Need opinion keeping project cars, renting a shop or purge and build.

There is a house in my neighborhood with a 3 car garage for only $200k more than my house.  I know banks will lend it to me, and it would give me more space especially with a lift or two.  But honestly, I can only drive one car at a time....  how many do I need or even want.  Okay I want them all.....  that's the problem.

I really am trying to pare down...  really.  

I'm totally the wrong person to ask.

I will address the sunk cost fallacy though.  No where is this discussed more than the Porsche world.  Scads of middle class guys (like me) stretch to buy a Porsche and want to justify it.  I bought it for X, can sell it for Y and make Z profit.....  post after post ad nauseum all day everyday on a big Porsche forum.  It's sickening.

You bought a car.  You drive it, you maintained it, fixed it, it broke, repaired it, modified it, restored it......  you will get what a buyer actually gives you and not a penny more.  And that's all it's worth.  You will make money (most likely not), or lose money.  But it was an emotional purchase you made willingly, right?  You had some fun too, right?  

Figure out what cars give you fun and joy and sell the rest.  If looking at your V8 MG makes you happy, who cares about the $$$$?  If looking at it fills you with regret because you don't drive it, let it go.

Honestly I have too many cars.  My daughter loves them all.  My wife loves one.  I love that one too, it stays.  I have one more I love too.  It's my most recent and the most needy.  I could make a profit on it, but I won't.  I'd rather have fun.  

The others I could probably part with and should.  I probably won't though because I too am a car addict.

Do you own the current place?

The current shop occupies about 4000sq-ft in an old 94,000sq-ft manufacturing building that has been converted to multi-use. My fiancée and her father own a small commercial real estate company where they buy, rehab, sell small commercial properties. I'm the only employee of the company and end up doing everything from plumbing, electrical, framing, drywall, roofing and whatever build-out is necessary for prospective tenants. It's been a good gig for the last 10 years or so. It's time for her father to finally retire and I've been working to rehab this building to get it on the market. I knew the day would come and this decision would need to be made, but it's now here and there are only so many options. I will begin a dialogue with the prospective buyers about keeping my space at least for a little while, 6-9 months, but after that, I'd rather buy or build something. I would rather build a garage on our property and she would rather I bought a building somewhere near by. 

In reply to lotusseven7 :

If I had the resources, I'd build or buy a building and rent half the space to pay the mortgage and use the rest for my own projects. 

Just make sure you have the zoning to do what you want!

I only came here to say that if you don't have kids the reasons to get actually married are greatly reduced. Marriage is an inherited institution, like church and social drinking. Removing all the cultural momentum it has and assessing its value purely in your own personal terms is probably something that everyone should do anyway whether they get married or not. There is really no difference between telling someone you want to be with them forever, and then doing it in front of some sort of anointed arbiter of the legitimacy of your statement (clergyman or whatever sort of rites-reader you pick for your wedding). The real difference is a legal difference that comes from paperwork you file with the government. There's a decent argument to be made that you shouldn't have to fit yourself into the government's system of personal relationship categorization in order to have medical visitation/decision-making rights, or to have your will actually followed upon your death rather than be overridden by some other government functionary who may decide what kinds of relationships are more important based on a belief system you didn't hold.  There's plenty of stuff wrong with the institution of marriage and nothing wrong with having your most serious and important relationships be on your own terms.  But you'll get all sorts of weirdness about it.. just like the kind you get for not having kids. 

I like the idea of taking a hit on some far-flung property you were already getting rid of if that's less onerous to you than trying to downsize 4500sq ft of stuff in <3 months of your 'free time'. 

In reply to Vigo :

Weirdly I'm married and agree with the statement you made. We got married because my spouse wanted the same last name as our children. It doesn't change how you feel about a person.

on topic I downsized years ago and it reduced a lot of stress for me! I had 11 vehicles but 85% of the time they were all projects. I was always stressed over what one I could afford to work on at a time. Losing my storage space finally pushed me into selling off 8 of them and eventually parting out and selling another one. I now keep one project, a winter beater and my wife drives the newest and nicest vehicle we own. It's fantastic 

I'm pretty happy having 1 fun car and 1 DD each for my wife and I.  If I had more time I'd like to add a dirt bike/adv bike.  If I get more garage space, I'd love to build a shop so I can buy a truck/tow vehicle and get a trailer again.  Then maybe endulge in a true project car.

However I've found I don't like having tons of cars, they end up sitting around, I have to maintenance on them all and not the fun wrenching I'd prefer.

So I guess it depends on what you want.  If it was me I'd sell all the cars I didn't really just absolutely love and use that money to do all the cool stuff on the other ones I'm keeping.  With the smaller needed footprint that'd open options to renting a smaller shop or building something on your property.

Weirdly I'm married and agree with the statement you made

I'm married too! Recently.  If i'd been married 20 years ago (i was 15 then but you get the idea) all that'd probably be different is i'd have two divorces behind me! 

Also i just read through the project threads again. I'd have a hard time letting go, they are all pretty cool. Sell that Florida land!!

 

I have another option that would make this a lot easier, but it also involves a real estate transaction. I have a place in Clermont Florida that is listed with a realtor and currently on the market. I haven't had much interest in it, but if it does sell, then the garage/shop budget would change. I'm thinking that it would be easier to drop the price of the FL place by $10k, get it sold and start a serious search for a shop. I'd rather lose $10k in profit in FL than lose $10k worth of project cars. 

I would like to know more about the place in Clermont for sale. FastDan5 at the provider known as AOL

Vigo said

Also i just read through the project threads again. I'd have a hard time letting go, they are all pretty cool. 

But there's more! I have a Cheetah chassis that is setting up on pallet racking, a Lotus 7 replica chassis/body kit sitting on a table and a 1963 Corvette Grand Sport recreation shoved in another garage. 
 

If I won the lottery tomorrow, I don't think I'd live long enough to finish all of the projects currently in the shop. I like them all for one reason or another and it will suck to have to let any of them go but it's inevitable. Truth is, I had enough "play money" to buy all of them, but don't currently have the means to finish them the way I want to.

 By your own admission you don't have the time, money, or now space to properly finish all of these projects. Lifes short mate, make some sensible decisions on which cars you'll never properly get to, and get rid of them. Its a bit bothersome to see would-be projects languish somewhere.

So I've been reading this thread with interest as like a lot of folks here I've cleaned out my garage as well. I'm in the less is more camp.

I'm thinking your fiancé doesn't want a shop on the house property because your fleet tends to multiply.

Pick the two cars that will make you most happy building and driving, then ditch the rest. As to getting your money back; your money was gone the moment you spent it on the cars and parts. 

Tinkering with cars makes you happy, so how do you put a price on the time spent tinkering, even if the projects go unfinished. You enjoyed the time, now it's time to move on.

For the future, pick the remaining project that will take the least time and money and finish it. Don't spend a dime or a single minute on any other project till the first one is done. When the first one is done move on to the next one. The biggest trap I see is trying to finance and work on multiple projects at once.

If I won the lottery tomorrow, I don't think I'd live long enough to finish all of the projects currently in the shop. 

Well, that's a factor then. In that case I'd focus on what you can finish both financially and energy/time wise and sell the rest.  

My vote is for a shop at home.  I spent the last year building one and I freakin love it.  Very convenient and easy to get some work done, even in short windows of free time.

I vote consolidate and put a small shop up at your house. That is my current goal. I have basically limitless storage at work but I spend so much time working that I don't want to be at work to work on my cars. Even on my "off" days if I show up at work on my cars while others are working, I end up spending my time doing work at work. 

I asked my wife if she would be my fiancee again. Waiting a reply. 

To the OP it seems like renting out your space from the new owner would be the easy button, but I am not sure what the rent would be like vs what you do/don't pay now. 4k sqft isn't HUGE for a home shop but it's plenty big, even over at Garage Journal.

Well, a week later and after quite a bit of contemplation, I can honestly say that hasn't got any easier.

One bit to update though, I called the realtor in FL and had her reduce the price of the "flip house". It must have worked as it's now under contract and hopefully will close in the next few weeks. That helps a bit with the money side of this issue but there is still a large "volume of stuff" issue. 
 

When the house does sell, I would have the $$$ to build the motor for the Corvette Kart and honestly finish all of the other projects, but that doesn't help the storage issue. The more projects I finish, the more I would want to keep them. I'm stuck here gang and the only way to do this correctly is to begin advertising some of the cars as the first step.

Sorry Corvette Kart, but you are the first to get advertised................

In reply to lotusseven7 :

Not seeing an ad in the cars for sale forum.  It's been 20 minutes.

I type as slowly as I procrastinate selling things!

I'll buy the grand sport after it sits for 10 more years 

i get it, i'm a serial project collector.  It's not bringing me joy, bringing them back to life does but staring at a bunch of projects doesn't, so I'm working hard to complete them so I can enjoy using them.  Driving and racing make me happy, building makes me happy, having a backlog of projects stacked up doesn't make me happy.

Patrick said:

I'll buy the grand sport after it sits for 10 more years 

 

i get it, i'm a serial project collector.  It's not bringing me joy, bringing them back to life does but staring at a bunch of projects doesn't, so I'm working hard to complete them so I can enjoy using them.  Driving and racing make me happy, building makes me happy, having a backlog of projects stacked up doesn't make me happy.

Hallelujah, I sold all my stuff off. I have a company vehicle, a daily, a driving project and the wife's car. It's sublime.

A bit of an update on my dilemma. The small house that we have in Florida has gone "under contract" and if all goes well, will be sold in the next few weeks. That will bring some $$$ into my account, but it will nowhere near buy a building to move into. After long discussions with Jen about building a garage at the house, we've decided to look at purchasing a small commercial building instead. Many factors have been taken into consideration and after lots of contemplation, it turns out she's right again. Not only is she the looks of this operation, but the brains too! Now to figure out whether to buy something just to house my "stuff" or a bit bigger and possibly rent some of it to help cover the monthly expenses. All of this is dependent on what I can find and of course the costs. 
 

Stay tuned for more..............

In reply to lotusseven7 :

Before you buy a commercial building, be sure to look into the taxes.  IMO - if you decide to go this route, buy something big enough that you can lease out some or most of the building to cover the expenses and then keep part of it as your toy box. And set up an LLC to keep some legal separation between you and the building. 

Taxes on my commercial building here in Denver are insane.  Like 4 times as much as my house, which is slightly larger than my building, which is ~3100sq ft...

Sadly, I don't have enough space for the stuff I already have.....  the worst part I want to get all of Lotussevens' projects too....  oooo.....  Vettecart!  Cheetah!  Seven!  GS Vette!!!!!

It's an addiction.  I need a support group not fellow enablers.

I have 5 extra cars....  I doubt I could get to one....  two really hard.  I'm trying to get to 3 but want to keep 4.  I have no love with DSM.  It will go next fall / winter.  I really like the Miata I saved but have no space for it.  I could sell it or the Boxster S but not both....  but the Boxster S is SPEED yellow!  And I have a factory aero kit for it....

The 996 is the car the wife and I both love and flat 6 music is intoxicating.  

And the 944S2 was a high school dream ride and it was born when I graduated.  It also needs me more than the others.  It could honestly be fixed up for a profit.  None of the others can do that.  

Must not buy more cars......  

I only have a 2 car garage after all.