Buy house with no garage in SF?

The list price already reflects the $200K discount…

Is this area public transit friendly?

Yes, very convenient right by the J and N line. This area used to be a bit ghetto about 20 years ago but I think it’s changed quite a bit. I used to frequent this neighborhood because a friend lived around here. There is an affording housing apartment nearby though:

Beware rent control since it’s multiplex.

[quote=“harriet, post:83, topic:4528, full:true”]
Yes, very convenient right by the J and N line. This area used to be a bit ghetto about 20 years ago but I think it’s changed quite a bit. I used to frequent this neighborhood because a friend lived around here. There is an affording housing apartment nearby though:


Here’s an article from the San Diego Union Tribune about the effect of gentrification on cities when they get new transit lines. It seems it rids the neighborhood of the people that transit is supposed to be helping.

The other irony is if people ditch cars there won’t be gas tax money to fund public transit. Then public transit will destroy state and local budgets, since the best case is fares cover 50% of operating costs and 0% of capital costs.

The J and N line have always been there. There aren’t any new transit lines in that area.

At the risk of being one of those people who re-ups an ancient thread: I too am looking at buying a house with no garage in Noe Valley.

This one has the twist that it has a parking pad which is plenty big for an SUV.

I am not sure how to think about this:

  1. We are worried about re-sale, especially if we decide to put more money into the house but not put in a garage
  2. I understand that the rule of thumb is that no garage = -$200k on the property value, but how does a parking pad change that?
  3. Is it even possible these days to put a garage at any price into a Victorian era house in San Francisco?

Any thoughts most appreciated!

Ok, I will take a stab at this since I grew up in outer Chinatown/Russian Hill in a 3 unit flat building that had a semi sunken basement but no garage. We would have converted the basement to an open area garage (replace wood supports with overhead steel beam) that would have allowed for 4-5 cars minimum but we decided to not keep the building. I had an architect come by and she had said it would be doable. Expensive though.

Frankly, if you have a pad or a driveway sort of area to park that is good enough but of course your vehicle would be subject to possible break-in if left outside.

Yes, there are or were companies that do this kind of excavation or conversion of basements to garages. Depending on how your house is situated, it could be easy or impossible. Research the internet for these construction outfits. Talk to architects who have done this.

If you are active in NextDoor, pose the question. You may find a neighbor who did just this, converted or made a garage out of nothing at the ground floor.

Good luck.

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This is true, for sure. I will say the neighbors who have garages seem to leave their fancy SUVs in the driveway, so I guess they’re not too worried.

It would be nice to have a garage if you’re going to be away for a few weeks travelling, but long-term parking at the airport would be a fine answer to that for me.

That’s my take - what I’m not sure is whether potential buyers in the future would have the same take, and if we spend $500k to expand the property, it’s not clear whether we’ll have a hard time selling it for a reasonable price later because the kind of folks who want a (our purchase price + $500k) house won’t want to keep their car on the pad. I guess it’s hard to know.

Well, let’s be honest, where you are (Noe Valley) homes are expensive and probably a big draw for families with kids. So, folks like that will more than likely have cars or SUVs to transport kids to schools, soccer, etc. It may be that Noe Valley is semi tucked away in there that people rarely go in there but I suspect bad people go to the nice areas to rob and steal unfortunately.

Again, without having a visual of your home to see how difficult of a project this would be, it is hard to say. I still would get an estimate from these garage building outfits and architects to see if even feasible and if so, how much approximately. Once you know the bill, that may guide you.

Also may want to consider long term plans, like how old you are and how long you plan to be at the home. If you are like me who once proclaimed “They will pry my cold body from my Sunset home.” well plans can change dramatically.