Would you call this an accessory unit or not?

[CANative]

I don't see a kitchen. This set up looks like a typical basement rec room or bonus room that has a microwave for popcorn and a reefer for soft drinks and not so soft drinks. It's a useful set up to keep teenagers safely confined away from the humans in the family. It isn't an ADU, as it doesn't satisfy the requirement of having provision of having a kitchen: while you can do a lot of wonderful food prep with a microwave, I would have a hard time calling something a kitchen that didn't have provision for at least an apartment-sized stove (with surface elements and an oven). (The microwave is the current equivalent of the plug-in heating coil that could heat a cup of water for coffee, tea, soup, etc.) You can cook over a fireplace, over cans of Sterno, over a alcohol stove, on an electric hot plate - that doesn't make that area a kitchen. (" (ADUs) are commonly understood to be a separate additional living unit, including separate kitchen...")

(Appliances aren't necessarily personal property. Most stoves require 240 v electric service with a dedicated breaker and a special outlet: many codes require an exhaust vent for the stove.)

I'll not part company with anyone wanting to call it an ADU, but I believe that it's better described as a bonus room with a wet bar.

I don't think it affects the appraisal one way or another, but if you have a client that demands that every feature of a property be "bracketed" it will probably be easier to deal with a bonus room than an ADU.

HUD doesn't use the term kitchen in it's definition of an ADU.

basic requirements for living, sleeping, eating, cooking, and sanitation.

There's a counter for preparing food, with a sink. Cooking can be accomplished with a MW, Crock Pot, Toaster Oven, George Foreman Grill, or a zillion other gadgets you can buy for 3 easy payments of $19.95 (and a second one FREE! with additional P&H.)

It's affordable housing which is what 2nd unit laws and ADUs are all about.

Having said that I would be just as comfortable calling it a guest room, FROG, accessory structure, bonus room, etc., etc., etc.

 

[Michigan CG]

Quick math, don't take me too seriously:

400 SF above garage, cost to finish $12,000 ($30 x 400 SF); contributory value at 50% of cost or $6,000.

ADU rent = $200/month x 12 = $2,400 - 20% expenses with 20% vacancy = with 20% cap rate = 7,700.

 

[Mike Kennedy]

BSHARF - How is it described on the Municipal Certificate of Occupancy? Which governing municipality?

 

[CANative]

Quick math, don't take me too seriously:

400 SF above garage, cost to finish $12,000 ($30 x 400 SF); contributory value at 50% of cost or $6,000.

ADU rent = $200/month x 12 = $2,400 - 20% expenses with 20% vacancy = with 20% cap rate = 7,700.

We just got a bid a couple of days ago to reconfigure a large covered porch into an additional bedroom. It involves two walls and extending a roof line by two or three rafters. Two runs of concrete footings, electrical, floor covering. About 10 x 15. The bid was $18,000 (and that's without adding another bathroom.)

A 400 sf living unit might rent here in regularland for $400 to $700 and maybe $1,000-$1,500 in San Francisco and nearby.

 

[Peter LeQuire]

CAN - yours above pulled this from the HUD manual: "Accessory Unit / Accessory Dwelling Unit
The accessory unit is defined as a habitable living unit added to, created within, or detached from a single-family dwelling that provides the basic requirements for living, sleeping, eating, cooking, and sanitation.
Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) are commonly understood to be a separate additional living unit, including separate kitchen, sleeping, and bathroom facilities, attached or detached from the primary residential unit, on a single-family lot..."

The pictures OP put up don't show a separate kitchen - it shows a wet bar, and a dorm-sized reefer with a microwave resting on it. I'll not part company with anyone who wants to call it a kitchen, but I just think that it doesn't meet the criteria above. In addition to being more correctly called something other than an ADU, doing so heads off the reviewers' demand for more comps with a similar ADU, doncha' think?

 

[CANative]

I don't think appliances define property rights.

They actually rent the area out to a tenant.

But as I have already said I don't think it matters what an appraiser calls it. Look for comps with similar improvements.

 

[TRESinc]

Subject property is a ranch with an attached garage. Above the garage is an area that is cooled with a window unit and heated with portable space heaters (so, partially finished).

portable space heaters, in my market, do not make it finished living area no matter what you call it. a great example of this is a "3 season" room, which is basically an enclosed patio. if you stick a portable space heater in it it does not magically become part of the living area.

there is no permanent heating source so no matter what name you want to give it (adu, studio apartment, rented room) it really doesn't matter.