Is washer/dryer in the garage a deal killer?

[Anonymous]

I'm assuming that the garage is attached, right?

Could you just box the laundry machines in, like it's a separate room. Almost like you walk through that room to get to the garage?

I would rather have the laundry on that level than having to schlep laundry down to the basement. So it might just be the aesthetics of it that you could improve.

[Anonymous]

Would not be a deal breaker for us. We just went under contract for a house in N Arlington with laundry in the unfinished, kind of scary, basement. We are happy with location and most everything else about the house so I will deal with the scary basement laundry. In a less popular area I would certainly consider moving it, but you probably don't need to.

[Anonymous]

Is it an attached garage? Does ths garage have heat/air? If yes to both, not an issue

[Anonymous]

OP again. The house is a rambler with a two-car garage adjoining the downstairs level (which has a large rec room, bedroom and full bathroom). Essentially, to get to the laundry from the main living space, we have to walk downstairs, through the rec room, out a door into the garage and then to the back of the garage where the machines are. It’s a pain!! The upside is if there’s ever a flood, it would only affect the garage. The garage isn’t heated.

We’re tempted to spend the money to move them into a closet that’s off the rec room but not sure the cost is worth it. Zilllow –for what it’s worth – has our house valued at $1.07M now. I realize that’s inflated but I do think we could sell the house for $1M (and we’ve put about $45k into it remodeling the downstairs and other parts of the house). But, just not sure if the laundry issue would hurt us getting a max sales price. A lot of houses are going under contract in our neighborhood with a few days of being listed and don’t seem that great, comparatively.

[Anonymous]

I don't think it's a dealbreaker. I grew up in Texas and our washer & dryer were out in the attached garage. I'd let the buyers decide where they want to relocate the washer and dryer.

[Anonymous]

Huh. I didn't realize washers and dryers were ever in the garage. At that price point, it would be a deal breaker for me. I have small kids though. We do a lot of laundry. Pre-kids, I would have probably answered differently.

[Anonymous]

My DH grew up in a ranch-style house in California, and his parents' house had the washer and dryer in the garage.

They have since added on an additional bedroom and a laundry room. My MIL absolutely loves having a laundry room instead of doing laundry in the garage.

When I visited their home prior to the addition, I found it odd to do laundry in the garage, since even the most clean garage is not an ideal place to be cleaning something like clothes. I had never seen that before (having grown up in the Midwest.) But then again, those California houses don't have basements (where I always figured a laundry room had to be) and so the garage was perhaps a logical move (although done to keep costs low).

New homes in the DC area are now built with the laundry room right near the bedrooms, instead of in the basement. Realtors have told me it commands a premium to have the laundry room near the bedrooms, but it's also fine to have it in the basement. In this climate, I would say it's a negative (but not a deal-breaker) to have the washer and dryer in the garage.

[Anonymous]

Add me to the Californian who thinks laundry in the garage is normal! My garage back there is as clean as my unfinished basement here, so no real difference there.

Granted, I wasn't looking in the 1 million range...more like half that.

[Anonymous]

Dealbreaker for me, but we are in MD. I don't recall looking at any houses that had the laundry in the garage (we were looking in the $750k - $900k range). Maybe it's more common in VA.

[Anonymous]

If you live in a hot neighborhood (which I think n Arlington is, correct me if I am wrong) then its it a deal breaker. I live in a different hot neighborhood and I am pretty sure it wouldn't matter.

[Anonymous]

*not a deal breaker that is.

[Anonymous]

would not be a deal breaker for me, but if the cost was less than $5K, I'd just do it now. You'll get to enjoy it and also take it off the table as something that could hurt resale value. now

[Anonymous]

At this point in my life, having a laundry room that far from the bedrooms would be a deal breaker for me. We specifically wanted (among many other things) living level laundry, so our laundry is upstairs near the bedrooms.

That said, rather than actually moving the laundry, I would recommend that you find a convenient place that they could move where you could vent to the outside (for the dryer) and then add the plumbing for the water hookups. Then if/when you sell, you or the realtors could point out that it is trivial for the new owners to move the washer/dryer to this location if they wanted or leave them where they are. You wouldn't even have to actually do the dryer venting, just make sure that it was possible in the new location. As long as the buyers had options, it would probably satisfy most potential buyers.

[Anonymous]

Poors

[Anonymous]

For 900k+ I'd expect more