Coming on here to share my experience planning, designing, permitting and the construction process for our 380 sq ft Garage Conversion ADU. This ADU will be a 1 bedroom and 1 bath unit with full kitchen and bathroom. I am a realtor in San Gabriel Valley in LA county. Our offices are in Pasadena,CA and I live in Claremont, CA. We have helped many clients purchase a primary home and rental property and have helped with the ADU process. There is a lot of information out there but seldom do I see everything in one place. From purchasing the property to planning the ADU to getting the permits and then going through the construction process.

The reason why we purchased this particular property was because I kept seeing on forums that you could not cash flow anywhere in CA and much less in LA County. I wanted to prove that theory wrong. So, we set out to find the right property. I found an Off Market property in Claremont when fixers were selling for $680k, we bought our home for $550k and got a $50k credit from the seller for some of the renovations. It took us about 2.5 months to renovate the entire property including all the old systems (HVAC, Plumbing, electrical and roof along with everything else).

We started the permit process in Nov. of 2022 and finally received approvals to start the project in June of 2023.

The architectural plans costs: $6k

The city fees were a total of : $7,500

We applied for a city grant and got approved : for $20k once we finish the foundation. (We will be getting that in the next 2 weeks).

So far (1st week of work), we have finished the first part of the foundation (trenching, rebar and plumbing) And assuming we pass the inspection on Monday, we will be pouring concrete that day and will start framing on Tuesday (of the second work week).

I will be sharing on here:

. Existing property/ Lot and acquiring tenants for the rental

. ADU requirements (city and LA county)

. Planning and permits with city (timelines)

. Soft costs, city and impact fees,

. Architect, engineer, title 24 for energy calculations

. Contractors, bids, and actual costs

. Value of home and potential Value added by this project

. anything else you have questions about!

Address: 353 saint Bonaventure st. Claremont CA 91711 (check on Zillow if you like to see purchase etc )

(We are finishing the landscaping, driveway and ADU together)