Americans desire three-car garages whether they have three cars or not.
Bloomberg reports that one in three house hunters said they preferred a three-car garage, according to a recent survey by John Burns Real Estate Consulting. Data from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics says that only 19 percent of people have three or more cars, though, and that may trend downwards with the advent of ride sharing services.
The share of homes built with three-car garages has risen in recent years. Builders focused on high-end homes after the recession, and newer houses are taking multigenerational living into consideration.
It’s hard to escape the irony that the U.S., which will need something like 43 million new housing units to keep up with population growth in the next 35 years, is using space to build apartment-size garages, even as trends in ride-sharing and self-driving cars cast a measure of uncertainty on American car culture.
