. 3 of the 4 cars are garaged every night.

 

[mountainsoft]

I didn't have a garage until I was almost 40 years old. It's certainly not a requirement and is a luxury most apartment dwellers never have.

That said, I certainly enjoy having my two car garage as a workshop, and as a place to work on the cars. We also store a lot of camping gear, holiday decorations, and other items in the garage attic. But we have never parked our cars in the garage.

Many people get by fine with one car garages as workshops. Heck, my "shop" for over ten years was an 8x10 shed.

Is there room to add one or more sheds on the lot? You could move things like lawn equipment to the sheds and free up space in the garage.

 

[RetireeRobert]

Nothing is a "must", there is a buyer for everything, even houses with one car garages. The problem is the far biggest majority of buyers for the last few decades of two car families and two earner households, want at least 2 car garage. So the house with only a 1 car garage will take far longer to find its buyer, not that many 1 car garage home buyers out there. If I were a potential buyer for such home, I would first be sure I only want need 1 car garagae myself. And I would be sure I were in a position to stay in or hold that house for a long long time.

 

[Yipper]

Seriously? Are you all just slaves to your "stuff"? I went from an attached 2-car garage to a house without a driveway - let alone a garage.

Most garages (1-car, 2-car and 3-car) in this area (Hunterdon County, NJ) aren't actually used for cars.. they just function as storage units for outdoor "stuff".

Trust me... shedding all the "stuff" is an awesome stress reliever. Try it.

Experiences > Stuff

 

[Koolau]

I used to have the nice "established" (as in trees in the yard, shrubs, flower beds) "tract" home with 2 car garage. Now, we have a "parking structure" with two assigned spaces in the winter. In summer, we have to park on the street in our summer place. You do what you have to do, I guess. IF I were to ever buy a home again, it would have to have a 2-car garage - even if I only had one car - just in case. YMMV

 

[38Chevy454]

I am sure that 1 car garage and single wide driveway house is being brought down in price and sale-ability if the majority of the houses around it are 2 car garage (or more).
However there are many older neighborhoods where houses were built without garages, just a driveway and sometimes only a single wide driveway. It is not common in any newer building, except for maybe townhome style. But for SFH I do think a 2 car is basically a must have if the rest of the neighborhood is that way.

 

[retire-early]

In the 55+ communities near me, the HOA handles all the lawn care including mowing. And they have underground sprinklers.

In this particular community the homes do not have basements so the garage is a potential storage place.

 

[zinger1457]

My realtor told me that having a two car garage adds $10K to the resale value of a home. But that was 20 years ago, so maybe things have changed.

When I built my house 24 years ago a 2 car garage was the norm, over the last 10 years a 3 car garage is the norm for new homes in this area. A home with a 1 car garage would be a tough sell in this area.

 

[marko]

Im 69 years old and have never, not once ever had my cars NOT garaged overnight, no matter where I lived.
I know its me but I could never understand how one would leave anything valuable like an automobile outdoors overnight.
My dad and grandad always had expensive cars and did the same...maybe that formed my view.
Would never consider a house without room for our cars.
YMMV

 

[Jerry1]

It depends on your situation. I have a two car garage but no basement. So, as others have said, the garage is partially for storage. That works out good for us. We have one car in the garage and since my truck wouldn’t really fit in the garage anyway, I’m okay with leaving it outside.

In a 55 community, there may be a hoa rule that doesn’t allow for outside parking (all cars have to go in a garage). In that case, the one car garage is definitely going to be problematic. Even if you only have one car, there will be little, if any storage. If you’re allowed to park outside and you’re okay with that, then having a one car garage may not be bad. You can use your garage for storage or workshop or whatever and still just park your car outside.

From your post it sounds like you have two cars. I’d have to be really desperate to live in that particular community to agree to a one car garage. Especially if I can’t even put two cars side by side in the driveway. “Dear, can you move your car so I can get out?” Will get old quick. That’s something that went away with the teen age driver phase of life.

 

[ERD50]

Seriously? Are you all just slaves to your "stuff"? I went from an attached 2-car garage to a house without a driveway - let alone a garage.

Most garages (1-car, 2-car and 3-car) in this area (Hunterdon County, NJ) aren't actually used for cars.. they just function as storage units for outdoor "stuff".

Trust me... shedding all the "stuff" is an awesome stress reliever. Try it.

Experiences > Stuff

Umm, for some people, "experiences" require "stuff".

Some people like the experience of camping, some like the experience of making things from wood (and the experience of giving them as gifts). These experiences require the "stuff" to do them. DW likes to decorate for the holidays, it's part of the "experience" for her. So we need to store her stuff too.

When we were house shopping, we did a lot of "process of elimination" on-line, we later looked a very similar model to what we bought, and it had a two car garage. I am so happy we lost the bid, and ended up with a three car garage. I like what we do with our stuff.

Can you see how others might think about this?


To the OP: This is a kind of a "how long is a string?" question. Do you have a car? Or are you asking about resale value? Well, to the extent a one car garage hurts value, then you should get it cheap. Could be a wash. What do you want?

-ERD50

 

[38Chevy454]

Just thought of this, have any of you noticed how small the new build 2 car garages are now? They make a 2 car that is 19x20 or maybe less similar measurements. Not big enough to fit any more than 2 small cars. No way to fit a big SUV or truck. Plus being so narrow, you can hardly walk by the vehicles if you do fit 2 in there. Those 19x20 garages are more like 1 car in reality with some room for storage.

To counteract this, on my home we built approx 4 years ago, I added extra depth and width on my attached garage. 2 feet extra deep with an extra 2 feet width in there as well, plus made it 3 car overall vs the std 2 car. i can actually fit real size vehicles in mine along with some shelf storage. Also have a big detached garage for my old car hobby and keeping the motorhome inside. I like lots of inside parking and room for working. NFW I can ever live in an apt or high density urban. Just not for me at all, I know what I like and have the ability to have what I like.

 

[mystang52]

I guess it depends on the neighborhood. I live in a suburban-NYC town. I never formally surveyed, but I'm pretty certain 1-car garages are the majority here. I park my car in garage during the winter months, and keep our bicycles on ceiling hooks in the garage. In spring/summer both of our cars are in the driveways while our bikes are on the ground inside garage.

 

[ERD50]

Just thought of this, have any of you noticed how small the new build 2 car garages are now? They make a 2 car that is 19x20 or similar measurements. Not big enough to fit any more than 2 small cars. No way to fit a big SUV or truck. Plus being so narrow, you can hardly walk by the vehicles if you do fit 2 in there. Those 19x20 garages are more like 1 car in reality with some room for storage.

To counteract this, on my home we built approx 4 years ago, I added extra depth and width on my attached garage. 2 feet extra deep with an extra 2 feet width in there as well, plus made it 3 car overall vs the std 2 car. i can actually fit real size vehicles in mine along with some shelf storage.

Yes, but not until after I bought!

Our 3-car has one 2-bay door, and one single door. I was thinking we would both park in the 2-bay, and the single bay would be for stuff (like my table saw, some gardening tools, etc). But then I realized the cars would really be squished (I haven't got exact measurements, but it would be tight). And this is with my small Buick Encore SUV and DW's smallish CR-V.

We decided to do what DD does with her same set-up. The "stuff" goes in the middle, cars on the outside bays. That should work out, though we still are unpacking/organizing, so DW's car is outside for a little longer yet.

-ERD50

 

[Jerry1]

Just thought of this, have any of you noticed how small the new build 2 car garages are now? They make a 2 car that is 19x20 or similar measurements.

Not only noticed, but lived it. The first house we built, I didn’t know any better and the two car garage was 19x20. Thankfully, it was on land that I eventually added on to the house an additional garage. Had I realized, I don’t think I would have gone less than 24x24. At that house I had a small tractor, so a car and the tractor were in the small two car part and the additional garage had a car with storage which included the attachments for the tractor. Should have just built a pole barn, but never got around to it.

 

[NW-Bound]

Visiting many relatives and friends in Southern CA, I saw that many of the homes with a 2-car garage had had the garage converted into living spaces.

And some homes have so many people living in them, that the double driveways holding 2 cars are not enough. The cars took up all the street parking spaces too. Terrible!

When you have 8+ people living in a home, and 6 of them need a car, that's what you end up with. Parking inside a garage? Hah!

 

[ShokWaveRider]

2 car minimum is a MUST for me. I DREAM of having a 3 Car.... again. I went from a 3 to a 2 and really miss it.

 

[NW-Bound]

What I would like to have is a garage not facing the street, so that the front of the house is not a wall of garage doors. Like the following.

https://goo.gl/maps/sPyE9rYgpHemyrKcA

But then, I will also want enough land to have a large solar array in order to run the ACs to keep the house cool. A house with a garage like what I want is not small, even though I do not need that much living space.

One thing leads to another. It will just keep escalating.

 

[NW-Bound]

And then, next to the house in the above StreetView is a house also with a triple car garage on the side, but with several cars parked outside.

I don't know how many cars are inside the garage, but satellite view shows as many as 4 cars parked outside the gate, plus 3 more cars behind the gate!

See how if you collect cars, you will never have a garage big enough.

https://goo.gl/maps/JyJquCzQLFVpo4w47