sfdragonboy: Pulling permits is a good idea, but be careful to make it look more like you’re adding a bar than a kitchen. In SM county, the illegal unit will get you red flagged if you’re not careful. But I agree that it’s better for liability purposes and easier to legalize later.
elt1: Great point–better to solve a problem than protest the problem.
tomato: You can put inlaw units into a lot of lots in RWC/MP. People do in fact do that–sometimes added over garages, sometimes added at the back of lots. It all depends on the layout of the first house within the lot. For some MP residents, that inlaw unit might be good for a college student–even their own kids in college-Stanford.
But also, as people grow older and stay in their house due to prop 13, they might be able to section off parts of a 4BR to make a second unit. Tricky but an be done.
MP residents range from young and wealthy to old and blue collar. I wouldn’t be surprised if there are people on all ends happy to rent out to a quiet young professional.
In MV, you can if your lot is over quarter acre. They were allowing this even 20 years ago when we inquired. At that time, it had to be under 500 sq ft.
When we were doing addition to our house in Santa Clara County almost 20 years ago, I had two friends who were building new houses in San Mateo County and they told me San Mateo County has one of the toughest building codes then.
I looked at this back in 2013 and I noticed it back in 2008 when I looked at 1340 Brookdale. In 2013, it was showing significant wear and tear somewhere. I just can’t recall the specifics. It didn’t wow me with the way it presented from the street.
The realtor was trying to get us to purchase this house when it was put on market in 2013 at 2 mil. In retrospect, we should have sold our Svl rental and bought this one even if it was a stretch for us. I thought when we looked at this in 2013, it was immaculate because the architect was a single guy and did not see any wear. This has gone up more than double in 3 years.
We were looking at a house for sale in Unincorporated Redwood City. Just people calling to find out if the conversion of the garage to a rental had been permitted got it red-flagged even though no one was living there.
