The appeal of a hard to access garage you can't use in the winter is as a place to store big stuff, lots of stuff. The long decomposed driveway was probably just a way to make driving the stuff down there easier, not so much for parking a car in the storage garage. The asphalt pad in the bottom corner looks like a good place to park a boat. Do you know the history of this side driveway?

You have no way of knowing if a future buyer has a lot of stuff that needs storing or a lot of people that need bedrooms. I would err on the side of selling as is. Clean off the remaining asphalt. Don't hide it. Seed the dirt areas to lawn. Let the buyers decide what they want to do with the storage garage.

If your dad is gone and your mom is going to be moving soon, the time to empty the basement garage of any remaining stuff is now, not while in the stress of moving your mom. That is something you can do.

Thank you for this thought out response. We have done a lot of the basement clean out already. We don’t know the history but that pad was where my Dad’s truck has sat inoperable for 10 years. The backyard has 3 terraced sections 2 of which are completely over grown (including stonework and fireplace). We heard it was beautful in the 50s. Perhaps that garage was to store the equipment to manage it. The basement is large and mostly finished including a bathroom and bedroom so there is a lot of potential. I like your idea to remove pavement, seed and sell as is. If only I could talk my mom into it...

When you can't talk them into it, you have to try to outsmart them. Good luck.

The 100 year old house in Florida my mother grew up in is going on the market shortly, like as soon as the Sisters come fetch their mother and take her back to Florida for the winter. This day has been under discussion for the last four or five years. It was my grandmother's large three acre garden and a magical place to be as a child. Today it is like Grey Gardens of the two Edith Beale in the Hamptons. It will be sold as is. Prime real estate.

its such a sellers market right now you dont have to do much of anything!

But let buyers free to imagine possible uses of an outbuilding other than for storage. An office? guest room? studio? greenhouse? coop? A paved driveway limits their imagination.

I wouldn't go to the expense of paving it. My brother would use it as a woodworking shop. My sister in law would turn it into a home gym that could be opened for fresh air. You never know how future buyers might picture the space. At least in the current market I don't see the return on the investment of paving it when you can't be sure how potential future owners would use it.