All Forum Posts by: Joanna Socha

Hi Dan, This is Joanna with Hausable. Thanks for your post, I just saw it from a few months back. 
We're based in San Francisco and provide zoning feasibility analysis and custom ADU permit plans for most cities in California. You can check your property on our site and get a quote for services using this link: https://www.hausable.com/adu-s... you plan to locate the unit in a sloped area, you may need a geotechnical engineer to verify the conditions. If the property is in a hillside zone, there will be additional restrictions on the project. Talking to your planning office is always a good first step, but if you get confusing answers or need some help getting specific information, it's likely that our services can assist. 

It's great to see everyone looking in to building an ADU these days. Thanks for all the helpful comments. Have a nice weekend!

Hi Michael, this is an interesting question and it is not easy to answer. If it's in the bay area, you can check your property using our income and appreciation tools at Hausable.com/adu-list and compare that with your expected income / equity after buying an AZ property. In my opinion, if you have an opportunity to add a second unit to your property in CA, where property values and rents are on the rapid incline the long run ROI from the ADU in CA will likely out pace those of properties outside of CA. Let us know what you decide to do!

@Bill Bockwoldt Thanks for sharing your experience we'd be happy to connect with you about featuring more details of your story and the process to permit your ADU in Petaluma if you're interested. We're planning a series of articles featuring ADU owners throughout CA and it sounds like your property would be a great fit.

@Jo-Ann Lapin Yes! We hope that legislation can go even further to help ADUs start to gain traction in California. Reducing the Owner Occupancy restriction is really one of the biggest factors that can grow their popularity among real estate investors. Financing is also an issue, so it would be great to get a bit more of your thoughts on that aspect of this market. We have heard a lot about homeowners using equity lines and renovation loans, but it is kind of a black box for many. We wrote a bit about what we've learned about ADU financing here. 

Thanks for the post, Jo-Ann. Looking forward to hearing back!

@Ori Skloot that's great you are in the process of permitting an ADU now. It would be great to get some updates and photos as you go through the steps of approval and construction! We plan to launch a page for Albany shortly, so we'd be up for doing a feature article on it at some point it 2018 if you'd be up for it!

Thank's for the post Henry, good info on average costs and ROI. You'll probably be happy to know that there are certain cities in the Bay Area that have recently eliminated the owner occupancy requirement, and Oakland is one of them actually. See quoted provision and link to Oakland's code text here:

"Occupancy requirements The property owner is not required to live in either the Primary or Secondary Unit. The Secondary Unit may only be occupied on a 30-day or longer basis."

http://www2.oaklandnet.com/oakca1/groups/ceda/docu...

Seems like things are really opening up for ADUs!

With the ever rising cost of housing in the San Francisco Bay Area, the case for developing an ADU on your property makes more and more sense. As more California homeowners become aware of this as a viable option to increase property value and generate rental income, the valuations and investment models around ADUs should become more standardized. While this opportunity seems like a black box to most homeowners and individual real estate investors, we've started to see evidence that the market has picked up in a big way over the last year and would love to hear from those who are engaged in this market first hand or have been watching on the sidelines.

So... Who is building ADUs?!