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  Dear
Steve,
I am buying a house with a detached garage in the rear yard.
If I were to get the garage removed so I could have a larger
yard, will that lower the value of my home? The garage, for
me, will be a waste of space.
-- M.O.
 Dear
M.O.,
It probably won't lower the value much, if at all, if it's
an old, small, substandard building that's for the most part
unuseable. But if the garage is in good repair and is wired
for electricity, you're losing a potential asset that could
be used for an office, hobby house, storage area, gardening
shed, etc., or a garage again, when it's time for you to sell.
Realize that the total absence of a garage,
carport or other vehicle shelter could easily turn off a prospective
buyer when you try to market the place. (The buyer would quickly
find that the cost of building a decent two-car garage would
likely start well over $10,000.)
Of course, if you do have an attached garage
to fall back on, your loss would be minimal, if not negligible.
Families with kids and dogs may find the bigger yard highly
desirable, as long as they had a place to park their 2.2-per
family SUVs and lawn tools.
But M.O., it is going to be your place indefinitely,
after all, and your happiness is probably worth more than
that conspicuous, inanimate car-storage building back there,
especially if you plan to stay awhile and enjoy an unfettered
backyard view.
By the way, any value loss would be subtracted
from your property as a whole, not the home itself, since
the garage would technically be considered an "outbuilding"
by appraisal standards. Hence, it may also have to be insured
separately, depending on your homeowners insurance package.
In this case, it's probably not worth having if it's not worth
insuring, especially in light of your sentiments.
But wait. Here's one scenario where you wouldn't
want to tear down the place, at least not without checking
with your lender first. Say you turn 62, which is the age
of eligibility for a reverse mortgage, and indeed you do take
out a reverse mortgage on the place. If you knock down the
garage then, it could violate the reverse mortgage terms because
it might be considered an act of "waste" on your
part, thereby decreasing the property's market value -- in
which case giving cause to the lender to call the loan "balance
due." Oops.
Consider also that you may need a demolition
permit to raze the place. Check with city hall or local code
enforcement officials should you decide to proceed. But I
do get a sense that the shadow-casting days of that backyard
monstrosity are numbered.
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