How to Build an ADU in Southern California: Expert Guidance from Tagg Construction

Hi and welcome back inside Uplift Property Management today we're going to be talking about a question we get all the time how do I add or build an ADU on my property and and what are the steps to do that and today Chris Tagg owner and CEO of TAGG Construction one of our trusted vendors is here to talk to us just about that so Chris all the time I get this question people want to add an ADU to their property or a junior ADU and you know what are the steps what how does one go about doing that i'm assuming it's kind of a complicated process.

So first step we want to take is to hire a drafter and engineer and to come up with a design and figure out if you're going to do a ADU which is an attached or if you can do a detached ADU if you have a good drafter that provides some concier service like I personally use they'll go down to the city and do all the footwork for you um they'll find out where your setbacks are if you can do a detached and what size that is or if you can do an attached one um it's really helpful that during that process to find a contractor to choose a contractor that you're going to work with um there's some like myself that donate their time up front um to try and land the project in the first place um that will help you with walking through with uh advice on design and then also when you get your your first round of plans um if you have a good contractor they go through and say hey to the engineer I can what if we did this and if we did it this way it could save the customer money now I know it's not necessary to get a contractor upfront but could you give a good example of you know a time where where yourself have saved a client money because they got that contractor upfront during this first stage yeah absolutely so um we're doing one right now in Delmare and the first round of plans came back they have a decorative tower on the top and so the the engineer designed it with steel I-beams and this all this wrap to make it fully functional and so I immediately came back and said "Hey when the homeowner was concerned about the budget I said "If you if we put trusses here and make that tower a false tower that right there saves the customer $60,000 right off the bat." And of course the customer was ecstatic and that's the way we decided to go so the engineers went back he said "All right I'll design this with trusses and a false tower on the top and saved the customer money." And we moved on and they're happy okay so step one we've hired a drafter we've hired an engineer hopefully we've hired a contractor to help in that process what's the the next step in in building this ADU once you've kind of chosen that you need to go down to the your you know if you're the county or you're a city you need to go down there and tell them hey this is what I'm trying to do what and that's that's where the having that drafter that provides the concier service or even some engineers do it um they will go down to the county for you or the city the local so you're not actually going down there as long as you find a good drafter who they'll go and do it for Some people some people don't want to pay the extra but it's not that large of an additional fee if you get a good one um so yeah so you don't necessarily have to go down there yourself if you choose the right people on your team they'll go down there and they'll figure out all the information that the city wants okay and we're going you know San Diego County Tmacula um Riverside really we have lots of different areas and they all have different rules so we have to make sure we're going to the correct um you know jurisdiction where those permits where can you find out where um that office would be for the location your house is at you would have to Google it you'd have to go to each one and say you know city um you can look up if you're in the county or city jurisdiction and then who who's the the uh local authority basically if you just type in on Google like for instance Ramona if you type type in Ramona where do you go for uh permits for the city of Ramona and it'll it'll say this is an unincorporated city or an unincorporated area and you are under the jurisdiction of the county of San Diego and then it'll provide the address there in downtown okay so we've gone to our local jurisdiction to pull permits uh what's what comes next yeah so you got your your initial set of stamped engineered plans you went down to the city you pulled the permits now you're going to want to start shopping around for other quotes from contractors um hopefully you have one that you really like that you started this with but obviously you know you haven't signed any contract with him so now get your preliminary numbers um and the reason I say their preliminary numbers is because what the engineer has in mind and what the city has in mind by the time that they get it and it goes through all of their people can sometimes be two different things when you're doing these projects your everybody's water mane um is typically three quarters um and so when you're starting to add more units things that take um water inside of any house to a property then you have to do a fixture unit count every city or county is different based uh on what they use for their their fixture unit counts and so a project we just had in North Park had we were two fixture units below their maximum number before they required a 1- in water man and the city decided we don't care we want you to upgrade the main and that just cost the customer $40,000 and that came out of nowhere at all the way at the very end when they were about to release the permit so that you could start the project and so that's why when I say preliminary you just never know what they're what the city's going to come back and say the city also on that same project said "We understand you're putting 5/8 drywall which is overkill typically it's/ in but we also now want you to do type X 2-hour rated fire rated drywall on the outer edges of the building on the left and the right and on the ceilings and that cost the homeowner an additional $10,000."

So it sounds like besides you know that preliminary quote owners need to budget for unexpected things correct yes absolutely okay so we've gotten contractor quotes um what is the the third step here in in building our ADU in the middle of the process you're going to end up getting your first round of re revisions and that's when the city comes back and say says things like the drywall or even the water mane but it doesn't necessarily mean they're going to say that right then and there obviously the the drywall actually in the North Park one came up in the first round of revisions the water mane came up later now during that you obviously you talked about budgeting there you're going to need to start coming up with a budget you're getting your preliminary estimates you're creating that budget to see what you can afford and before you submit your first round of revisions um you're going to want to find out what you can afford so some people get into this thinking then they have a number in mind and that number might not be realistic um and so you want to start figuring out what your what your budget is i have a project we're working on right now um we gave them a preliminary cost and now we've gotten through the engineering and we're at the first round of revisions and they said "Hey um maybe we don't need to add this addition that's just essentially a pantry that's ob going to the exterior maybe we don't need to do this addition how much is that going to save us?" And that by not doing what the pantry that they wanted they're saving about $13,000 so now they're rebudgeting and of course during your first round of revisions is the time that you're going to want to submit any change like that say so the you tell your engineer hey we're not doing the pantry anymore we're not doing whatever it is now they're going to remove that from the plans remove all those additional things then you're going to resubmit to the city and then wait for them to come back with whether or not it's just approved or if they have any wacky things for instance like the water meter okay so you've submitted those revisions you you've budgeted um what comes next uh what comes next um so once the city has accepted everything and your plan's good everything's good to go you're going to get what we call a set of city approved engineered plans and now you can get complete accurate quotes from all of your contractors because we got the preliminary and then during that process the city came back and made changes or you made changes and we had to submit pre um you know first stage or second stage revisions and then now you have a city approved set that means you're ready to start your project so now you take that back to the contractor or contractors that you were considering and they can provide you with accurate definitive estimates at that point and at this point is when you would sign uh a contract with your contractor and then choose which one yes absolutely um now you're ready to start your project um I would say there's some things that you want to discuss with your contractor during this time and it's uh are your utilities going to be down your electrical your water your gas during any part of this so that people can pre-plan if they need to go and stay in a hotel or a friend's house because during these projects obviously um sometimes we get to stages where you're not going to have utilities for one to three days um and so those are things you want to plan you want to plan if you're adding to the existing house whether it's an ADU or an addition is where you're going to place all your stuff um plans for the contractor to be able to place their equipment um possibly a storage pod on the on the property or space in the garage um or on the property somewhere that they can store all their equipment so they don't having to transport it back and forth you're that you're you're on the you're on the roll you're on the track to complete your project t typically how long would you estimate an average ADU uh would take your contractor from start of this whole process where you're submitting plans to you're you know we're done and and ready to rent out the ADU the with the city all the cities are on different time schedules i did a project in Incinus um and that it only took them 30 days to give us permits for the entire project north Park took 6 months our Newport project took three months so the the city's time frame doesn't always jive with everybody else's so I usually say I would expect to wait between 3 months 3 to 6 months to get your city approved plans so that you can start your project and then I would say for from a contractor standpoint if you're doing a a 500 to 800 ft um ADU I would typically factor anywhere between 6 to 9 months and I know a big question for a lot of our uh current owners and and anyone looking for an ADU is or to add an ADU to their property is how much value is this going to add and and what can we rent this this out for so pulling some numbers for for San Diego and Tmacula um one and two bedroom ADUs in San Diego for a one-bedroom ADU we're looking at a monthly rent of 1,200 to 2800 um really just depends on the area uh of San Diego i know San Diego has so many different pockets i would also uh a question for you going going based off of that which would be good for people that are considering building an ADU for uh rental use is what about quality of materials um would you say that they're going to be able to get a higher rent if they went with more of a higher grade um designed pro project as opposed to doing something that's just you know kind of middle of the roads um middle of the road materials and and style and stuff like that yeah so so that's a great question and and I would say in a normal market that that does have a factor um and in today's market it it does have a small factor but um we are in a declining rental market right now so um things like amenities and um style I I'm seeing a lot of people shift more towards um I just need a place to live that is affordable and that I can you know support my family and and be able to to live comfortably but the market's always shifting so as as we kind of back off that um you know really price sensitive market we're in right now um definitely the quality of the ADU is going to make make a huge difference also the size of an ADU um you know a 1,200 ft² ADU is going to go for more than a 500 ft ADU it really just depends on on what you're building and and what the person is looking for and location and yeah location location yeah is is really important.

All righty well if you are interested in learning more about putting an ADU on your property feel free to reach out to us here at Uplift we'd love to get you connected with uh TAGG Construction and and do a consult with you and would love to go over what those rental prices would be in your specific area that that you want to build in um and Chris can get you some of those preliminary quotes on um what what that might cost to to complete your project.