A carriage house provides a compact yet fully functional living space on your property, perfect for accommodating guests, housing family members, or serving as a rental opportunity. Despite their smaller size compared to the primary home, these dwellings are designed to maximize efficiency and utility.
Investing in carriage homes can significantly enhance your real estate portfolio. When your property is zoned for a carriage home, it offers the most cost-effective land purchase for building a new residence. With rental income, these properties are often fully financed within 12 years, in addition to the added equity from the new structure. The construction cost per square foot is typically lower than the market selling price per square foot. For those seeking to accumulate wealth through rental income, carriage homes are an excellent choice.
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 figure out early on so DeGroot custom homes has a customer journey to walk you through the 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. A carriage house is also 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
2-bedroom $2300/month = $27600 = 6.9% return per year on $400,000 investment
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.
