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ADU case studies

Real projects, with the numbers. Names and locations are withheld for privacy; the figures come from project records.

  • From a nursing home to a backyard ADUA grandfather living in a nursing home at about $8,000 a month moved into a 650 SF, one-bedroom, care-ready ADU in his family’s backyard. Visits went up enormously, and the family saves on the order of $6,000 a month even after the ADU payment.
  • Buy, renovate, build: a $174K ADU that appraised at $230KAn investor bought a modest property for $180,000, renovated the front house for $40,000, then borrowed against the new equity to build a $174,000 backyard ADU. It appraised at $230,000 on completion and rents for $1,950 a month — $3,750 a month combined from one lot.

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