For those of you who own property that have a garage, do you rent the garage separate or is it included with the rent?
I know of owners who charge an extra fee to allow renting of the garage. Mostly because they keep supplies in the garage.
I always charge a higher rent if there is a garage. If the tenant doesn’t want the garage, I’ll rent it separately (usually for $100 per month).
Mike
I would forsee more issues with a non-tenant renting the garage and causing issues with the actual tenant. Such as blocking the drive way, coming and going, potential activities in the garage and a slew of other things. How do you keep both happy? Do they sign a lease on the garage?
There always should be a lease for everything! I’m a firm believer in everything being in writing, even a simple thing like a garage. The lease should spell out what they can use the garage for (car repair, storage, etc), what they can’t use it for (storing toxic chemicals, meth lab, illegal activity in general, etc), the term of the lease (annual, month to month, etc), how the lease is terminated, what happens in the case of default (their stuff gets sold to pay the owed money, etc) and anything else you can think of. Also like you said blocking driveway access can be a problem, you may want to include things like the garage tenant cannot park in the driveway and must park on the street. Hours of access might be good too, no tenant wants someone poking around in their yard at 3 am or being loud at night. Something like “Access is allowed between the hours of 8am and 10pm” would cover this.
All real estate is local. In Houston the reason people leave apartments and move into houses is for garages. If you don’t have a 2 car garage you don’t have a viable house. I used to live up there where it snows Illinois Virginia and West Virginia, and was amazed that they build houses without garages and people take them. In Houston where it never snows all houses come with garages. Go figure. That is why you just learn what sells where you are and do it. Don’t try to make since out of it.
Isn’t that because of the hailstorms that can total a car, Moon?
John