Joel DyckReal Broker SK Ltd.
Saskatoon · From the topic map

Does a private driveway, shared driveway or garage change what my Saskatoon home is worth?

Parking is one of the larger single features on a Saskatoon property, and the differences are real. A heated attached double garage, a detached garage off a back lane, a parking pad and street only parking sit at clearly different price points. Sheltered parking through a Saskatchewan winter is a functional requirement for most buyers, not a luxury.

Lane access shapes what is even possible. Much of the older grid inside the City of Saskatoon is served by rear lanes, so the garage sits at the back and the front yard stays intact. Newer areas usually put an attached garage on the front elevation. Neither layout is better in the abstract, but a house on a lane with no garage and no room to build one is carrying a permanent limitation.

A shared driveway is the weakest of the options and it needs paperwork. Where two properties use one access, there should be a registered easement or agreement on title through Information Services Corporation setting out use, maintenance and snow clearing. A handshake between the current owners transfers nothing and becomes the next buyer's dispute the day one of them sells.

Then there is the improvement nobody records. A 24 by 24 foot garage rebuilt on a new slab, insulated and drywalled, wired for a subpanel and heated is worth substantially more than the twenty year old shell it replaced, and none of that reaches an automated estimate. Joel Dyck's hand-reviewed valuation inspects the garage and prices it as the asset it is.

Get your hand-reviewed valuation from Joel Dyck.

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