San Diego Housing Market News and Analysis

Between $3000 and $15,000, depending on the specs you need to give us. Details, please.

hi econprof thanks! does this help?

would like to add french doors, wood flooring, and a sink, toilet, and shower.

if you have a referral could you private message me the contact info? thanks again.

Question. Why not just get a different house that has an extra room? I guess I disagree. I think garages are meant to be *cough* for grease monkeys/man caves.

Real men work on cars outside, to get that nice red sunburnt look on their necks. And beat anyone who complains to the HOA to a pulp.

...because we need to move an in-law in. we'd like to give her as much independence and privacy as possible.

It really depend on your material choice. I'd say, it can be as cheap as $7-10k and as expensive as you want. Just guesstimating though.

The main question is whether you can get a permit for it. Lots of hurdles involved, but if you can, your cost will be reflected in the new value of the property. If not, then you are taking big risks and could be adding zero value, in some cases even negative value.
The plumbing will likely be your biggest expense, but also your biggest contributor to an increase in value and usefulness.
If it is the typical 10' x 20' single garage size, you can just squeeze a br and small ba in.

Yes. Underneath the car with half the car jacked up about 3 feet high on cheap car-jacks with no chocks under the wheels.

I can't offer any advice on contractors but my only advice would be to go as high end as possible and do as close a job to match the rest of the house.

When we were looking at houses, last year...we saw one we really loved but they just did a horrible job on the conversion. It didn't look like the rest of the beautiful house.

To add, I don't even think it was legal. It just looked really awful. They were advertising it as a true bedroom even though it was just horrible and they were probably better to just have left it off as a bedroom for marketing purposes. I can't imagine anyone really considering it a bedroom with the horrible job they did.

Here's earlyretirement thinking about that conversion last night: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNUr__-VZeQ

I second the doing it right when you do it. I had a friend that recently tried to renovate their garage to do the same thing. They needed a little extra money to pay their mortgage. They did it very cheaply and have been regretting it ever since. They wish they had their garage back. They forgot how much they need to store things like a rack and a portable air compressor. Now they have a living space they can't rent and no place to store their gardening equipment.

- Sara

http://www.rubbermaid.com/Category/Pages...

Look, it's got a skylight and everything.

LOL! Except there's no electrical and plumbing. The MIL will have to use a camp lantern and the bathroom and kitchen in the OP's house. That's not very "independent." :=0

As many know - we built a detached granny flat for my in-laws. And it was a nightmare to get permits, and we had less than wonderful contractor experiences.

Assuming you're in San Diego county - different municipalities have different rules. Will this be a separate address or just an additional space to your primary home? City of San Diego has started easing up on the requirements for granny flats. Wish they'd done this before we went through the process.

As far as hiring a contractor. Do your due diligence.
* Check them out on the cslb.ca.gov site - look for complaints, license status (probation, cancelled or suspended are BAD). Look at bonding history. Changes in bond history not on an anniversary date could suggest a bond was paid out (and cancelled) so they had to get a new bond company.
* Check out whether they are being sued, or suing. sdcourt.ca.gov. Look at their company name as well as their personal name.
* Check them out to see if they're lien happy. http://arcc.co.san-diego.ca.us/services/... - again do this on their personal name and the company name. If suppliers have liens against them this is a red flag. If they've issued a lot of mechanics liens - again a red flag.
* If they're incorporated or an LLC, check their corporate status. This is very important if things fall apart. If their corporation or LLC is suspended when the contract is written - then the contract is invalid. (Assuming it's written in the corporate name.) http://kepler.sos.ca.gov/

This doesn't protect you entirely - but it will catch the worst of the worst.

FWIW - despite our bad experience... We found most tradespeople to be great. But GC's seem to add to the cost without necessarily adding value. Consider going owner builder (hiring the subs yourself).