Garage turned into kitchen value opinion

[Flavius Alecu]

Hi all,

I'm looking at a property where the garage has been turned into a (second) kitchen. The adjacent room has potential to be split off and the whole section could be rented out. Unfortunately this is not something that interests me and if I was to end up with this property, I would either leave the garage as is or undo the kitchen work.

This would be our permanent residence for now, but the goal would be to either rent it out in a few years, or just sell it if/once it has appreciated to some extent.

I have a hard time working this into the valuation of the house. I understand it's a slightly uncommon situation (or maybe not, it might just be my lack of experience), but I was hoping the great community here would share their opinion on this. Is it valuable to have all the work done to have a second kitchen in (or instead of) the garage? Could it end up being problematic in the future if not used, or would the work required to undo it be too significant?

Thank you in advance!

[Michael B.]

Before you buy this, please make sure everything is up to code. Code violations can be very costly to correct. I bought a house in CA a few years back that had a backyard shed that was transformed into living space (guest house). The city literally hunted the owner down for years and she had multiple liens on the property. Due to her financial situation she was not able to correct the issue and get the building up to code. It was a good deal for me but she might have been able to keep her house without this code violation. So do your homework!