Does a Garage Add Value to your Home?

Adding a garage to your home has many benefits. Not only does it provide a place to park your vehicle and room to store tools or seasonal machinery, but a garage is also an attractive feature for homebuyers. According to Kiplinger, 85% of homebuyers are looking for a home with a garage. However, if you add a garage with the intent of selling your home, how much of your investment should you expect to get back? Let’s look at two different garage projects and find out.

We’ll start with simply replacing your current garage door. This project continues to be one of the top-ranking home improvements for the money. You can expect to recoup roughly 97% of your costs for a mid-range to upscale replacement. Think about how that compares to a kitchen remodel, normally talked about as one of the highest return on investment (ROI) for renovation projects, at only 80.5% ROI and a much higher price tag.

The ROI on a full garage build is a little more complicated to estimate. There are many factors involved which makes it harder to gauge. Will it be attached or detached, finished or unfinished, heated or unheated, and how many bays will it have? Keeping in mind that these factors will sway the cost higher or lower, depending on what you choose, according to homeguide.com the average cost to build a garage is $49 per square foot, or somewhere between $20,000 and $30,000 overall. If that fits within your budget and you are able to tackle that project, you should expect to see around an 80% ROI.

Many experts agree that adding a garage makes your home more attractive to homebuyers. Not everyone is in the position to spend upwards of $30,000 on a large project in order to sell their home, but if you are, then it’s a smart investment and will add a good dose of desirability and curb appeal. If you have a garage and it needs some upgrades, say a new garage door, then your best bet is to replace it. You’ll get almost all of that money back and your home will be more attractive to potential buyers.