The garage apartment has long been the butt of many a joke in sitcoms and movies. As characters “move out” and get their own place, they are then shown in a rat’s nest of a room located above the family minivan that rattles and shakes like a pocket full of change each time the garage door opens or closes.
But a new approach to garage apartments is looking to shed the second class stigma and prove a unit above a garage can be just as luxurious, or even more so, than an traditional apartment.
As The Wall Street Journal reports, many high-end homeowners have begun spending large portions of their remodeling budgets (sometimes as much as $350,000) to upgrade units above their garages.
Most garage apartments are typically around 400 square feet, but can be much larger depending on the amount of space already available. On average, it takes about 10 years to recoup the cost of adding a living space above the garage, but because it adds an extra bedroom and additional square footage, the addition is beneficial to the future sales price.
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