Frequently Asked Questions

California passed Assembly Bill 1866 and gave homeowners the right to build second units like ours. Local cities have rules that you have to follow, and New Avenue's turn-key solution guides your project through the local processes.

Our designs range from a small studio cottage to a large two bedroom home. The most popular design is the size of a typical one bedroom apartment.

Of course! These are complete homes that are designed to be ideal one or two bedroom apartments. We expect to have a kitchen, bathroom, ample closet and storage space.

Depending on the design, local permitting costs and site work, a typical home can be built for less than $100,000 with financing, this should cost about $600 per month.

All homes are designed to exceed LEED Silver requirements. Whether the client chooses to pay several thousand dollars for the certification is up to them. Most importantly, choosing to live in a small and well insulated home massively reduces energy and resource consumption.

All of our homes are designed to consume so little energy that they operate on less than $1/day. The use of solar power can make any of our homes "net zero" and can even lower the energy bills in your primary home.

Most cities require you to add a parking space when you add one of our units. We handle this approval process for you.

The New Avenue team ranges from engineers to architects and anthropologists and urban planners. Perhaps it's because we grew up in civil engineering families where vacations consisted of visiting water treatment systems, dams, bridges and large developments. More likely, we are 30ish years old and would like to be able to afford an attractive environmentally responsible home, so we figured out how to do so.

Yes. We operate nationally. Just contact us to discuss what you would like to do.

Yes, but that's the easiest part of what we do for you. We work with the designers, financiers, lawyers and builders needed to make the entire process painless for you. Most importantly, we keep your life simple as we are your single point of contact.

Because a big old four bedroom home serves the same purpose as a Dodge Caravan. We don't need a Caravan or a four bedroom and we know that many of you don't either. A New Avenue home is more of a Toyota Prius or Audi kind of home. So if you like cool cars, you'll like our homes.