Why we love garages

Part 1 of 3

SF residents know bad parking. Some of us blame this situation on the burst dot.com industry, but really, we’ve always had more people than parking spots. And without garages, we have been known to circle first our own block for 10 minutes or more unsuccessfully. Then we dejectedly widen our loop so we’re covering a one mile radius for over an hour before someone finally pulls out and we’re first in line to snag the space. We’ve parked in entirely different neighborhoods from our own and lugged back breaking loads all the way home, stopping to rest at each intersection and to wonder why we bother paying sky high rent when we’d have a lot easier life if we’d just bed down in our cars.

We’ve gone out only to return home without ever reaching our destination because we found no parking anywhere near it, and now over an hour late for our dates, we wondered what the use was and gave up. Or, we’ll turn down dates all together, because we don’t want to lose the miracle spot we found earlier. We need groceries but if a store isn’t walkable, we go without food. We stare hungrily at our windows at our cars in their great spots and try to get full on smugness when we see a neighbor circling the block, over and over, shaking her fist in impotent rage.

This is why, if we drive, we all seek garages. The garage is San Francisco’s Holy Grail. Landlords know it, so they charge you not only for your pokey studio at 1000 dollars a square foot, but also for the garage space at 500 dollars a square foot. You might think paying $1275 for a 400 sq ft kitchenless studio would be enough, but you’d be underestimating the nearly religious love garages can count on, and someone more savvy will offer twice as much–gratefully–for that spot you’ve claimed is ridiculously over priced.

Realtors, appraisers, and home owners know about garages too. Thus, in a less than exciting home, you might see a handful of pictures of the place you’ll keep the car, but none of the place you’ll keep your body, and that will be enough to lure buyers to an open house I’ve even attended one of those wine and cheese open houses during which the libations were served in the unattached garage. Most TIC and condo complexes, if they have parking at all, will charge extra, above and beyond the mortgage and HOA fees, for the privilege of parking your car. If you don’t drive, you might want to think of such garage spaces as investments. You can rent your space out for obscene amounts; people do it all the time. You can even convert in into one of those kithenless studios and rent that our instead.

In short, never, never, underestimate the power of a garage in San Francisco.