The numbers behind the numbers. What goes into every yield estimate on a Garage Investor listing, what we suppress, and where the data comes from.
On every auction-tagged listing we publish an estimated clearance range and an estimated gross yield range based on it. For non-auction listings (agent and off-market), the asking price is already the price you'd pay, so we show the headline yield with no estimation.
For auction listings we look for at least three comparable sold-price records in the same postcode prefix and unit-count band. If we find them, we publish a range. If we can't, we show nothing. We'd rather say “not enough data” than give you a guess.
Our sold-price database tracks every garage lot we've previously listed that has gone to closing, plus a growing library of UK auction-house results. The key fields per record: postcode, region, tenure, unit count, sold price, and sold date.
We group lots into three bands: single (1-2 garages), small block (3-6 garages), and large block (7+ garages). A two-garage comp tells you very little about a twelve-garage block, so we only use comps inside the same band as the listing.
First pass: we look for comps in the same three-character postcode prefix as the listing (e.g. M21, BS5). This catches sales on the same estate, the same street, or near-identical access. If we find three or more, we use those.
Second pass: if local comps are thin, we widen to the full region (e.g. North West, Yorkshire and Humber). Still requiring three or more matching unit-band/tenure comps.
If neither pass finds three comps, we publish no estimate. See When we suppress.
From the comp pool we compute the median sold price per garage unit. We multiply that by the listing's unit count to get a median expected clearance, then publish a range of ±10% around that median. So if the median per-unit clearance from comps is £6,500 and the listing has 8 units, the median expected clearance is £52,000 and we'd show a range of approximately £47k-£57k.
We divide the annual rent stated on the listing by each end of the clearance range to produce a corresponding yield range. The lower clearance gives the higher yield and vice versa. For the net yield range, we subtract estimated annual costs and add SDLT into the clearance before dividing.
We hide the yield (showing “—” instead of a number) in four cases:
In any suppressed case we still show the guide price and rent prominently, so you can do your own underwriting. The Maximum Bid Calculator lets you plug in your own clearance assumption and see the resulting numbers.
Not a price prediction. Auction clearance is driven by who turns up on the day, what condition the lot is in, and the local market mood. The range we publish is what comparable lots have actually achieved; it's not a forecast for this specific lot.
Not a recommendation to bid. Even when our numbers look attractive, the legal pack, access, condition, tenancies and lease terms can all destroy the deal. The estimate is one input among many.
Not a substitute for inspection. Every experienced garage investor we've spoken to inspects in person before bidding. So should you.
Sold-price records are sourced from: completed deals previously listed on garageinvestor.co.uk, public auction-house results pages, and direct submissions from member investors who've closed transactions. We don't use Land Registry data directly because garage sales are often missing from it or filed as part of larger residential sales.
The full track record of how our published estimates compare to actual sold prices is on the track-record page. We update it monthly. If you spot a discrepancy or have a sold-price record to contribute, reply to the Tuesday Brief and it'll land in our inbox.
The rental-rates database tracks what UK garages rent for, by postcode district and region. It draws on the following sources, refreshed monthly:
Rents quoted weekly at source are converted to calendar-monthly (×52 ÷ 12). Listings that stop appearing drop out of the statistics after six months. The same suppression rule as our yield estimates applies: fewer than three records at both the district and regional level means we publish nothing rather than guess.
The published figure is the median across all records in the area — achieved and asking together. Rather than pretend a single number carries equal weight everywhere, each figure gets a confidence rating computed from three things: how many records sit behind it, how much of the data is real achieved rent rather than advertising, and how fresh it is. High means 30+ records with at least 15% achieved rents and a median data age under ~2.5 months. Medium means 8+ fresh records. Low is everything else that clears the three-record floor. If our monthly refresh ever breaks, the ratings degrade on their own — stale data can't masquerade as fresh.
Where a deal listing shows a “typical rent nearby” figure, it is the median achieved rent for the listing's postcode district from this database (falling back to asking rents, then to the region, under the same three-record rule).
July 2026. Launched the rental-rates database — garage rents by postcode district and region from managed-portfolio achieved rents plus national agent asking rents, refreshed monthly. Later the same month we replaced the separate achieved/asking columns with a single typical-rent figure plus a transparent confidence rating (sample size, achieved-rent share, data freshness), broadened coverage with national private-landlord listings, and began including peer-to-peer marketplace listings up to a £250/month cap (premium outliers above it are excluded).
June 2026. Removed the 1.3-1.8× heuristic fallback. Previously, when we had no comp data we'd publish a range computed from a generic auction guide-to-clearance multiplier. Following feedback from experienced investors that this undermined trust in the rest of the data, we now suppress the estimate entirely when comps are thin.
March 2026. Introduced unit-count band matching. Previously a single-garage sale could influence the estimate for a twelve-unit block. The bands now mean fundamentally different lot types don't cross-contaminate.
Reply to any email from us, or use the hello@garageinvestor.co.uk address. We read everything.
Every estimate we publish gets compared to the actual sold price once the lot closes. The track record page shows the average sold-vs-guide multiple, achieved yields by quarter, and recent sample deals.
View the track record →