Garage Conversion VS ADU

[Vu Trinh]

Good morning everyone!

I'm new to BP and looking to soon start building my RE Investing portfolio.

My wife and I just bought a house in South Bay LA, California which is our primary residence. It's a 3bd/1.75br. With 20% down our mortgage is currently at $3400/month and so we are planning on househacking it to help us reduce our mortgage.

We are thinking of either converting the garage into a studio and rent it out, or adding an ADU in the backyard and eother move into the ADU or rent it out. We understand that building an ADU will cost a lot more than a garage Conversion. Since we just got the house, we don't have a lot of money left over so we're thinking of the best way to approach this.

Our questions are:

1. Anyone in the local area knows how much it usually cost for a garage Conversion and for an ADU?

2. Should we do the conversion first and occupy it and then save more money to build the ADU later?

Any tips and advices are greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance.