Classic cars forum & vehicle restoration.

[Riley Blue]

Here's a story that I think needs airing:

http://www.classiccarsforsale.co.uk/news/general/800024055/councils-cull-6000-lock-ups-in-the-uk/

Apparently councils in the UK are demolishing their lock up garages by the thousand.

I'd be a bit stuck without mine as it houses one of my Rileys while my own garage is full of boxes of bits - and junk, lots of junk. My council lock up rent has just been increased but it's still a bargain at £5.72 + VAT a week.

Does anyone else have one?
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David

1963 Riley 1.5
1965 Riley 1.5

[Mog]

Rent for a lock up garage in my area is AUS $60 per week.

[Dipster]

[Riley Blue]

The £5.72 is VAT-free to council tenants but +VAT for the rest of us. I've no idea what a realistic rent is but my rented garage is as well built as my own and better in security terms as it has two door locks and is in a gated and locked compound. Some of the garages are privately owned and a couple of the owners, both bikers, keep an eye on mine. I'd happily pay a tenner a week for it.
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David

1963 Riley 1.5
1965 Riley 1.5

[Richard H]

That's cheap. Mine's £9 a week, which is cheap for the South East to be fair.
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Richard Hughes

[Dipster]

Figure out what it would cost to buy.

A Landlord would expect a reasonable return, perhaps 5% (before tax), annually on his investment. Calculate that figure then add any regular outgoings plus a small component for repairs. I think you would then have a basis for what would be a realistic annual rent.

I doubt that it would even be a tenner a month......

In the South East I imagine a garage could sell for tens of thousands of pounds. In the North perhaps a fair amount less. What do you think? Are there any Estate Agents on the forum?!

[Dipster]

PS. I should add that my garden is currently a building site whilst I have a garage built. The construction is costing £20K plus.... It will be a nice garage but it ain`t cheap!

[Bitumen Boy]

I remember seeing an advert last year for a court of lockups for sale in Abertillery - number unknown, but in Abertillery I doubt it could be more than 10 units and probably less than that, there isn't that much space anywhere in town. They were looking for £90k, but reckoned they brought in £4 or £5k per annum in rent. Could be pie in the sky of course, but there is strong demand for good secure lockups in the valley towns. If that figure for rental income was something like accurate then it compares favourably (in the local market) with investing the same money in a buy to let house - but without the hassle of gas safety or energy performance chitties and so on for the landlord, and fewer repair and maintenance costs, most of which would be DIYable for a practical man anyway. Plus, if you get one deadbeat who doesn't pay the rent your risk is spread with a few lockups and you don't suffer a total loss until you can get rid of said deadbeat - again, the burden of regulation is much lighter than with housing. All in all if I had had something like £90k burning a hole in my pocket I would have been very interested in finding out more.

[Rick]

[Ray White]

I had my Dodge Tourer in secure storage for a couple of years @ £5 per week. I thought it was reasonable but the memsahib thought it was a waste of money - even though the car was a gift! She even thought that was a money pit because I had to spend a few bob to get it going!

The lock up garage business can be very lucrative. I have a mate who has made it a significant part of his property company. He has a portfolio of several hundred garages and they are much less trouble than other investment properties with sitting tenants, etc.

[ukdave2002]

I have a couple of 40" containers, cost works out at £9.20 per container per week, one of the containers has 3 Morris 8's in it, so at just over £3 per car per week I can't complain . They are my containers so there was some initial outlay, but I'd get most of that back if I had to sell them.

Dave

[MikeEdwards]

I used to rent lock-ups from what started out as a local brewery office, which then closed and moved to a succession of property management companies, then back to the brewery head office, and so on. The rent wasn't bad, the problem was they weren't in a great area, and the owners didn't do any maintenance, or have any security in place.

As such, I had to drive past every day to check for damage, and it was almost a relief when I walked past one day and saw they'd applied for permission to demolish them and put eight houses on the plot. I'd been a tenant for twenty years and they didn't even tell me they were thinking of losing them to give me chance to find somewhere else. I felt glad that they didn't get permission, though they did end up selling the land for a supermarket so I guess they made a decent profit anyway.

[Bitumen Boy]

When you stop and think about it, culling lockups could be an own goal for the councils involved. One thing councils are judged on is the amount of crime in their area, whether or not it's really a policing issue. Car crime is one of the commonest forms of crime, and yet reasonably secure garages are one of the simplest and most effective ways of preventing car crime.

[MikeEdwards]

True, but at the time when I noticed lock-ups more (when I had them and was always on the lookout for different ones) they always seemed not to be terribly secure, or in dodgy locations, have no power, no alarm or lighting options, in some ways it could be worse storing a car and stuff in there as someone could break in and mess around unseen. And given that many of them seemed to be used by people who weren't local, the neighbours weren't interested.

I wonder if some of this is down to the need to find more space to put houses and apartments, though the need for new apartments to have off-road parking might not help. And if people aren't renting them for whatever reasons, they might as well do something with the space.

[alanb]

Most of the council lock ups I've seen appeared to be nothing but haunts for the local yobs, drunks & druggies, why anyone would want to put a car or valuable items in them I can't imagine.
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old tourer


Morris 8 two seater