At DeGroot Custom Homes, we specialize in designing and building high-quality carriage home additions in Kelowna and West Kelowna that enhance your property value, expand your living space, and create long-term investment opportunities.
Building a carriage home addition requires compliance with local zoning and permitting regulations. Our team helps you navigate these requirements to ensure a smooth approval process and avoid costly delays.
A carriage home addition is a self-contained secondary dwelling built on the same property as your main home. Typically located above a garage or as a detached structure in the backyard, carriage homes are fully independent living spaces with their own kitchen, bathroom, bedrooms, and entrance.
Whether used as a rental carriage home in Kelowna, a guest suite, or housing for extended family, a carriage home addition offers a flexible and high-demand housing solution in the Okanagan region.
Carriage homes are especially popular in Kelowna, West Kelowna, and surrounding areas due to strong rental demand, limited housing supply, and increasing interest in mortgage-helper income suites and investment properties.
Explore real carriage home floor plans we’ve designed for clients, along with a complete overview of Kelowna’s carriage home bylaws.
Adding a carriage home significantly increases the overall value of your property. Homes with legal secondary suites or carriage houses are highly desirable in the Kelowna real estate market due to their income potential and flexibility.
Many homeowners choose carriage home additions as a way to create long-term rental income in Kelowna and West Kelowna. Depending on size, layout, and location, carriage homes can provide a strong monthly return on investment.
Carriage homes are ideal for families who want to keep loved ones close while maintaining privacy. They offer independent living space for aging parents, adult children, or extended family.
At DeGroot Custom Homes, we provide full-service carriage home design and construction in Kelowna, including:
Explore our diverse portfolio of carriage homes. Each home is thoughtfully constructed to meet our clients’ satisfaction while adhering to the city’s specific carriage home requirements.
Your carriage house, in most cases, is based off your main house size up to a maximum size of 960-1100sqft depending on your municipality. It will depend on your zoning as well. The good news is that all you need is a 700 sqft Carriage house and your investment makes sense.
The simple answer is yes. The waterline will need to be upgraded to 25mm, the sewer line would most likely be exposed during the process so why wouldn’t you want it replaced if it hasn’t been updated in the past 25 years, the power to the lot will need to be 200amps for a main house and carriage house. The power would require a new duplex meter base. Gas is optional to a carriage house and depends on your heating system if it’s needed.
This is the number one question, knowing the cost to build a carriage house. It is important to discuss budget and finances early on, and DeGroot custom homes has a customer journey to walk you through this process. This way you know exactly where you stand before the permit process starts.
There is nothing more dangerous than a free quote.
Time is very important to consider when building. A realistic timeline once construction begins is 6 months. To obtain a permit including design can take up to 3 additional months. There is a lot of planning so it’s important to start planning in the down season, November-February so your project can start excavation in March.
First you must decide if you’re building the carriage house for rental purposes or for yourself to move into and live on the same property. 600sqft would be a minimum size. If you want a desirable rental 820sqft is an optimal size to get 2 bedrooms, 1-bathroom, mechanical room and a living area with kitchen and living room. More bang for your buck if this is an investment. You want 2 bedrooms and storage to have a desirable rental. If you want the house for yourself then going for the max square footage, 960sqft-1100sqft depending on municipality, would make more sense so you can have an ensuite and attached garage.
Every carriage house application must show how the property conforms to the future parking requirements. If you can park on your front street that is great but typically not part of the future city plans. The city will require a specific number of parking spaces included on the site plan that are available from the alley. It’s one of the steps in the design process.
The simple answer is yes. Compare 2 options if you have $300,000-$400,000
Option 1 buy a bank stock and make 5%/yr Approx $1250-$1667/month
Option 2 build a carriage house and make rental income of $2200-$3200/month
It’s the cheapest land available to you for building wealth. If you’re planning to build a carriage house, you’re going to be spending between $300k-$400k. You can’t invest that amount of money into another type of real estate and make a bigger return than by building a carriage house in your own back yard. Carriage homes offer potential additional income. A carriage house is protection against inflation. As everything becomes more expensive your carriage house value goes up.
Construction phase pays for itself
Spend $400k and build up to 1100sqft =$363/sqft
Real estate zoned for carriage selling between $400-$460/sqft
Rental income potential
2-bedroom $2300/month = $27600 = 6.9% return per year on $400,000
Permitting is just one part of the process and can take a minimum of 4 weeks depending on the volume of permits at the city. The pre planning process to apply for the permit can take 2-3 months. It depends on your availability to make decisions and to be able to visualize the project coming together. From Concept agreement to permit in hand can take 3-5 months.
