It’s important, when selling your home, to maximise its value wherever you can. One sure-fire way of making that happen is to make full use of any garage space you have.
Garage space, especially in areas where available parking is at a premium, can become a major selling point and hugely increase the appeal of your home to would-be buyers.
It’s certainly a valuable asset and something you should be happy to pitch to prospective purchasers as part of your sales strategy.
It’s also very versatile. It doesn’t merely need to be a place to park a car; it could also be used for storage or transformed into a home gym, home office or creative space.
If you have a garage, here’s why it could increase the value of your home. If you don’t have one, you may even consider investing in this feature to improve your chances of selling and the asking price you can set.
A highly versatile asset
As mentioned above, a garage doesn’t need to have one single purpose. If you are already blessed with parking space outside your home in the form of a driveway or a parking permit, you may decide on other uses for your garage.
Luckily, it’s a space that lends itself well to a number of different functions. If adding value to your home is your main consideration, turning your garage into additional living space is the best way forward. Not only will this enable you to set a higher asking price, it’s also something that is fairly easy and cheap to achieve.
While it’s unlikely to cost you much time, money or effort to create an extra bedroom, you need to ensure you don’t fall foul of any planning or building regulations. The likelihood of you needing planning permission is low, but it’s a wise move to check with the relevant authorities first. Make sure you seek expert advice before carrying out any building work and adhere to the rules at all times.
There are other ways of making use of spare garage space, though. It’s an ideal venue for a home gym (likely to have considerable appeal to young professional buyers) and could also be easily converted into a home office, a study or a workshop space.
If you possess a garage that’s to the side of your house, or backs immediately on to it, turning it into additional kitchen or living space may be another alternative option.
A great way to offer parking space
For many buyers, guaranteed parking space is a top priority – a must-have even. It’s even more important for those looking to buy in busy residential areas or densely populated ones, for example major London commuter hubs such as Borehamwood, Bushey and Watford, or lively suburbs of the capital such as Harrow, Wembley and Stanmore.
A driveway isn’t always possible, particularly in locations with closely packed streets where front garden space is limited and roads tend to be narrow. The closer to London an area is, the more unlikely it is to have a wide number of available parking spaces – so if your home can offer garage space its attractiveness to buyers is bound to go up.
Crowded roads, parking restrictions, heavy parking fines and parking problems are all common issues in heavily residential areas, which makes garage parking space all the more appealing. Make use of any parking space you have – whether it be a driveway, garage space or both – and inform buyers about it when they come to view your home.
An added bonus is the extra value provided by a garage should your buyer be looking to sell a few years down the line. The beautiful thing about a garage is that demand for parking space is highly unlikely to fall in the coming years, which means its value as an asset is also likely to remain high.
A good way of adding value
Adding extra space to a home is a great way of increasing its value, whether that be an extension, a loft conversion or a repurposed garage. If you don’t fancy turning your garage into an additional bedroom, a second kitchen, a home gym or a playroom, you could take the simpler route of transforming it into a home office or workshop space.
This won’t cost much time or money to achieve and can help to attract buyers who run their own businesses or work from home and seek a quiet, secluded place to operate from where distractions will be minimal.
Whatever you decide to do with your garage space, at the very least do something with it. It’s too valuable an asset to be neglected completely. Analyse the upsides and downsides to each approach – costs, disruption levels, potential to add value, possible need for planning permission – and work out whether you want to keep your garage as it is or convert it into something totally different.
On its own, a safe space to park a car will have considerable appeal (especially to London-based buyers), so don’t underestimate your garage’s importance when it comes to selling.
To find out more about how Owl Search can help to get your home sold, please contact us on 020 3432 3888.
We cover a number of areas in North West London and Hertfordshire, using our extensive experience and knowledge to help you sell.
We also provide free and instant online valuations to give you an idea of how much your home could be worth.
