Garage Condos?

I think this has been discussed before, but it caught my curiosity again because it's now just one town over from me.

If I could live there too, I'd be all set.

I'm tempted to go check it out for the heck of it.

Anyone here have something like this, or looked into it?

Pros? Cons?

https://www.garageultimate.com/

And article from local community paper: LINKY

Interesting topic Satty7 ...

Nice LINKY but where is the PRICY ??!!

They have one in my area called Iron Gates. It’s a luxury only very wealthy can afford. The smallest units which hold 3-4 cars packed tight, with an overhead loft, start at around a quarter million and it goes up from there. And that price is for an unfinished unit, so the owners spend tens of thousands putting in lifts and floors and furniture etc. Add association fees and utilities to that, and it surely ends up costing a fortune.
They aren’t residential, so other than maybe an overnight before heading out to an event on a Sunday morning, you can’t live there.
They host some events open to the public, including a monthly cars and coffee Saturday during the fair weather months here. I’ve gone to check it out. The units are something to behold the way the owners have decorated them. Bars, pinball machines, juke boxes, and of course cars. Though the majority of the cars stored there are exotics, with a handful of muscle cars, hot rods, bikes and customs. The cars and coffee events they allow people to park their cars along the alleys in front of the condos.
Interesting to see but I don’t fit in with that crowd. And I don’t want to spend much time at the open events either, the crowd of exotic car wannabes gets a little hard to take, though some of the girls are nice to look at!

They sent me a a PM with pricing, I'm sure with options it will vary.

The units range in size from 750 - 1500 sq feet. Pricing is $100K to $205K.

In the PM they offered for me to check them out with no 'hard sales pitch'.

Where these units are located is considered a good/better neighborhood, but its far from being a 'rich, exclusive' neighborhood.

We have one here that takes it to the next level. I’ve yet to attend but plan too.

https://m1concourse.com/

I have a friend that bought one just to rent it out. Doing good so far.
Lots of cool stuff going on there.
KID

My unit IS KINDA LIKE these units ..... 3 buildings - each broken up into 6 units - ..... I’m the only hobby shop/mancave among them.

As M above suggests ... can you LIVE IN one?

Mine NO ... but it would be hard for them to tell ... IF you could hide your driver.

No mail boxes at Condos, guess you could use a PO box. But all the ones I have seen advertised do not allow you to live there.

C t&a.... those were advertised as businesses or hobby shops ?

The one I’m in is in an industrial area ... with actual businesses in most .... all with mail boxes. Many are small operations and MANY have sleeping quarters ... but are done in a stealth manner.

In the second office area I have a sofa/bed that’s actually pretty comfy

I have been to several "storage unit" auctions, which contained only a bed, bureau and a chair. Do I suppose someone is living there?

Locally they are now advertised as "climate controlled", I wonder. Of course the signs say no living allowed.

STORAGE UNITS ....

Where. It might have electric ... MAYBE ??!!

Oh I’ve seen those when doing CL surfing ! I just bought a pressure washer from a guy that IT APPEARED he at least had spent a night or two in his the last week or so !

THESE that Satty7, M and I are talking about have separate electric meters and have bathroom facilities!

Oooops - I missed your post ! .. thats VERY INTERESTING......where is that located ... off M1 ??

There is one in metro St. Louis that has a Cars and Coffee every once in awhile that I go to. Pretty neat.

https://theplaceinchesterfield.com/

In Texas, I'm sure you could find a standalone building with garage and living space, without having to be part of some community with lots of restrictions.

This is in AR, but seems much more preferable to me.

https://www.realtor.com/realestatea..._West-Fork_AR_72774_M82997-28377#photo22

On a related solution, I always wondered what constitutes a "house", a kitchen area, a bathroom, a place for a bed, and then how large of a garage would one be allowed?

Seems a stand alone 1 bedroom house with a massive attached garage would be more cost effective, secure, and would not require one hanging with the wine and cheese exotic car crowd that don't know a crescent wrench from caviar.

Morphing just a bit, but I've seen places in Idaho that are basically just large steel buildings. The ground floor is nothing but a garage and then they build the upper floor into a house. The only negative I've noticed is the lack of windows.

It comes down to how the property is zoned.

If it is not zoned "residential" you will never get an occupancy permit to live there full time.

The ones I've seen were about 1500-3000 SF, nicely done, secured facilities, and not for residential use; more like "toy overflow".
Prices around here when I looked were about the same as buying a small/modest home with enough land to either already have or build a pole barn or metal bldg.
But property here at the time was relatively inexpensive, and I like the privacy and my trees.
Outside of being "plug & play" I didn't see the advantage over having my own private home & shop building; plus, its value has doubled. Rent doesn't do that.
However, some years back I knew guys who leased/rented units in industrial parks & lived there; another buddy rented one at the track, and lived there for a couple years before getting caught at it.
Nobody really cared at the industrial parks, but either a motorhome inside or some construction is necessary.

^^^^i agree with THIS.

zoning and what the local city or town allows in a residential zoned area.

in my area you will never be allowed to live in a pole building. and i am pretty sure it's the same in all of SE WI. in my area they won't let you install a bathroom and even a floor drain in your garage unless it's zoned industrial.
one loophole in my area is as long as the house is attached to the garage you can build as big of garage as you want as long as the footprint of the house and garage doesn't exceed 30% of the square footage of the lot. there are certain building requirements to attach a garage to a house also...... there is a house on the other side of town about 1500sqft and he has a 20 car garage attached to his house and he has a 8 car garage detached from his house on a 5 ac lot..
i know by my friends by the wolf river party trailer in Fremont WI they allow you to live in a pole building.

There is a place here with those, but they are 90k, and you can't live in them. You can buy it, but are still subject to all the rules the property owner decides. Limited gate access hours, no chemicals, no operating a business out of it etc.

I would not want one unless it was fire sprinkled. Drunk neighbor does something wrong and the whole place will burn up taking your stuff with it.

My question previously was related to my property, in that building or up sizing a current garage on existing home ran into above restrictions. However across the street is a vacant available lot, and I was pondering building a garage with a "house" attached, "residential" and all. Was thinking with a little forethought I could design in for some future owner converting it to normal home usage for better resale. One issue here, garage floor slab needs to be 6"? below living quarters, but that can be dealt with.

OCC permit ? .... yadi yadi yada ... as long as you have a residential address of record ... let these busy bodies EAT CAKE !

until a inspector with a huge ego finds out and makes you life a living hell.

Share your experience or knowledge T

In the past year or so, I've posted two places locally that were garages like this with 'living quarters'. One was done very nicely, but as you mentioned, there were no windows, or more accurately, no windows to the outside. And, the only way into the living quarters was thru the garage part, no outside door specifically for the living quarters. I questioned the safety in that if something were to catch fire in the garage.

In both cases though, the locations were less than ideal. One was in a VERY sketchy neighborhood, the other less than a block from Galveston Bay.......one good tropical storm or hurricane, you'd be swimming.

Interesting Subject


Now I know what these are , literally miles from my house outside of Green Bay ,WI

I notice them everyday because they are literally off the major highway / frontage road on my way to work

Wonder what kind of demand they will bring north out of town

https://woodfieldmotorcondos.com/

This is the one in my area where the high tax bracket guys store their collections of Porsche’s and Ferrari’s, and groupies and hangers ons come by on Cars and Coffee weekends to drool on them.
https://www.irongatemotorcondos.com
Now if I had copious amounts of money, this one makes far more sense. Right across from the Road America race track in Wisconsin. Keep a couple vintage race cars there and run them at the track, stay there race weekends and host friends for these events. Nearby fishing and places to snowmobile. A perfect dream vacation getaway house!
https://www.usatoday.com/story/mone...low-car-buffs-live-collections/82023516/

WHY are these businesses so secretive about pricing ?

Only place I saw that gave any idea on pricing was that Missouri operation.....

Starting at 110$ per foot .... which is a HUGE price based on what warehouse buildings are priced at

If you have to ask how much, you can't afford it. The target market for this kinda thing is clearly the investor car crowd and the vibe I get from the pictures is that it's largely about whip it out and measure. I've got the land for additional buildings but even if I didn't I wouldn't consider this kinda set up.

Saw something much nicer when I was house hunting - a converted barn. From the outside it mostly looked like a generic wood barn that you wouldn't think twice about. A few hundred square feet had been converted in to some kinda pottery shop and had typical store front windows. Inside and upstairs was finished as an apartment that was in the 1800 square foot range, maybe bigger. 3 bedroom, 2 bath, big kitchen, large sunken living room, big deck off the back. The rest of the down stairs was largely unfinished except for a concrete slab. I'm thinking 8 or 10 cars would have fit.

check your local ordinances for zoning in your area. every area is different so talk to the local zoning inspector before spending $$$.
sometimes the inspectors can get a god like complex in some areas and the city usually backs them up.

this is second hand info and it happened over 10 years ago. in west allis there was a zoning restriction against having a drain in your garage in a residential area. someone tried to put something over the inspector by putting a drain in the garage then putting a light coat of concrete covering the drain. once it passed the inspection they would bust up the concrete and have a floor drain. everything went as planned for a few months. then the inspector was inspecting a neighboring property and saw the owner washing his car in the garage, them squeegee the water down the drain. after a surprise inspection the owner was required to completely remove the garage floor, remove the piping and had to wait until the inspector signed off that it was removed before he could pour new concrete in his garage. they also required to inspect the new floor concrete pour to be sure there was no drain install. also to speed up the process they did something to the occupancy permit so they couldn't live in the house until the garage floor was corrected. the owner also got a good fine for violating city ordinances.

i have been looking to change my homes to a more garage friendly lot. i have passed on at least 5 homes that would have been perfect for me but they weren't garage friendly or had restrictions on them.

as the old saying goes everything is legal until you get caught. if you have enough $$$ and a good lawyer it can sometimes be made legal.
i don't have the $$$ or the lawyer so i usually try to play by the rules.

Noted, keep the door closed when washing cars.

too much "stuff" in my garage preventing me from even considering washing a vehicle inside.

The M1 Concourse is off Woodward by the tracks in Pontiac. I hung for a day there last August for the Roadkill drags!

Pontiac? .... how’s the neighborhood?

Verrrry interesting T .....

So their building code against floor drains was ???

But I think that there’s a diff between sleeping in your unit from time to time and then THIS !!

my answer was based upon what the zoning codes and inspectors can do and what can happen to you if you violate them.

i will share a similar experience that happened to me when i bought my current house.

i have a similar zoning code about floor drains in the garage in a residential area.
you can have a floor drain in your garage if you have a septic system. if you are hooked up to city sewers you can't have a floor drain in your garage.
we also have what i call a local zoning/ building code revenue patrol. about 2-4 months after every home sale a zoning/ building inspector wants to inspect your home for any non permitted improvements the previous owner or you just have done. if you or the previous owner have done non permitted work on the home they give you a fine equivalent to what a permit would cost and if the work alters the value of the home they can raise your taxes.
they wanted to inspect my home , i did nothing to it because i wasn't even fully moved in yet, so i had no problems with it. when the inspector looked at the garage and saw the floor drain and i was hooked up to city sewers i soon had a problem. the city's inspector wanted to make a name for himself so he really pressed this issue. he wanted me to fill the drain to make it unusable and i pay a small fine and i would be good. i got a appointment with the supervisor and talked to him about the problem. basically the home had been sold several times recently, i bought the place in foreclosure as is, why is this a problem now? why wasn't it a problem in the past sales? the supervisor inspected the drain, saw it had been there for years, did some checking, saw the garage was built with drain before the ordnance was put in place so there was no problem with the drain. he noted the grandfathered drain in my records, he also wrote me a letter stating the same thing for my records . cooperation with inspectors has a upside to it.


if you want to live in a shop where it's not permitted via zoning codes. go ahead.
as i said before. everything is legal until you get caught....... it's not a question of IF you will get caught, but WHEN it happens. it may be in days or multiple years. but eventually something odd will happen and you will get caught.......you can only roll the dice so many times until you get snake eyes.
be prepared for the consequences when it happens. inspectors don't like to be messed with. and if they find a violation that you pulled the wool over their eyes to get it by them, they get really really angry. they will go to the full extreme and usually more to punish you.

VERY REASONABLE explanation about floor drains

But again ... me thimks it’s a way diff situation ...with what most people are talking about here.

FULL TIME residence.... vs occasionally?

That inspector must have LOTS OF SPARE TIME to survey that !

like i posted earlier.
everything is legal until you get caught.
do whatever you want. it doesn't matter to me in any way shape or form. i don't want to hear any whining if you get busted and it cost you $$$$ to correct the situation.

inspectors don't like to be played with and from my experience the city backs them up whatever they do to enforce the regulations.

1 day temporary or permanent occupancy, both are zoning code violations in a business zoned building. business / residential completely different situation. check your local zoning regulations of the building you are looking at and follow them.

i can easily see you getting caught late at night or possibly weekends.
the cops doing routine patrolling, see you arriving or leaving your unit, possibly see unusual lights on inside of the building at non regular hours. they stop to investigate. talk to you see your suspicious occupancy. the inspector hears about it. he investigates and makes a point to make sure he isn't being played with. your rear ends up in a sling.

when i am or my friend is working late, especially on weekends at his shop, auto service business. the cops regularly stop and talk to us and ask for ID when they see us working at odd hours.

There are LOTS of little shops in the area of mine and I know of several that HAVE A FULL SET BEDROOM in it with kitchettes in them. Also know two that are just larger storage units ... with a community bathroom that actually STEALTHY live in them.

There are some that are in a less than safer area that MANY are lived in.

Now I hear you ... but with the EXTENSIVE new building of EVERYTHING down here .., I think they have better things to do with their time.

The so called PUBLIC SERVANTS down here are IN CLOVER !

"when they see us working at odd hours."

Bill Gates should have been cited I guess.

"Microsoft cofounders Bill Gates and Paul Allen worked out of an Albuquerque garage in the early days of the company, but the Sundowner Motel served as a temporary home base. There, they wrote a version of the BASIC programming language.Dec 21, 2019"

https://www.businessinsider.com/google-apple-hp-microsoft-amazon-started-in-garages-photos-2019-12

when i am or my friend is working late, especially on weekends at his shop, auto service business. the cops regularly stop and talk to us and ask for ID when they see us working at odd hours.

A LONG time ago, my friend and I rented storage bins at a place that was in a secluded area, way out of town. The property owner gave us permission to work on our cars as long as we didn't completely strip a car out or have stuff pile up outside.

We often worked late at night just for the simple fact it was cooler out. Cops would come by and ask questions, which wasn't a problem, but after a while, it got to be borderline harassment.

Come to find out many years later, about the same time we were out there, someone was dumping bodies less than 1/4 mile away. I sometimes wonder if it was happening while we were out there, or better yet, while the cops were harassing us.

They still haven't identified all of the bodies.

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