This may seem weird, but I’m giddy to share this big new ADU dataset from the West Coast with you. This is the first time that this big dataset has been presented to the public. Here, I will show why this particular data is so important, and explain why I’m proud to release it. 

Getting my hands on this data from California, Oregon, and Washington was difficult. Making it presentable was also a challenge. 

Over the last few years, there have been significant innovations in terms of ADU financing and more experimentation occurring with enabling ADUs to help address the Affordable housing crisis.  One of my jobs is doing consulting work on various ADU policies issues. Recently, I got to dig into a topic that has piqued my interest: Mission-Driven Affordable ADU Programs.

Over the holidays, I was fortunate enough to spend a couple of weeks in the East Bay area of California. The East Bay area, primarily Oakland and Berkeley, is overflowing with current ADU activity that makes it a place with fascinating sites, organizations and people and who helped to interpret what I was seeing.

So, here’s a brief sketch of the people I met and the things I saw and learned from my winter workcation.

Homeowners, consider this a call to action.

Build an ADU, now. If you’re a homeowner in a west coast market, and have been sitting on the fence about developing an ADU, the next 1-2 years is the time to do it.

If you know another homeowner who you think should build an ADU, send this post to them.

The week after publishing this post, the nation’s second largest city, the City of Los Angeles, passed an ADU code that allows for mobile ADUs. You can read L.A.’s new ADU ordinance here.

This post offers a first-hand inquiry into the relative ease, flexibility, and affordability of mobile ADUs over all other housing forms allowed in residential zones, including conventional ADUs. 

Back in June, 2017, Los Angeles burst onto the ADU scene a record-breaking number of ADUs in the first quarter of that year. It was the beginning of an explosion of ADUs in Los Angeles.…..As a result of this suite of 2019 state legislation, California is now bound to be part of the largest backdoor revolution that the US has seen.

This is Part III of ADUs from an Investor's Perspective. This third installment is written by an investor who builds and holds ADUs on some of his residential properties. Arthur Donaghey is a real estate investor, general contractor and landlord in Portland, Oregon. He has built and manages four ADUs. All of them generate positive cash flow every month.