Building Family Connections with Accessory Dwelling Units or ADUs

In this episode of the Less House More Moola podcast, guest Stanley Acton discuss the importance of family integrity planning through the lens of Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs). They explore the rise of ADUs in California, the trends in multi-generational living, and the financial and emotional benefits of having family members close by. Acton shares insights on how ADUs can serve as significant assets for families, the demand for homes with ADUs, and the importance of evaluating different ADU options for long-term investment. The conversation emphasizes the need for families to plan for their future together, creating both a safety net and opportunities for wealth building.

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Transcript

It takes a brave and independent mindset to go tiny. If you are trying to figure out your tiny pivot, this podcast is here to inspire and connect you with the other unconventional, gritty, inspirational people within this community. I'm Laura Lynch, your tiny house friend and host.
On this show, we are always going to come back to money because as a financial planner, this is the question I hear the most. How do I make this work for me financially?
Well, that's my jam. So jump in. Let's go. New episodes. Drop every Thursday.
Well, Stan Acton, welcome to Less House, More Moola podcast. You and I intercepted at the tiny fest in California, San Jose earlier this year, and super glad that we got a chance to meet.
And now we get a chance to have a really cool conversation about family integrity planning, which is something that in the financial planner world we're always talking about. So thanks so much for being here. Well, you're so welcome. I feel fortunate to be here and I feel fortunate to have just sort of crossed paths sort of randomly at that at that event. So I think it's all good. That's the serendipity of, you know, events in the universe, right? You just never know who you're going to run into. So true. And how you might be able to collaborate or whatever. It's
awesome. So please introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about your story and your company. All right. Well, my name is Stanley Acton. I'm the founder of Acton ADU. And we've been working on residential construction for just getting started. We've been doing it for 35 years. So and we're really specializing in helping families build sort of these spaces that hold them together. And when ADUs became became a thing, we really just embrace that opportunity. And so,
you know, it's all about creating housing for today and tomorrow and keeping families together and flexible living. And those are all things I'm passionate about. And boy, ADUs, just they just really sung to me when I when I knew it was going to be possible to really focus on those.
Yeah. And would you say that possibility was sort of rolled out in California based on legalization progress? Is that why it kind of came to your into your awareness those many years ago? Yeah. Yeah. I have a friend who is involved in government in various ways and was was part of the building of the the legislation that that allowed ADUs to to become a thing.
And he called me and said, Stan, this thing is going to be real. And I want you to build one for us. And I was like, what is an ADU? And looked into it and talked to him and we ended up. He was one of the very first ones to get an ADU permit once it was once was it was allowed. And we built it in his backyard. And boy, it just really resonated with me. And ever since then, it's been it's been a passion and a focus of mine. That's awesome. So for the listeners, you're located. So we're in our offices in Campbell, California. We do work basically pretty much all
over the Bay Area down Gilroy and up to San Francisco and East Bay, but our offices in Bay Area. And our goal is really sort of those long-term solutions for Bay Area families and and bringing it all together for them.
Yeah. You've seen a lot happen in, you know, over, you know, 35 years in California and the home industry. There's been so many changes. I mean, we all that don't live in California or aware of how expensive housing has become there. And, you know, how difficult it is for people to stay there once they, you know, kind of grow up because they have to have the income to support it.
So tell us what you've seen over the years in terms of families being able to, you know, be close together and what trends that you've, you know, witnessed over time. Yeah, happy to, happy to give you some perspective there. So we moved to the Bay Area in 1963. I was three years old at the time and one of the main reasons we moved here is because my father's brother lived here and we wanted to be close to family. And we wanted that sort of that family connection. And so, you know, over time, it seems like, you know, kids have grown up
and moved away or parents have gone to assisted living. And so, you know, over the over the decades, sort of the family dynamic seems to change when we moved, since we, since I was a kid.
And multi-generational family living seems to seem to kind of be deprioritized over the years. I mean, I've got dozens of stories of that, but it's really exciting to see that maybe there's there's a trend in the other direction now. Yeah, that's so interesting, especially in your work, because you're seeing kind of that, that pendulum swinging back right where families are trying to be more co-located. What do you think is some of the root causes for that? Oh, man, there's a lot of
root causes for that. I think that, you know, I think, I think with all sort of social changes, society goes through sort of an experimentation period and sometimes it works out and sometimes it doesn't. And I think that I think that there's just a general human need to be close to family and to have that security and create those multi-generational living environments. I lived in Germany for a
year and there are these big houses that hold, you know, three, four generations and two or three families. And I remember looking at those when I was a kid going, wow, we don't have anything like that in the United States, but now I'll be getting to see that that trend come back. And if you look at it from from like a historical standpoint, you know, over the over the millennia, there has been
this sort of norm where families stays physically and emotionally close to each other to really support each other not only financially, but emotionally. There's just there's millennia of precedence for this and the trend that we're sort of coming out of now was in retrospect really pretty short term. And what we're seeing now is families wanting to be connected. One of the bonuses of the ADU world is it is sort of a transition back into that in that there is a real close proximity, but there's
also a real sense of privacy. So you kind of get both opportunities, privacy, independence, but yet connectedness. And that's a powerful combination. Yeah, I love that because you're so right. Like historically, we lived in villages and you know, everyone that was in your tribe was together and then we, you know, with the industrial revolution and everyone going to work, perhaps it started to
spread families out and people were moving to take the best job. But then what we find is the social support system is best with our family members in terms of, you know, having that village around your your kids if you have kids or around the elders. And so we have to, you know, kind of reverse course and come back together in order to take care of each other because that's just where the best
resources are. Yeah, and this is just really personal for me. I'm fortunate enough. I'm in my 60s, but both of my parents are still with us and active and healthy. But about about five years ago, they recognized that living in Montana away from the kids was not a great long-term solution. And so they sold their house in Montana and, you know, moved in close. And so this is then, and now my sister's daughter is pregnant. And so very soon there's going to be four generations in very close proximity. Yeah, that's awesome. I too, you know, personally planning for, you know, where my mom goes at that time when she feels like she needs to be closer to her kids. And I'd love to have a family compound right with my brother nearby. And it just feels, you just feel more injured, right, when you've got your family. Yeah. And one of the things that we're seeing different now is that people are understanding this at a different level and they're actively, actively planning for as opposed to sort of just letting it happen. And that, that's a wonderful
development. Yeah. So, you know, in my world as a financial planner, obviously, we're always trying to work towards helping, you know, families grow their wealth, their financial independence, and, you know, provide ways and efficiencies for them to pass it down. And when I start to think about the multi-generational family setup, there's a lot of questions that pop up like, how do you, how do you do this? What does the ownership structure look like? And so as you've been working with
families over these many years, how have you seen families structure this when you've got multiple families living on one parcel? How is it affecting their wealth building? You know, share with us the money parts of this. Yeah. So, just a little bit of background before that. What we're really seeing drive that is sort of a desire to sort of age in place in an environment where we really have an affordability crisis, right? And not only to have it be affordable, but also to provide sort of
the context for the peace of mind and that long-term investment aspect of it. And so, so, you know, you're exactly the right business to help families with this complicated algebra of how do you have, how do you have housing? How do you have family wealth? How do you have peace of mind? How do you have a long-term plan? So, I mean, I applaud you for doing what you're doing because it is so
needed when I go out and talk to customers. You know, a lot of times they're asking me questions about those kinds of things. And, you know, I have some level of knowledge there, but, you know, I always, I always say you should really talk to a professional about that because you don't want to talk to your general contractor about how to structure your your financial legal legal assets. So, I'm grateful
that there are people doing what you're doing and finding really creative ways to to preserve that family wealth and to build that family wealth and make it a multi-generational long-term kind of strategy. So, you know, all the way down to cran kids, I think about my niece who's pregnant now and I think about that little kid coming into the world and all the complexities that that kid is going to be facing and holy cow, it's not just it's not just put, you know, 10% of your paycheck
in a savings account every every week anymore. It's a it's a complicated complicated equation. So, you know, one of the things about about ADUs is is they really are a significant asset. And, and if you are of the mindset that preserving family wealth and multi-generational wealth is what you're trying to achieve, it really benefits you to take a deep breath, step back and talk to somebody who can help you structure it legally and financially and and make it so that that you can't sleep at night and you're not worried about what happens in the event of a million different possibilities that that could happen. So, you know, we're really
seeing families think about it from the long term. I swear it, it seems like I get this call every week where I say ask people, so, you know, why are you thinking about building an ADU? And so often their answer is, well, right now, my parents need this, that, and this, but, you know, my kids are going to be coming home from college and, you know, I want to provide them a place where they can launch their careers and and at some point in time, they'll move into the main house and we'll move into the ADU and, you know, in the interim, maybe we'll rent it and
so it's this flexible long-term asset that people are really starting to wrap their heads around. I almost never had that conversation back in 2017, 2018 when ADUs were first getting started, but now people are starting to understand it and their people, they're really starting to appreciate it and people were really starting to value it. And with, you know, with the turbulence in the world, I think that that is really driving a lot of this desire to sort of pull back into to create sort of that secure family personal portfolio. Yeah, I love that. That's definitely what we're doing here on our on our property. We built, you know, a 400 square foot residence for my stepson and he gets to get through college without, you know, having to worry about the cost of his housing and we're, you know, helping him get started in life and when he takes his first job, he'll still be able to live there and so then he can, you know, save more or, you know, live it if it's not a good fit or
whatever and it just creates this amazing safety net when the housing box is just right. And then you can, you can really just be more risk-taking perhaps create something new and innovative. You can, you know, focus on your values and feel into career that really is meaningful to you. Exactly. You don't have to worry so much about, you know, making sure you can pay for the rent. And I think
that this is just has so many benefits for young people which to your point have so many struggles that they're going to have to face in life. You know, and so just having that one thing maybe off their plate is super helpful and maybe not forever, but just, you know, through that transition point. So you've already touched on it, but what do you feel like are all the sort of mental, the physical, the psychological benefits that you've seen your clients, you know, what are the benefits that they've
had from putting ADUs on their property? Yeah, I mean, really, the benefits are really incredible. First of all, you know, the financial security is wonderful. You put in a dollar in an 80 into a building an 80U and by the time you're done, it's worth more than a dollar. So it's not really considered an expense. It's really considered an investment if you're, if you're looking at it from a balance sheet standpoint. But really, you know, we built one for my next door neighbor. So when I walk out my back door and I look over the fence, I see an 80U that I built and her mother is living in it now. But before that, they rented it to traveling nurses for a while and they also have kids coming home from college that will use it and they plan to move into it. And so, you know, they have this real sense of family security. I know I've talked about it a lot, but, but I just can't emphasize how, how important it is enough. And, you know, Suzanne can now just go out with a backyard,
check on her mom, you know, it's 30 seconds worth of investment to check on mom instead of calling and driving four hours, which she used to have to do to see how things were going. So you just look out the back window and see if the lights are on, you know, and so that provides a tremendous amount of peace of mind for them. The mom, she is just, she has just blossomed since she moved in there because she has the sense of security, the sense of independence, and the sense
that if she needs help, it's, you know, it's 60 yards away or 50 yards away or whatever it is. And so, that is a really powerful, really powerful aspect that is very personal to me because I'm very good friends with the people next door in addition to being their contractor. I get to see the impact that it's really having on a real family on a real-time basis. Yeah, I think those are all, you know, things that maybe we don't put dollar signs on sometimes, right? That sense of, wow, it's just so easy to make sure my mom's okay rather than having to get on, get in a plane and take time off from work and get a rental car or, you know, call my brother who, you know, we have a challenge relationship or, you know, whatever the case may
be, like just having that proximity means that not only is it easier and more peace of mind, but also more frequency, right? More ability to have, you know, frequent quality time, you know, with your loved ones and spend time with them without having it be such a big hassle. I mean, even going to my grandma's house when I was a kid, right? That was, you know, a 20-minute drive and it, you know, kind of got planned and whatever, but gosh, just having folks closer at hand just
means that you can just have a deeper relationship. You know, and one of the things that I hadn't necessarily thought of, but I've really witnessed, is it, and it's really valuable. It really provides the residents of the ADU a real sense of independence and self- sort of self-power, compared to if it's an attached ADU or if it's like, you know, a bedroom in the house or a separate part of the house, just having it be a physically separate residence with, you know, they can get to
the street and, you know, walk out and go to the store and nobody has to know, it's psychologically much more powerful than I ever thought it was going to be. Yeah, I think that's a good point. I was just talking to someone else recently who's been trying to, you know, consolidate households with parents and that giving up of the independence is just a huge sticking point for all of us, right? We all want to be considered independent. It's deeply rooted in our culture to be able to
take care of ourselves and make sure that, you know, we have everything we need and to give up that independence by being in that third bedroom or what have you. It's just probably enough of a barrier to keep people from, you know, from a great deal. Yeah, it seems small, but man, it's really, I mean, if I want to have my toothbrush on the counter instead of in the cabinet, that's where I want my
toothbrush, right? And in just those little things, those little everyday impacts, I've really seen, I've really seen that be much more powerful than I thought it was going to be. Yeah, I was in, I was in Minneapolis recently for a conference and was standing in a really long security line at the airport on my way out and I ran into an architect there and I have, you know, a sticker on my bag that says the podcast name right. So we had this really long conversation through the security line about how every single house that he designs, he tries to cram at ADU
somewhere into the space. It would seem that houses with ADUs are not just from a per square foot perspective or, you know, a number of betters perspective, but just from a demand perspective would seem to me to be more in demand than homes without ADUs. So do you find that homes in your area that have ADUs, even when compared apples for apples on like per square foot price, the ones
with ADUs are selling for higher price points? You know, we do. We, we, we, we, we see, you know, when, when first ADUs first came out, there was no real clear idea about how much they were going to be worth. And because there was no market data, right? And appraisals are always done based on market data. And so recently we had seven of our projects appraised both before and after, within without the ADU. And, and they were, they, they, they span the kinds of neighborhoods,
high end, middle and low, low end neighborhoods. And in all cases, the cost to build the ADU, plus design at plus permits, the whole thing cost less than the amount that it added, amount of value that it added to the, to the property. And so we definitely, and you might, you might not be surprised that there's a lot of realtors in my network. And, and when I talk to them, all of them are talking about ADUs and all of them have clients that are asking about ADUs. And, and it is, it, it's here to stay, it is here to stay for sure. And so we do see a, a demand uptick for properties with ADUs. Yeah. Yeah, makes sense. Everybody's looking,
especially in the younger generation to be looking also for their rental opportunities. But it seems like you all have focused more on the multi-generational angle than on the rental angle. You know, from, from a, from a philosophical and a value standpoint, yes, we certainly do build
just for investment. You know, people that are just looking for an investment,
is a good investment. But that's not where my heart is.
Yeah, it's good to have your hard work. So, do you have anything else that you think is really important for folks to know? You know, there's a lot of different ways of going about getting ADUs. And, and I would encourage people to not rush into it and, and to really understand sort of the differences in, in, in approaches. You can get prefab, you can get stick built, you can get modular. Yeah, evaluate the different ADU options and, and make sure that, that what you're investing in is truly a long-term asset instead of just a sort of a short-term fix.
I think that's a, that's a crucial, that's a crucial concept for, to take into account.
Yeah, because you can spend a lot of money on an RV in your backyard if you are able to put an RV in your backyard, but that's not really going to hold up for the long-term. If you're going to, you know, put additional, you know, living structures on your property, like looking for ones that are going to act like a, a primary residence in terms of longevity is probably important. Yeah, that's, that's right along the lines of what I'm talking about. That's, that's a good summary.
Yeah, good. So, please share for any listeners in the Bay Area that are looking for ADUs, and adding that multi-generational element to their family property where can listeners find and track you down. So, we are an actin, ACTO and actin ADU, and we, we, we, with, with family integrity planning in mind, which is really, you know, it's, it's, it's an idea that just sort of hit me, the term hit me at one point in time. I was like, wait a minute, this is really all about family
integrity planning and helping people find the resources to do that kind of planning. And, um, and in doing that, it, it really made sense to me to be able to provide sort of fast, easy, efficient solutions to, to, to family integrity planning issues. And so, since that time, we've developed a series of ADUs that are what we call build ready ADUs. And you can go on our website and you can go there and select one of our build ready ADUs and configure them the way
you want. You can choose the sighting, you can choose the kitchen layout, you can choose the bathroom layout. Um, and, and really it makes it very easy to get a really quality structure without a lot of uncertainty. And so, an actin ADU, this, this functionality just, just launched within the past 48 hours. So, we're very excited about it. Um, but it's a way to, uh, way to go and interact with, with what we have to offer in a way that, that, you know, at first, it can be kind of hands off. You don't have to call somebody and, and, and think maybe that something is going to be bugging you on the phone or whatever. You can just go there, go to the website, play around with it and, uh, and get a feel for, for what's possible. So, we're pretty excited about that. Yeah, build ready. That sounds awesome. Yeah.
Well, good. Well, Stan, thank you so much for joining me today and talking about this amazing concept that I think lots of us are thinking about. How do we bring our family members together and, and create that both that safety net and stability, but also, you know, build some wealth around our families. I think this was, you know, super valuable for us. Yeah, thank you for, uh, for making this happen today. It's been a pleasure. Um, look forward to, uh, your
amazing success and, and working with you on, on, on future future ideas. Hey, thank you for taking the time to listen to less house more moola. I have another free resource on my website for you, the unconventional values quiz. And just two minutes, you can pinpoint your style of freedom security, security, and adventure enthusiast or community builder. Check it out at thetinyhouseadvisor.com
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