Is an ADU too small?

Written with Jim Smith, the owner of Golden Real Estate and published as an advertorial once in month in 24 Community Media newspapers throughout the Denver area, and the Denver Post real estate section.

This is the fourth installment of a monthly series about one of the hottest topics in real estate: Accessory Dwelling Units. ADUs have gotten a lot of attention recently as a housing option. My thanks to John Phillips of Verdant Living for helping with the research on it.

ADUs – detached accessory or additional dwelling units, also called mini homes - are a wonderful Idea. They use an existing piece of residential real estate and create a separate living space. They are often used for intergenerational housing (aging parents, twenty somethings just starting out, etc.) and have long term value as rental property and add to the value of the real estate.

ADUs are smaller living spaces. Are they too small? Is the living space comfortable? Beyond that are there benefits to consider?

For many, they are not too small. The living space is comfortable, not substantially different from the space actually used in a larger home. Is an ADU right for everybody? Of course not. Large families, entertaining (for family, friends, business) must be taken into account, but for many (most?) ADUs are an excellent option.

I have personal experience with a smaller living space. Rita and I now live in a 3-bedroom apartment, having sold our 4,000-square-foot home in Golden. Back then, we really only used the eat-in kitchen, the living room, the primary bedroom/bathroom, and the office. The basement was filled with stuff we didn’t use, except for a ping pong table we used a couple times a year and a portable sauna that we used a half dozen times. The formal dining room was made into a game room, but we hardly used that. The second bedroom was only occasionally used by a guest.

Now, in our 1,200-square-foot apartment, our life hasn’t changed much. We eat next to our kitchen, which is part of the living room. One bedroom is my office, and we have a guest bedroom that we’ve only used twice, but it’s nice to have. True, we have no room for a piece of exercise equipment that I’d like to buy, but there is a fitness center on the main floor which has more equipment than I need. The apartment has all we need for daily life — sort of like an ADU.

Smaller living spaces are part of a minimalist movement (think only having what you really/actually need and use). In residential housing, these include tiny homes (sometimes as small as 100 square feet or less), recreational vehicles, mobile homes, park models (higher quality mobile homes), small condos, smaller residential dwellings. ADUs fit in this category as a permanent, comfortable, high quality addition to a larger dwelling unit.

Those that live in smaller homes don’t see them as limiting, referring to them with words like elegant , homey, welcoming, private, and friendly. Those preaching minimalism, like to say it reduces stress, improves mental well being, and promotes a better life flow. They talk about living in smaller homes as “freeing”.

One of the biggest benefits is financial.  An ADU costs far less than most homes. A good example might involve intergenerational housing. Older homeowners who have significant equity in a residence could sell their home, pay for an ADU on their children’s property, and have resources left for other lifestyle desires. As a bonus, an ADU has smaller utility bills, less maintenance, less tax. Mini homes are seen as a solution, for many, to the need for affordable housing.

This is a floor plan for a typical one bedroom ADU; it has all the things people use day to day in a comfortably sized dwelling.

Would you like to see how smaller living spaces work? Acompany named Tiny Home Tours, which promotes the benefits of living in smaller spaces, has a YouTube channel with an extensive collection of videos (more than 1200), which includes not only visuals but testimonials of the owners.

To help those interested in ADUs, Verdant Living has published a buyers guide, buyersguidecolradoadus.com. A good place to begin is the Verdant Living website, verdantliving.us, or just contact John Phillips 303-717-1962.

I want to thank Cindy Schroppel of Tiny Home Tours for her input. She shared a picture of her favorite small home (her own, decorated for the holidays) and a comment:

Tiny home life offers me the freedom of time.  I love that my tiny home takes me 30 minutes to clean from top to bottom. Because I'm not enslaved to cleaning and the upkeep of a 2,400 square foot home, which was the size of my previous home, I have more time to do what I choose to do. I've been able to travel more, spend time with my grandchildren and serve at my church. My husband loves the fact that I spend less time shopping because I don't have a lot of space to put "things".   

Next month: The modular (built off site) option