How important is a garage?

Parking in your own yard or carport is popular in rural areas.

Many people attach great importance to a (safe) parking space for their vehicle. According to a survey, being able to park the car easily as “Germans’ favorite child” is more relevant for many people than, for example, family-friendly living. An article on this topic was recently published on the real estate platform immowelt.de.

Depending on whether you live in the country or in the city The availability of parking spaces varies, of course. If you live in your own house outside of the city centers, there is almost always at least one parking space available directly at the house. This can often be roofed relatively effectively and inexpensively with a carport – this largely saves the windows from being scraped free in winter. The classic is probably the single or double garage in your own home: It is probably the most private and safest way to park the car inaccessible and well protected from environmental influences or animals. A side effect of a closed single or double garage is that the temperature inside is always a lot higher than outside, so rubber or other wearing parts are protected from moisture and frost and thus have a longer service life. In terms of insurance, closed single or double garages also have an advantage: the insurance premiums are usually lower than if the car is parked outside.

Parking the vehicle in the city is often much more difficult. Even away from the city centers, residents in densely populated districts often do not have a fixed parking space and have to search every day and often cover a considerable distance on foot. Public parking bays are currently difficult to use again for weeks at a time, because they cannot be cleared and you often have to drive your car over centimeters of snow until you have maneuvered the car into the gap.

A better solution is the underground car park. Many residential buildings with several apartments have underground garages. But here, too, there are better and worse: Closed and completely closed underground garages are practical, from which the exhaust gases are discharged by means of a ventilation system. Even in winter they have a temperature of mostly more than 10 degrees. This has the advantage that ice and snow melt overnight and nothing stays permanently frozen.

In contrast, there are also cheap option: Underground car parks that do not have a ventilation system must remain open for the most part. This happens, for example, through a lattice gate and large ventilation openings of several meters, which are also only closed by a lattice. In this type of underground car park, the temperature quickly drops below 0 degrees in winter and you then get into an ice-cold car, which may also remain covered with snow from the outside.

Parking in the city: (here Berlin Mitte) Residents with a parking permit often have to search for a long time.

Parking in a closed but ventilated underground garage with duplex parking spaces.