What is the best improvement you can do to your home to increase the value? Add an in-ground pool? A hot tub? New windows and siding? Nope, none of these.
The single best improvement you can make to your home and land is to build a new house – a guest house.
The economy has been limping along for a while. Because of economic difficulties or choice, family members are living together longer. Grandparents are living with their adult children. Children are staying with parents through college and longer.
Even for those who are doing well, having a separate house for a nanny can make the job much nicer for the nanny and the family.
The best part of a guest house is that it adds value without having to make your existing home a lot larger and it’s a lot cheaper to do. Because a guest house would has its own bathroom, bedroom and kitchen, anyone living there can live a completely independent life.
Perfect for every need
For aging parents, this can mean years of complete freedom while still being close enough for family to help when it is needed. An elderly mother or father can live in one of these small houses easily. Since there is generally not a lot of square footage, the house is easy to clean and maintain. Generally all one floor, there are no stairs to negotiate, eliminating some of the worries of falling down.
Adult children are finding it harder and harder to get a start in the current economy. Jobs are harder to find and housing, especially without a lot of credit history, can be very difficult to afford. A guest house can give them the freedom they deserve while allowing them to still live at home. Because they are in a completely separate house they have all the privacy an adult needs, without the expense and hassle of moving away completely.
Nannies and servants will feel more comfortable having a private space that they can retire to at the end of the day. Not needing to be in the main house means that they can feel like their work day is actually ending, as opposed to being just down the hall from the children or family that they work for. You will be much more likely to get a higher quality of domestic help if they have their own space to live in.
Maybe you just need a place for family to stay when they visit, or a home office away from the kids and the bustling house? After all, that was the original function of the guest house, wasn’t it?
Increase your property value
Property value is almost guaranteed to increase substantially. Because family situations and living arrangements have changed so much of the past few years, there are hundreds of thousands of people in need of guest houses looking at real estate every day.
If you find yourself selling your property, you will be able to accommodate those people who are coming onto the market with the need for a guest house. These buyers won’t need to worry about having to live together in the main house while they build a separate house.
Putting up a guest house
There is a couple of ways to get the new house onto the property:
First, of course, you can build it right on site from scratch. There are all kinds of floor plans available on line for free or nearly free. Since they are one story houses and not very complex, it’s very easy to find plans that are suitable.
The second way to put a guest house on your property is to purchase a prefabricated house and have it delivered to you. There are several companies right in California. These pre-fab homes are great quality and some of them cost less than the price of decent new car.