All Forum Posts by: Lee Miller

I'm building three ADUs currently in CA and looking at investing out of state, possibly in Macon, when I'm done with this project. Dwayne, I'd love to connect!

Got it, thank you for lending your expertise!

Do you mean it would need an architect because that's required by the jurisdiction, or because the project itself would need an architect's expertise? IME with due respect to architects they are not generally necessary for simple remodels. But I also like DIY design and drafting so YMMV.

Good question! It seems like anything requiring an architect would be too big or complex a construction project to be worth it, but I could be wrong. I'm imagining something more like add a wall, turn a bedroom into a kitchen-living on one side and a formal dining room into a bedroom on the other side, maybe add a half bath in each unit. Of course, the floor plan has to be conducive to this.

Hi! Has anyone done this in Chattanooga? I see some larger single family homes in areas that appear to be zoned R2 that, at least from a physical perspective, seem like they could work for this. The goal here would be to increase rental income. For context, I'm based in the SF Bay Area in CA and looking into buying my first OOS rental after house hacking locally for 10 years. I realizing the duplex conversion strategy is more complex I probably wouldn't try it on my first property, just want to get a sense of what's possible in the Chattanooga market :) Thanks!

Perhaps it's irresponsible to suggest this, but you could potentially save money by being your own GC. It involves a lot of planning and people-managing, and knowing what going into building projects at least on a high level is key. So, you have to be kinda into learning that stuff, and having someone in the family or friend circle with some expertise is a big help. People say it can save around 30% on average, but of course you're internalizing some risk, too.

I bought a duplex in RWC in 2013 when things were a lot cheaper, and then refinanced when rates were crazy low, so that worked out well but it's a different world now sadly -- otherwise I'd love to rinse and repeat! Instead I'm looking out of state for my next property.

Meanwhile, we're putting in two new-construction 2br ADUs on the current property, plus converting the garage to another 1br ADU (it's a bigger-than-normal lot).

I'd look into various ADU-related strategies. Permissive ADU laws are a bright spot in CA, since they allow more ways to generate income from a property. For example you could get a 4-br 2-ba SFH and carve out 2 of the bedrooms and one bath to become a 1-br 1-ba + kitchen/living room JADU, and then also convert a 2-car garage into a 2-br 1-ba. Now you're operating a triplex, essentially, with 2 income-bearing units, even though the street might be zoned for SFH only, and it's totally legal (assuming appropriate setback etc etc). Maybe do an MTR for one of them since RWC is near various hospitals (I'm looking into doing this) or even rent-by-room.

Construction is expensive here, so even with all that it can be hard to pencil out. We've kept costs low by doing a lot of DIY and being our own GC, which I would not recommend to everyone -- it's really a second job for a year or however long. My main advice there is not to DIY things when that will set back your completion date too much -- with so much potential income waiting, those are expensive months! That said, people say it saves maybe 30% vs hiring a GC, and it might be even more for that in our case, hard to say until we're done.

We've had good experiences with the RWC bldg dept, inspectors are nice and helpful. I get the feeling that the city sincerely wants more housing and they are trying to make it work for folks.

Feel free to get in touch if I can be helpful!