Man that is sweet!! If you have the cash for the down payment. Get ALL of it inspected and if it is good snatch it up. Plus you could always rent out the larger garage for extra income and use the smaller one for your projects.
Man that is sweet!! If you have the cash for the down payment. Get ALL of it inspected and if it is good snatch it up. Plus you could always rent out the larger garage for extra income and use the smaller one for your projects.
I bought a 700 sq ft shop ( tiny ) that came with a yard and a house. That's how I see it, at least
Well, it's a modest house in a modest neighborhood. It needs work, and while I'm capable and willing to do most of it myself, unless they lower the price a good bit I don't see how I could put money into it without exceeding the market. But it's worth taking a closer look at. I'll set up a tour.
And the lifts do come with the (heated and cooled) shop :P
AMiataCalledSteve said:Well, it's a modest house in a modest neighborhood. It needs work, and while I'm capable and willing to do most of it myself, unless they lower the price a good bit I don't see how I could put money into it without exceeding the market. But it's worth taking a closer look at. I'll set up a tour.
Excellent plan - you'll never know unless you ask, and at least some sellers have realized that the real estate high-water bell rang earlier this year. A decent offer that closes may be very interesting now.
The biggest problem I have with old houses is they are old style houses. Usually 1 bath, small kitchens, Small closets or none at all.
In reply to AMiataCalledSteve :
I bought my first house because of the width of the driveway to fit my trailer and a garage. I did probably too much work on the garage and house to make it what I wanted. It is a tough calculation because it involves emotional and life experience factors. I wouldn't have been able to do Ice racing, ITA or rallycross racing without enacting my plan.
Then again, I waited too long (essentially recovering from the 2007 rallycross season delayed my preparing to sell then the market crashed 
) Anyhow I put way too much money into the house than the area and market would bear even pre crash. But it was worth it to have a comfortable place to prep my cars, the kitchen was nice enough to satisfy my cooking interests (I love to cook) and the rest of the house was dry and secure place to rest.
My lessons learned would be that it would have been worth it to contract out some of the work to the house. Like the masonry and kitchen remodel I did myself. The time I could have committed to racing and enjoying friends instead visiting Home Depot at 1am (this was back when many Home Depots were open 24hrs) I see as a lost opportunity.
But I don't regret putting that money into the house to exceed the market as I pulled out such great life experiences which can not be monetized.
Are there living quarters in the shop? Do you have a significant other? What are the issues with the house? What is the land itself worth?
I'd do it if everything else matches up. Biggest thing is location.
Maybe reno the house and rent it out, but keep the shop for yourself?
If it's okay to sell a house because it doesn't have a shop, then by extension it must be okay to buy a house because it does have a shop.
Do you like where the house is? If yes, go for it. Its getting harder and harder to build a big shop due to zoning in some areas and with lumber prices, more expensive.
Gearheadotaku (Forum Supporter) said:Do you like where the house is? If yes, go for it. Its getting harder and harder to build a big shop due to zoning in some areas and with lumber prices, more expensive.
lumber is likely a bubble, it may not go back down to pre Covid levels but the 3-4x prices we saw in 2021 are a thing of the past and 2022 lumber futures are about 50% higher than February of 2019.
https://www.nasdaq.com/market-activity/commodities/lbs
I looked at the house yesterday - it was simultaneously better and worse than I expected. We had two realtors present at the tour: one old guy who loved to hear himself talk and said he was the listing agent, and another woman from a different real estate company who was genuinely helpful.
Unfortunately I don't have any pictures, but the shop is unbelievably large, I could probably fit 8 cars in there no problem with plenty of room left over. It also is a pull-through garage with great access off a back alley. It's a little shabby, but solid enough. It needs some holes patched in the roof and probably some other small jobs. It has 2 lifts, but only comes with one.
The house... well, it doesn't appear to have any active leaks, but there's some old water damage, the foundation has clearly settled, none of the floors are level, and there's currently no kitchen to speak of. The singular bathroom is the only room that probably doesn't need anything. It goes without saying, but this one would need to be thoroughly inspected to find any other problems.
The house doesn't really have a backyard, so I'm not expecting a lot of interest in it from other buyers. The realtor lady and I both agreed it was overpriced by a good margin, maybe 80 grand or so. We'll see what happens. I'm not going to fight super hard for this one, but if it fell into my lap I wouldn't say no.
AMiataCalledSteve said:I looked at the house yesterday - it was simultaneously better and worse than I expected. We had two realtors present at the tour: one old guy who loved to hear himself talk and said he was the listing agent, and another woman from a different real estate company who was genuinely helpful.
Unfortunately I don't have any pictures, but the shop is unbelievably large, I could probably fit 8 cars in there no problem with plenty of room left over. It also is a pull-through garage with great access off a back alley. It's a little shabby, but solid enough. It needs some holes patched in the roof and probably some other small jobs. It has 2 lifts, but only comes with one.
The house... well, it doesn't appear to have any active leaks, but there's some old water damage, the foundation has clearly settled, none of the floors are level, and there's currently no kitchen to speak of. The singular bathroom is the only room that probably doesn't need anything. It goes without saying, but this one would need to be thoroughly inspected to find any other problems.
The house doesn't really have a backyard, so I'm not expecting a lot of interest in it from other buyers. The realtor lady and I both agreed it was overpriced by a good margin, maybe 80 grand or so. We'll see what happens. I'm not going to fight super hard for this one, but if it fell into my lap I wouldn't say no.
when you find the home you want to live in you will know... it sounds like while you loved the idea of the large shop, the reality of the house is enough to bitter you on it. Based on your analysis, i would keep looking
Keep in mind also that you're not going to get a standard mortgage on a house like that. So unless you have cash on hand or can handle a renovation loan it's gonna be a no-go. I used a HomeStyle loan on our current house and that worked out great. It was not simple but I can handle red tape.
To be clear on "not going to get a standard mortgage:" with the kitchen missing and visible structural damage (which can even just be holes in ceilings, etc) it will not pass underwriting standards. You need a lender that can be flexible and any lender that focuses solely on conforming mortgages is not going to be able to write a mortgage on that house.
In reply to AMiataCalledSteve :
By careful shopping and hunting around you can often update the house for a very tiny budget.
If in metro area's offer to gut houses for flippers and in addition to your paycheck, you'll often get floors, cabinets , reusable trim, doors, windows, etc. not to mention furniture.
Be picky, if you do it for any length of time you'll find some real gems. In fact I know a few guys who hire former convicts and teach them how to use a crow bar and hammer them sell off the finds they keep. Want candidates? go find the local patrol officer.
Another source of material is habitats for humanity they often are donated left overs and other things. They cost a bit more but don't involve other work.
I know this is a bit of a stretch, but the concept of a more 'enthusiast-balanced' property fascinates me. We got LUCKY in finding the right spot with a 30x50 garage detached from it, but if I were to do it all over again, a pre-fab 'Barndominium' would give me serious considerations. A rudimentary structure, weatherproofed, with a manageable living AND working area in one package is just the thing a lot of us are looking for. I'm sure there are other considerations to take into account, but a big, cheap metal building on slab with a lofted and partitioned living area clicks all of the boxes...
golfduke said:I know this is a bit of a stretch, but the concept of a more 'enthusiast-balanced' property fascinates me. We got LUCKY in finding the right spot with a 30x50 garage detached from it, but if I were to do it all over again, a pre-fab 'Barndominium' would give me serious considerations. A rudimentary structure, weatherproofed, with a manageable living AND working area in one package is just the thing a lot of us are looking for. I'm sure there are other considerations to take into account, but a big, cheap metal building on slab with a lofted and partitioned living area clicks all of the boxes...
I don't know about yours but my spouse would hate the idea of a loft section of a garage as living quarters.
A. the smell of fumes every time she opened a window (gear oil smells terrible)
B. the lack of natural light, in most of those loft ideas you only get 1 or two exterior facing walls which means your interior space will always be darker than a traditional home.
C. resale value sucks, most people don't want to live in a garage and a large industrial looking building with garage doors and windows will have no curb appeal.
In reply to golfduke :
What can kill this idea is often zoning regulations, although it depends a lot on where you hope to build such a structure. In more rural areas, quite possible. In more suburban areas, near zero chance. If you can find the right property, one way is to find a small house with a decent amount of land. Build your "barndominium" to live in and rent out the old house.
I wouldn't say we bought our house for the shop, but it was a big selling point. We moved a little over a year ago to the Raleigh NC area, I wanted at least the room to build a shop with no HOA & few zoning restrictions my wife wanted a nice kitchen & an in law sweet.
We were able to compromise on a 1960's house that had some nice updates & some strangeness with a 30x40 heated & cooled shop that had sat on the crazy home buyers market long enough that they were willing to make a deal.
Lumber & steel are starting to go down, but it is still easier to buy pre built than to build yourself, but if you do build you get what you want. I find myself wishing the shop was set up differently with 3 bay doors on the long side in place of 1 on the short side.
Anything is do-able with enough time, work and money......but you have to decide if the finished product will be worth the investment.
I think the house is a teardown, and if you do that and put a nice little 2 bedroom there, will the shop then detract from the value of the property?
After studying the pics some more - especially of the house - I think you need to either keep looking, or make an offer that's realistic of what the property will be worth once you've added in all your labor and costs to fix it up. I think it's more than $100K overpriced, and there's no way this was a "successful rental" unless they only rented the shop IMHO.
However, I don't think it will sell quickly at this price, in 2016 it sold for $128K, I'm not sure it's worth that much in it's current condition.
The housing market is starting to cool, so there may be some better buys out there soon...
In reply to MiniDave :
I think you need to realize what a soft market means. It doesn't mean things are suddenly going to be near free. It means things that are overpriced will stay on the market until prices catch up.
Instead of things selling in a day or three with multiple offers. Homes may remain on the market a while.
The simple fact is more people want to own homes than there are homes for sale. Millennials who have been out of the market have gotten tired of the rent going up and want to own a home where the payment doesn't go up every year or so.
They want to own that home free and clear before retirement 30 years away.
When I was born the population of the United States was close to 1/3 of what it is today yet the country is the same size.
In addition the dollar has gone down in purchasing power dramatically. $1300 was a very nice home when I was born. Today that home would cost $1.3 million
.
To put it in car terms. There aren't going to be any good used VW's or Honda's for $1000 or less. in a real deep recession where 25% of the population is out of work there still won't be any good homes for $100,000.
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