Remember that if the tenant moves out of the property you will likely be spending thousands of dollars on cosmetic updates to be able to capture the higher market rents so it may be a worthwhile option to meet on this middle ground value for rent and keep them on a month to month so you can get a sense of the quality of tenant they are.

Maybe if you scale the project up)    You will not see to many deals out there with equity capture.  

We took out a lot of grass, we built flood channels to capture the water, etc...Ps. 1000 gallons of water costs me $1.10.

In other words, you stand a better chance to capture a value at the top of the range of values opposed to the middle or bottom.

However, the challenge that many garage conversions have is whether or not the captured space is functional and flows well with the house.

Anywhere else in the northeast just doesn’t capture enough year-round traffic.

It does not capture life changes, which is by far the bigger driver.

When time is of the essence, you capture some value by being able to close fast.

I think this captures the situation quite well.

Finally, look into house hacking as this is a really great way to gain sweat equity in a property that can be captured in a tax advantaged way every couple of years.