In my neighborhood, most new buyers are Chinese, and Chinese families are much more likely than white families to live in households with two generations of adults. If I did build an ADU I’m confident it would make my house worth more on the market.
I don’t want an ADU. Our house is plenty big enough. I do find the idea of a tiny house in the backyard, like 15 x 15, appealing, but it makes no sense for us.
California isn’t done with rezoning.
If passed, you could put the ADU in the back yard and then tear down the main single family home in order to construct a multi unit building. Hmmm…there is currently not enough parking, road capacity, public transportation (that people are willing to use) water or electricity so what could go wrong?
How long until the ‘good schools’ change because folks leave?
We were not talking about SB50. We were talking about cute little houses in people’s backyards. What do you think of these?
Pictures of existing ADUs:
https://actonadu.com/our-work/adu-portfolio
https://hdrremodeling.com/oakland-adu
Floorplans for pre-fab ADUs:
http://www.prefabadu.com/
I like the Fernandez family house. Nice choice of finishes.
Well, I am, because they are related. Threads often take a side road. The point being established zoning laws are being changed - not by a vote - by legislation. Many who don’t hang out on social media or watch endless new streams (or only news streams with a single point of view) may not be aware until it’s too late.
I like the stories with the Acton ADU pictures; somebody’s a lively writer. Note that some of the issues the families faced would no longer occur with the new law. The Boehms would still have had to protect their redwood, and all the families would have had to worry about proximity to power lines, but the McLeod-Daniels family wouldn’t have had to worry about the historical designations of their property.
My imaginary ADU would be something like the Becky, on the prefabADU page. The spot I’m imagining is 20x13, so I’d have to go for a petite unit. One of the pages points out that in such a small are, a vaulted ceiling gives a more spacious feel, so I’d go for that, and definitely a little porch.
These are probably too small for my tastes, but check out the Tumbleweed Tiny Houses: https://www.tumbleweedhouses.com/
For a pre-fab, looks like for the San Jose area, the cost for me would be $250K. Major variables would be the size of the unit, trenching needed to upgrade the Amp max ($7500), and probably removing a storage shed and tree.
It may be that 20x13 is too small for my imaginary house. I don’t want a loft, because I don’t like the idea of falling down the ladder when one gets up to pee in the middle of the night.
@ProfessorPlum168, how big is your hypothetical ADU? And what’s the cost breakdown for the ADU? (I hope you don’t mind the questions. I’m just curious about how it all works in my area.)
@“Cardinal Fang” well I was looking at 600-800 sq feet of living area. The adobu.com link and pricing seems to include everything except for any trenching work and landscaping, which I probably would need. I would imagine that I could find it for less as I do more research.
I’m wondering if the adobu link has been updated with the (supposed) reduced fees and the (definite) reduced permitting requirements from the new law. Could save tens of thousands of bucks. The ballpark remains a quarter million though. That’s a lot of money, but it’s a lot less than buying a new single family house. And the ADU could probably be rented out for $2500-$3000 a month.
I’m with dietz. On the one hand we hear cries of 'there’s not enough water in California, everyone cut back, pee in the shower (that’s a joke). But on the other hand, it’s build, build, build. Makes zero sense.
Not taking the bait.
What would you do with the ADU, @ProfessorPlum168? I’ve noticed that some people who put up ADUs carefully design them to be accessible, with the thought that as they age, they might move into them and have their adult children live in the main house, perhaps with grandchildren.
Some of these are ridiculously adorable. I can dream…
https://www.countryliving.com/home-design/g1887/tiny-house/?slide=1
Actually, we have a 20 x 20 ish old “garage” that can’t be driven to or parked in (lol), that I dream of demo-ing and turning into a tiny house. Why not just update it? Well, it’s sinking at one corner, the concrete slab is coming apart and there’s a giant tree limb leaning on one wall in a way that dooms it’s long term future. I’d love to make it a smaller footprint and go up, with the tiny house part being on a second level and the lower part for storage of bicycles, house paint, yard stuff, and flowerpots. Yes, I can dream…
My nephew lived in a converted yellow schoolbus tiny house for several years. It had a shower, kitchen, stove and was insulated. But he and his wife are happy to be living in a real house now!
We would be willing to build one if either of our kids wanted to live in it, in our tiny backyard.
If my CA son buys a house someday and builds one, I will happily come live in it.
My first thought was ‘no way’ - we bought here exactly because we wanted the larger yard and building anything else on this lot would take away a lot of what I love about the house. I’ll probably stick with that answer, although hearing people mention the idea of moving into a smaller house on their existing property and having their adult children take over the main house isn’t the worst idea in this market. I guess for us the question would be how do you give your house to one of three kids though. And to be honest I’ll probably want a bit more separation from them as well… although if the option is living 15 feet away vs living in another state because they can’t afford otherwise to stay in CA I’d take 15 feet away and figure out the boundary issues :-).
The town I grew up in (NYC suburb) has encouraged ADUs for the past 25 plus years in order to comply with court imposed requirements to provide affordable housing. Very few people chose to build ADUs, though, and I think it’s because being a landlord is such a hassle and people didn’t want their tenant to be right next to them. Eventually the town was required to have multi-family affordable housing units built since not enough private individuals built ADUs.
I didn’t read the CA legislation, but I hope that if the purpose is to help with the housing crisis, then no renting of the main house or ADU for less than 30 days should be allowed. I included the main house because owners might move out to the ADU and short term rent the main house.