All Forum Posts by: Milad Aria

@Kevin Fox thank you for your great feedback and helpful insight. That makes sense, his actually helps a lot with narrowing down options and focusing on a more defined market. 

@Minh Dong thank you Minh for sharing your experience on this. Shipping container home definitely seems to be an option to consider. I'll PM you we might be able to collaborate. 

@Kevin Keith Beck thank you so much Kevin for your thoughtful and thorough comment and sharing ideas and posing important questions and challenges. You are absolutely right these are all good options to consider and challenges are real. I'm also trying to get a better understanding of the market needs when it comes to ADU and create an accurate portfolio of the ideal buyer. That's one of the reasons I started this conversation so that our collective wisdom and experience could lead us in the right direction or at least gives us some pointers where to focus time and energy on.

@Jim G. Thank you for sharing this. I'm currently in Concord so not too far from where you are and have a lot of friends in San Jose (I used to live there and in Morgan Hill) maybe we could work together to come up with a solution for you and people with similar situation. I will message you and we can discuss further. 

@Kevin Keith Beck Thank you so much Kevin for your thorough and detailed comment communicating key factors and potential challenges. I have also heard about the ZNE and noticed a few other builders / factories in the states have also implemented that into their product but not all. I believe this can be achieved by adhering to best practices in design as well as material being used for short-term. Of course long / medium-term once this becomes mandatory by CA and depending on how it unfolds we may or may not have to fly an inspector to the factory for complete inspection and licensing. 

You have a good point here as this will be an important factor in design and choosing the right material and even size and style. Not just for compliance with ZNE but also for creating an environmental-friendly product that could become a win-win-win situation for the customer, vendor and the sate. I will definitely keep an eye on this and will use any opportunities to implement it into the product as much as possible. 

That being said I'd love to hear your feedback based on your personal experience in terms of what type of method, material, style and size you think is gaining more traction and seems to be the most feasible option for ADUs in CA. This will help further narrow down options and better focus on the next steps in terms of getting it pre-engineered and pre-approved and best practices / product improvements such as implementing ZNE into the product.

@Kevin Fox thank you so much Kevin for your feedback and insight. I did some preliminary calculations and there seems to be a potential to make it work however it depends a lot on details such as material, model, size, etc. that's why I decided to focus on that first and narrow down my options to make this feasible. 

As far as sub-market being concerned I'm still working on this, and everyones feedback and thoughts would help a lot with this. For example since you are an Real Estate Agent in San Diego does any specific type, model, size of ADU keep popping up in conversations with clients, contractors, colleagues, etc. that seems to be getting more traction that others?

@Dmytro K. thank you for sharing this! Yes I also came across their ad and website a while ago, they are using 3D printing and is basically a modular model much similar to a shipping container house but 3D printed and with different type of material that they deliver and use a crane to put it on the foundation. So do you think that would be the best route? focusing on a modular / container shipping model would be the most feasible in-demand option?

@Account Closed thank you for your helpful feedback! as far as costs still have to figure out the details in terms of cost specially after compliance with the code requirements, etc. At this point I'm trying to narrow down to 1 model and trying to decide what would be the most useful and popular option. For example should it be timber / steel? should it be modular, panelized or kit? what size range would best address the ADU demand? should it be modern design or just something that fits with the overall current architecture? those are the type of questions I'm trying to answer right now.

I'm looking into importing prefab / modular houses from China to be used here in California as backyard homes / ADUs. Planning to get them permitted and certified for California and meet or exceed current codes so when they arrive here they are pretty much good to go. I'd like to get started by focusing on 1 or 2 models and would love to hear your feedback to understand what type of model / material / structure you think is in demand for ADUs and what size range seems to be more popular with folks when building an ADU. (For example steel or wood, prefab kits or modular / shipping container homes , 200-400 sqft or 500-800 sqft , etc. ) Any feedback, ideas or suggestions would help a lot. I'd love to hear your experience with building an ADU in CA whether it was for yourself, family and friends or clients.

Also a little bit of background about myself in case you wonder, I'm an electrical / software engineer (MSEE, CE, patent holder) who has worked in several big tech companies as well as manufacturing environment before and been to China several times. I'm also an entrepreneur and have done eCommrece and imported from China before so I'm pretty familiar with the process and would like to get into prefab / modular house market specially with the new CA ADU regulations in place.