Finally! You found a home that checks all the boxes—except one.
That gorgeous two-bed, two-bath Craftsman with perfect afternoon light has it all, just no garage. Oof!
Maybe you need a garage because you can’t bear the thought of scraping ice off of your car windows in the winter or enduring a smoldering vehicle in the summer. Or maybe you want a garage for storage space.
Either way, don’t buy a home with lots of empty acreage around it, thinking you can add a garage later.
Instead, it’s critical to first determine if you’re even allowed to build a garage on the property. Here are the essential questions you should ask before making an offer on that house without a garage.
Am I permitted to build a garage?
Building a garage is not simply a matter of having the room but also of whether your local zoning board allows for one.
“You can ask the seller if a garage can be built on the property,” says Rachel J. LeFlore, a real estate agent at The Bob & Ronna Group. “The seller should have a property’s legal description, including measurements, block, lot number, and other details from their homeowner’s deed.”
And no matter what the seller says, always check with your local municipality to see what the local zoning laws are. If building a garage is legally okay, you still need to do some more homework before getting approval.
“For instance, you’ll need a land survey to establish property lines,” says Latoya Perkins, an agent at Joyner Fine Properties in Chesterfield, VA.
Property lines will reveal whether you have the room to add a building. Unfortunately, boundaries aren’t always obvious when touring a house, especially if there isn’t a privacy fence, retaining wall, row of trees, or other natural markers. So it might look like the house has tons of buildable space when it doesn’t.
What about garage size?
Maybe you want a modest one-car garage to park your car or charge your electric vehicle. Or perhaps you envision a generously sized garage for two (or more) cars, plus additional living space to create a gym or office down the road.
Either way, there are typically size, height, and foundation requirements. But one of the most significant considerations for how large your garage can be is where you plan to build it. And you can determine that once you’ve established property lines, which will, in turn, reveal property setbacks.
Property setbacks are the distance your garage must be from the property line or other designated boundaries.
“And a proposed new garage will require a determination of whether the property setbacks are within the zoning regulations,” says Vincent Colangelo, an architect in Stamford, CT, and a strategic construction advisor at Real Estate Bees.
Your proposed garage can’t conflict with any septic systems, wells, or easements.
Learn more on Realtor.com
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