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Are you ready to learn how to generate substantial income for your family while helping solve our city’s housing crisis?
If the answer is yes – please sign up right now so we can make sure you receive the information, support and training you need to obtain the city permits to build a new rental unit in your backyard.
About the Project
We can solve Silicon Valley’s housing crisis – using exactly the same culture of innovation that made our city and region boom.
By signing up, you help us determine how many San José homeowners are interested in these secondary housing units (also called a “granny flat” or an ADU), so we can make sure to serve you well. We will make sure you are the first to know about upcoming city trainings on how to permit a secondary unit. Our goal is to make sure you have all the information and support you need to make this process as fast and smooth as possible.
We also want to make you aware that San José is moving forward with a $20,000 per unit subsidy of new ADUs in exchange for five years of keeping the units at the city’s affordable housing rates.
In the future we will explore seeking group discounts for manufactured backyard cottages, helping drive down costs for participating residents.
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Why Rent Your Backyard?
One of the most powerful innovations to address the housing crisis is literally right in our own backyards. By building backyard cottages for the rental market, we can create new housing supply in a dramatically faster and less expensive way.
These new backyard housing units can do more than help address our housing crisis. They can help homeowners stay in their homes by creating a significant rental income stream.
That’s why we have launched this project – to help San José homeowners who are considering building or buying a backyard cottage, converting a garage into a housing unit or converting part of their existing home into a rental unit.
A recent survey of San José homeowners showed 31% are interested in building a cottage in their backyard to rent or to help house family members.
Recent changes in state law have helped promote the adoption of these backyard units. And with many manufacturers stepping up to offer low-cost pre-built units, we believe we can help drive down costs by promoting economies of scale – starting with signing up San José homeowners who are interested in building or buying a backyard unit.