As our family grows, our careers evolve, and we meet more people and develop new hobbies, our lifestyle will undoubtedly evolve, as will our needs when it comes to living space and how the home functions. According to a study conducted by Realtor.com, more than 30% of Northern California families who buy a home realize they need more space within five years from the time they purchased their property. Many realtors use this data to try to upsell buyers into a higher price bracket for a larger home that they don’t need now but COULD need in the future.
What buyer’s don’t always realize is that it makes more sense to buy a home that best suits your family’s needs at the moment, but to make sure the lot is big enough for you to hire an ADU builder in Santa Clara County, and when the time is right, you can build an ADU and resolve all of your needs while also adding a ton of value to your home that a converted garage would never offer.
This article is intended to help homeowners who are on the fence when it comes to doing a garage conversion or working with an ADU builder to build an accessible dwelling unit on their property.
Working with an ADU Builder Enables You to Keep Your Garage, Which Increases the Resale Value
According to data gathered by the National Association of Home Builders, more than 90% of homebuyers demanded a garage for their new home, and more than 65% of homebuyers even demanded a two-car garage. If you do a garage remodification and turn it into housing or an extra room, you don’t gain any livable space when you go to resell your home, as a garage counts, and more so you make your home automatically less attractive to most buyers who won’t even tour a home if it doesn’t have a garage.
When you work with an ADU builder to construct an accessory dwelling unit on your property, you maintain that critical garage that buyers need, while increasing your living space square footage, and making your property even more desirable for the market than it was before.
Is Working with an ADU Builder Cheaper than Doing a Garage Remodification?
Working with an ADU builder is cheaper than doing garage remodification. This comes as a surprise to many people, but it’s true. Think about it: a garage is a pre-existing space. It costs thousands of dollars to bring it up to the current building code so that you can legally repurpose it into a flat, or a habitable room. Usually, this involves moving and relocating plumbing lines, redoing the entire electrical system, and installing a firewall, and the cost per square foot in doing a garage remodification is significantly more than building an ADU. You get more bang for your buck with an ADU than you do remodify your garage, so why pay more only to eliminate a garage and put a dent in your property’s resale value? By the way, an ADU is different from a tiny home and offers more value to the homeowner, so be sure to ask our ADORE Homes team to explain this in more detail.
Garage Remodifications Create Inconveniences for Renters and for Your Customers, Clients, and Patients
If you have an attached garage that you are considering turning into a rental unit or a home office, be prepared for tenants and customers / patients / clients to feel uncomfortable. Having separation from the main house is critical; you don’t want to hear your tenant’s music, TV, or social gathering, and they certainly don’t want to hear yours. The cost of soundproofing and adding a firewall to an attached garage is ridiculously expensive, and still doesn’t offer 100% privacy. When you work with an ADU builder to build an ADU on your property with enough distance from the main home, you will give your tenant and customers more privacy while creating more of a professional environment for them, and for you.
ADU Financing is Easier, and Cheaper than Refinancing a Garage Remodification
In the event you need to finance your new space, then you will get a much better deal on ADU financing as opposed to financing a garage remodel. Lenders are more comfortable in ADU financing because you can use the existing equity in your home, and there is less “red tape” to deal with as opposed to a garage that involves tons of red tape and the inability to use your home’s existing equity. The fact that you can use your home equity credit to finance an ADU is one of the main reasons why lenders feel confident in approving people for a loan, while giving them a very good deal that won’t break the bank.
Call ADORE Homes to Learn More About Our ADU Builders and What Our Short Process Looks Like
ADORE Homes is the leading ADU builder in Santa Clara County and the entire Bay Area. When you contact us, we almost always come to your property on the same day, understand your goals with an ADU, take the needed measurements and inspect your grounds, and then we draft up a blueprint based on your needs, and present it to you ready to start building an ADU right out of the gate. We can also explain in more detail why building an ADU makes more sense and offers you more value, and a better price, than remodeling your garage, and we can customize any type of ADU you want, including floor plan, finishes, materials, and so much more. Call today and let us help you move into that exciting new stage of your life when you have all the extra living space you need to improve your lifestyle and happiness.