How much does a shop build add to property value?

[Zachary Hoyt]

I talked to the code enforcement officer and my insurance agent about the workshop being used to run a business. My deliveries are not more than what a hobby woodworker might get, except for when I have 5 20 cubic foot bags of biodegradable peanuts dropped off. UPS picks up here a few times a month, but they are in town every day making deliveries, so it doesn't add any burden to my neighbors. I would say I have a customer come to the shop/house about once or twice a month on average, so not a lot of traffic. There is no sign, and no externally obvious indication that this is a home business. I keep all my finished stock instruments in the house, so customers are actually mostly in here more than in the shop. My lumber needs are maybe 200-300 board feet a year, and it either comes on a truck or I get it locally and bring it home on a trailer behind the car. My main concern is shop noise, but so far I have not heard about any complaints.

[Mark Wedel]

There are usually 2 main issues why cities don't like home businesses - the amount of noise they may produce, and the amount of visitors and traffic that it results in.

I have a feeling that most cities would turn a pretty blind eye to a home business that only gets 2 visitors a month, but might take a much more active interest in a home business that gets 8 people a day stopping buy - if nothing else, this could seem suspicious in terms of illegal activities (drugs). So while the police may then be happy when you just say it is a home business, the city may not be.

The one I usually here about complaints from is auto mechanics - a well equipped residential garage can do most car repairs, but the extra cars parked along the street, noise from air guns, etc, can annoy neighbors.

So if you can run a home business/shop that isn't obvious, much less likely to run into issues than one which is very obvious (and perhaps against code). It would also seem like there is something of a grey area - if I ran a furniture shop out of my house, and people were coming by and picking things up, that is probably different than if I made furniture that I then sold at craft fairs or other places.

[Bryan Hall]

The youtube woodworkers have stories and insight on all of this as well. Mark Spagnolo documented moving to Missouri and discussed the problems along the way. William Douglas was actually forced to move out of his own home because of his noise pollution (if you are sanding and milling in your backyard in open air, you're asking for a noise complaint).

[Jim Becker]

Zoning/Planning in residential zones often permits home businesses, but that usually comes with a prohibition of public traffic (including having employees) and other disruptive activities. The cannot totally forbid it without a major revolt because there are many folks who work from home, have online businesses. In the context of woodworking, assuming there is reasonable attention to noise, etc., a single person shop doing commission work that never or rarely has a visitor would likely not have an issue in most jurisdictions. We've actually had this conversation in the Planning Commission I'm a member of (and may get stuck running this coming year) as well as in the Planning course I recently completed.

That said, the permitted use is not as material to whether or not a "shop building" will provide any additional property value to average buyers. I know when we were shopping for a new property, those that actually had buildings that could be used for that purpose often didn't really call out that use...it's was pretty much, "oh, it has an outbuilding" and was never referred to as a "shop" or anything other than maybe an additional garage for parking.