Laneway house Garage or No Garage

[Digitalis]

Forget the garage it's a dumb idea you dont even have room to store tools much less work on your car. Plus with the way vancouver is going it will be more and more expensive difficult to own a car and you'll never get to enjoy it unless your doing trips outside the gvrd gridlock.

Originally Posted by Ching.Chong

Hello,

I am in the process of building a lane way house on my parent's property and the biggest question that needs to be addressed is whether or not to keep a garage or not have one and opt for a car port beside the laneway house. It definitely nice to have a private garage but it eats away at the living space which is only 800 sq ft, the garage will take up at least 200 sq ft (180 sqft to be precise)

*Edit: It would be a 1 and 1/2 story laneway

Option 1: Retain Garage
Pros:
Private parking spot
Storage space Bonus
Flexibility (Can be converted into another room in the future)

Cons:
Eats away precious living space leaving about 600 SQ FT


Option 2: Opt out of Garage
Pros:
Fully optimized maximum living space. (Bigger living room + Kitchen) (800 SQ FT)
Slightly Lower Cost.

Cons:
Not Flexible (Cannot or very expensive to convert into a garage in the future.)
Parking Your Vehicle outside


Would you guys prefer a private garage, and a smaller living space, or would you rather park your cars outside and have a bigger living space? Asking this in a car forum is somewhat bias as many of us would value private garage to store/work on cars, but definitely would like to see what other opinions people value ! What would you choose, and why!

[ncrx]

Originally Posted by GLOW

i've always thought about that and it got me thinking...if it's soley for rental income, how long would you have to rent it out for to recoup the cost. doesn't an avg laneway cost around 250k to build? if so...and you can get like $1500/month rent, not including anything else like taxable income and stuff... it'll take around 14 years to recoup everything...probably longer considering i would think most people would be borrowing that amount to build it so there's interest costs to factor in.

interest costs are a write off, besides 250k in mortgage costs is around 1000-1300$/ month depending on your interest rate, if you're renting at 1500$ a month...
you will have cap gains on your property in the future when you sell


if the lwh ever becomes stratifiable, it will be worth a shit ton.
condo 800 sqft new now in vancouver is around 500-700k mark
lwh with property 800 sqft no real strata costs, what do you think it will be worth?

[jnesss]

i worked at a guy's laneway home where he set up his living room in the garage. on a nice day, he'd leave the garage door open. cool concept, zero privacy.

i've seen a lot of laneway homes where owners just park outside, parallel to the alley. go for a bigger place if you have this option.

[snowball]

Is it a 33' lot? Definitely more living space if so. Yes we love our cars and want to garage them, but if you leave a larger car port which is partially covered, it's good enough.

I've seen a friend's garage attached to a LWH on a 40' lot. The garage is tiny and barely fits a car, the car port is tiny and barely fits a car! You can't even work on your car in there anyways.

Should've had a car port 1.5 car sizes and more living space. It's more convenient for your car and for living.

[thumper]

i went to an open house back when laneway houses just became legal. the "garage" was so tiny it was barely the width of the garage door itself. it was obvious that when they built the place the emphasis was maximizing what little living space there was and the "garage" was just a token thing and was more like a studio or workshop. even if you could get something the size of a smart car into it, you couldn't open the doors to get out

[GLOW]

better get the convertible option

[MG1]

If they allowed laneway homes in Burnaby, where typical lots are twice as wide, I'd build one the size of a Vancouver house, LOL.

That's probably one of the reasons why they will never be allowed in Burnaby.

And yes, I know it will be a percentage of whatever........... just