Garage to Dream Home — The City of Los Angeles has recently relaxed its rules for converting a garage into an Accessory Dwelling Unit, and there is no rule against making it the main house like this couple did: #adu #losangeles
This project demonstrates the potential of the ADU. It’s a phenomenal thing, and can be better than the main house. We may think of an ADU as a sort of a room addition or secondary unit, the in-law unit — the worst house. This, however, can be the best house. For some, it may be a two-story house with floor to ceiling windows and double high ceiling. The zoning law description “ADU”, which may sound like the connotation of just a second house, has really made it possible for many a homeowner to become a mini developer, and to build their own house. The thought of replacing the garage with a spectacular modern ADU may seem challenging, but can end up quite rewarding, it it allows the property owner to rent out what was the main house, while giving the opportunity to build a new and improved dream house that can more than pay for itself. #guest #house
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A guest house or ADU may generate enough income to allow the owner to live for free.
REAL ESTATE NEWS
Hi, it’s Corey Chambers in Los Angeles. Your Home Sold GUARANTEED or I’ll Buy It*. So, today we’re going to talk about living for free — living for FREE. Probably something that’s getting more popular. So when we’re talking about living free, we’ve got to say, “Nothing really is free.” In fact, free can be very expensive. So we’re going to just give you one example, and that is that we’re talking about real estate. So, prices start to fall in Los Angeles for real estate, for lofts, condos and houses. When the price goes down too low, such as it did in 2012, when the lofts in the building where I live in at Alta Lofts went from the $300,000s down to the high $100,000s. That’s what I would call working a plan for living for free, because the equity that you gain when it rebounds — that equity pays for your living. And that’s free equity created by the real estate rebound, which can kind of turn into free money or free living in this case. And that’s, in fact, how I put my money where my mouth was, and went in half on a place, and it’s now our equity is worth much more. Just six years later, our equity was worth a lot more than the property price that we paid for it. So that’s one example of living for free because it’s generally growing in equity, growing in value, and the equity can be extracted if desired by selling the property or a home equity line of credit etc. That’s the 2012 method? What works in 2020? #adu
The best investments for 2020 include those that allow economizing, such as mult-unit.
The other way to live for free is to buy a duplex, triplex or 4 plex, and then live in one of the units. That way, your other renters and your other units pay for the property. And if you end up making more money in the future, you could just expand your living space and take up two of the units. And if you don’t, then you can just downsize into one of the units. Or, if one of the units is a two-bedroom, then you just downsize and get a roommate. So it has this flexibility for living for free, economizing, or for making more money and more profit as your needs change. And then when you get older, you’ve got a unit for your caretaker to live in. So, it can kind of set you up for life. That’s why duplexes, triplexes fourplexes are popular, and they don’t necessarily cost two or three times as much as a single family home. So they can be cheaper on average per unit than a regular single family home because they’re going to be a little bit smaller per unit. And then they have that efficiency of being built together. #liveforfree #invest #duplex
So one thing to point out is: how to find these multiunit places. Because it’s finding them, finding the good deals, that can be difficult. So we’re going to talk about that, how to find these places that are more than one unit and that have a good price. If you look on Zillow or Trulia, there’s a good chance you’re not going to see them on there. You’re not going to see very many at all because they are kind of hard to find. Most of the time, they are either listed as multifamily income properties (like an apartment building, and then you’re not looking to buy an apartment building). or they are listed as a single family home (when in fact they are multiple units). There’s no category, so you’re not going to see a category that says: duplex, triplex, fourplex, along with all of the other kinds of multi-unit properties, like guest suites, granny flats, in-law suites, basement apartment or casita.
Two units are better than one. A guest studio apartment can generate cash every month.
Sometimes these units are un-permitted, and they have a lot of variations. So, unless you’re using a real estate agent who has successfully found these types of properties for people before, your chances are a little bit too slim of finding them. That’s why you want to use the right real estate professional or specialized resource, because these multi-dwelling units are listed across several different platforms. There are several different types of multi-unit properties. There are all kinds of different types. There are houses with dual kitchens, with second units, with guest apartments, with converted garage, with ADU, which is short for Accessory Dwelling Unit and all these other types of multiple units in a house. #guesthouse #grannyflat
One example is the house where I was born in, I wasn’t born in the house, but the house where my family, where we lived when I was born was a duplex that also had an apartment over the garage. So, how would they list that? It would probably be listed in a regular house listing. Well, in those days there was not even an online MLS. They weren’t even necessarily on a computer system. They were probably just printed in a real estate agent listing book, a paper book. But even today, there’s no complete multi-unit category. It might be listed as a single family home, or it might not. It might be listed as something else. There’s a very good chance it’s going to be listed wrong. So those are the reasons why it’s hard to find. There’s a pretty good number of these out there in Los Angeles and in California, but they’re hard to find. #guestapartment
For one thing, there are a lot of different issues. A lot of them have permits and proper documentation, but most of them were not originally built that way. And, so basically, what people want when they want the second unit is, they ideally would like a legitimate legal duplex, triplex or fourplex. But more often than not, they’re not listed that way. Because what people actually want is just a second unit that has a its own door, its own entrance, its own kitchen and its own bathroom, with each unit to have at least one bathroom and one bedroom (or studio apartment). Sometimes they want it to have more than that. But that’s generally what people want. They want to buy a property that is physically two properties. Is it going to hold two individuals or two families? And to do that, it has to have two private entrances and two kitchens, along with at least two full bathrooms or more. So that’s it. Live for free by owning a home that also includes an income-earning additional small home. They tend to appreciate greatly over time, with the extra unit rent paying for the entire mortgage sooner or later. They are out there. They’re hard to find. If you want any help finding those, not only in California, but I can refer you to other people across the USA who use the same system in other States in the United States and Canada.
Just email me coreychambers@yahoo.com or call my main mobile number (213) 880-9910 thanks for reading. I hope this was very helpful to you and your situation. I’m Corey Chambers in Los Angeles. Your Home Sold GUARANTEED, or I’ll Buy It. Here is a free resource to help you:
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