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Daly City · Custom ADU
A bespoke ADU designed for your Daly City lot and your family.
Architect-level design and build — drawn around your slope, your fog exposure and the fault line, then matched to your home and sized toward the 1,200 sq ft ceiling.
Trusted by homeowners across Sacramento & surrounding areas.
Custom ADU in Daly City — fast facts
City
Daly City
ADU type
Custom ADU
Contractor license
CSLB #1119373
Free estimate
(916) 677-9774
Last updated
What "custom" buys
A unit drawn for your lot, not a catalog
Custom means we start with a blank sheet and your actual lot, not a stock plan we drop in and hope. That's the whole point of it. A Daly City backyard rarely gives you a clean rectangle to build on — there's a slope, a fault setback, a mature tree, an odd corner left after the setbacks take their cut — and a catalog unit fights all of that. We design around it instead. The in-house design phase runs through real iterations: we sketch, you react, we redraw, and we keep going until the plan fits the ground and the way your family lives. It's the priciest, slowest ADU path. It's also the only one that solves a one-off lot.
Original architectural design, drawn from your lot's real constraints
An in-house design phase with genuine iterations, not a single take-it plan
The one path that solves a slope, an odd lot or a specific family need
Multi-gen layouts
Designing for the whole family
A lot of custom ADUs out here are built for family, not tenants — aging parents, an adult kid, a relative who needs a place that's theirs but close. That changes the drawings. We design zero-step entries so a walker or wheelchair never meets a threshold, widen doorways and halls to 36 inches, and lay out a bathroom that works with grab bars and a roll-in shower whether or not they're needed day one. Sometimes the brief is a second primary suite so two generations each get a real bedroom and bath. None of this comes in a stock plan. It comes from drawing the unit around the people who'll live in it — which is exactly what custom is for.
Zero-step entries and 36-inch doorways designed in from the start
Roll-in showers, grab-bar blocking, single-level living for aging in place
Second primary suites and true multi-generational layouts
City of Daly City + the fault
Permitting and the San Andreas
Your custom ADU permit, plan check and inspections all run through the City of Daly City — its own incorporated city, not San Mateo County. Power is PG&E. Here's the honest part: Bay Area permitting is slower and fees run higher than anything inland, and a custom set draws more scrutiny than a stock plan, so the package has to be airtight walking in. Daly City adds a wrinkle most towns don't. The San Andreas runs right along the west edge of town — the lake out there sits in the fault valley — so we check the Alquist-Priolo fault-zone line on your parcel early, because it can move where the unit's allowed to sit. Seismic shapes the structure from the foundation up.
Permits, plan check and inspections through the City of Daly City; PG&E power
Alquist-Priolo fault-zone line checked early — it can dictate siting
Foundation and framing engineered for San Andreas ground motion
Slope, fog and finishes
Built for the ground and the climate
Daly City fights you with terrain and weather, and a custom design is how you win those fights instead of papering over them. Westlake's "little boxes" march up the hillsides on stepped foundations, so we engineer the footing to follow your grade rather than force a flat slab where there isn't flat ground. The fog is constant — coastal moisture sits on the building most of the year — so flashing and ventilation get detailed harder than any inland job, designed in on the plans. Then the part custom clients came for: premium finishes. Real cabinetry, stone, wide-plank floors, materials chosen to your taste and to last in damp coastal air. We push toward the 1,200 sq ft ceiling when the lot allows.
Stepped or downhill foundations engineered to your hillside grade
Coastal flashing and ventilation detailing designed in, not patched on
Premium finish packages and a layout pushed toward 1,200 sq ft
Build Smart. Invest Wise.
Build Your ADU. Your Investment, Your Future.
From design to move-in, we handle everything. Transparent pricing, on-time delivery, and uncompromising quality.
Custom Designs
Tailored to you
Built to Last
Premium materials
Fast Turnaround
On-time delivery
Full-Service
From start to finish
30+
Years of Experience
120+
ADU Projects Completed
100+
Happy Homeowners
Built for Value. Designed for Life.
Trusted by homeowners across Sacramento & surrounding areas.
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“Every ADU we build is designed to add long-term value and open new possibilities for your property. Let's build something great together.”
— Tim, ADU Specialist
Custom Designs
Built to fit your property & needs
Turnkey Process
We handle permits, plans & everything
Built to Last
Quality craftsmanship that stands the test
Financing Made Simple
$0 Down Options. Build Now, Pay Over Time.
You shouldn't have to drain your savings to build wealth. We partner with trusted ADU lenders to find financing that fits — many homeowners build with little to nothing out of pocket.
Home Equity (HELOC)
Tap your existing equity at competitive rates — the most popular way to fund an ADU.
Renovation Loans
Finance the build against your home's projected after-completion value.
ADU-Specific Financing
Specialized lenders who underwrite based on the rental income your ADU will produce.
Cash-Out Refinance
Roll the project into a new mortgage and keep one simple monthly payment.
Estimate Your Monthly Payment
See what financing your ADU could look like — and how rental income can help cover it.
$180,000Loan amount
Credit Score
Very good · 700–739
Estimated Monthly Payment
$1,320/mo
At 7.99% APR over 30 years (illustrative)
Often offset by $2,000–$3,500/mo in rental income
No prepayment penalties with most partners
Pre-qualification with no impact to your credit
Illustrative only — not a loan offer. Actual rates and terms are set by third-party lenders based on your qualifications.
Service areas
Where we build
Headquartered in the Greater Sacramento Area and serving homeowners from the Sierra foothills down through the Bay Area. Don't see your city? We probably still get there — just ask.
The most common things Sacramento homeowners ask before starting an ADU project.
Straight answer: we're a Sacramento design-build contractor, and Daly City is about two hours west of our home base. I won't pretend we're local. We extend out to the coast for two kinds of owners — ones who want our design and our craftsmanship over a Bay Area quote, and bigger, more involved projects worth the drive. A custom ADU is exactly that kind of project. It's the priciest, most design-heavy path, and on a build that commonly runs $400K to $750K-plus out here, our rates often beat local bids even after the travel. For a small stock unit on an easy lot, a Daly City-local builder may pencil out better, and I'll say so. But a one-off design on a hard lot is the job we're built for.
A stock plan is a pre-drawn unit you place on your lot — fast and cheaper, because the design work is already done and often pre-reviewed. Custom is the opposite. We start from your lot and your needs and draw an original design around them, through an in-house design phase with real iterations. We sketch, you react, we redraw. That's how you solve a slope, a mature tree you want to keep, an odd corner, or a multi-generational layout that no catalog offers. The cost of custom is time and money — it's the slowest and priciest ADU path, no way around it. What you get is a unit that fits a situation a stock plan simply can't. If your lot is a clean rectangle and your needs are ordinary, I'll tell you to save the money and skip custom.
Yes, and on a custom build it's part of the work, not an upcharge. Daly City has a strong architectural identity — the Westlake "little boxes," the mid-century and ranch fabric in Serramonte and St. Francis Heights — and a backyard unit ought to read like it belongs on the property. We design the roof pitch, the proportions, and the exterior materials to sit as a deliberate companion to your main house. That doesn't mean a literal copy of a 1950s box; a backyard ADU can be cleaner and more modern. But on a tight, sloped lot where the two buildings live close and step up a grade, you see them in one glance from the yard, so the relationship between them matters. We draw that on purpose.
That's one of the most common reasons people go custom out here, and it shapes the whole design. For aging parents or a relative who needs accessible living, we design zero-step entries so there's no threshold to trip on, widen doorways and halls to 36 inches for a walker or wheelchair, and lay out the bathroom for grab bars and a roll-in shower — built in from the start, not retrofitted later. If two generations need real separation, we'll design a second primary suite so each side gets a proper bedroom and bath. None of this exists in a stock plan. It's exactly the kind of one-off family need that custom design is for, and it's worth the extra cost when the alternative is a unit that doesn't actually work for the person living in it.
State law caps a detached ADU at 1,200 sq ft, and custom clients usually push toward that ceiling because they're building something to live in long-term, not just a small rental. Whether your lot can actually take 1,200 sq ft is the real question, and in Daly City it often can't — the lots are tight, the setbacks take their cut, and the slope eats into the buildable area again. So we measure the real buildable envelope first, then design the largest unit that genuinely fits the ground rather than the largest the law allows. Sometimes that's a full 1,200; sometimes a well-designed 740 sq ft is all the lot will responsibly hold. I'd rather tell you the honest number than draw a plan that can't be built.
That's the whole reason custom exists. A stock plan assumes a flat, empty rectangle, and a Daly City backyard almost never is one. A mature tree you want to keep, a hillside that steps down toward the back, a pool you're not removing, an odd corner left after the fault setback and the side-yard setback both take their cut — those are design problems, and we solve them by drawing the unit around them. On a slope that means a stepped or downhill foundation following the grade instead of a flat slab. Around a tree it means siting and a footing that respects the root zone. This is exactly where a one-off design earns its cost, because a catalog unit just fights the obstacle until something has to give.
It shapes the structure, and on some lots it shapes where the unit can sit at all. The San Andreas runs right along the west edge of Daly City — Lake Merced and the valley out there trace the fault. So we do two things early. First, we check whether your parcel falls in an Alquist-Priolo fault-rupture zone, because if it does, the state requires a fault investigation and setbacks from the trace, and that can move where the building lands on your lot. Second, we engineer the foundation and framing for real ground motion: an anchored foundation, shear walls placed where the load demands, hold-down hardware tying the structure down. On a custom build we get to design all of that into the plan from the start, which is the right way to do it near a live fault.
Longer than a stock unit, and I'll be honest about why. The design phase alone runs weeks of iterations before a permit ever gets filed — that's the price of an original design done right. Then Bay Area permitting is slower than inland, Daly City's fault-zone and slope reviews add checks a flat inland lot never sees, and the city's queue takes its time. Construction on a hillside lot with a stepped foundation and tight access isn't fast either. So custom is the slowest path of the four ADU types, no way around it. What I can promise is a real timeline on the first visit, not an optimistic one — we'd rather set the schedule honestly up front than apologize for it halfway through.
Yes — power is PG&E in Daly City. The service, any panel upgrade, and the new meter all run through PG&E's application process, which in the Bay Area runs slow, so we engage them early rather than at the end. A custom detached unit typically needs its own trenched runs for power, water and sewer back to the main service, and on a tight, sloped Daly City lot we route that trench around whatever's already in the ground and around the narrow side-yard access you've got. We design the utility path into the plan up front, because the meter set is one of the things most likely to hold up your final sign-off if it's left as an afterthought.
I'll give a range, then what bends it. Bay Area numbers look nothing like Sacramento — a detached ADU in Daly City commonly lands in the $400K to $750K-plus band, and a custom unit tends toward the upper half of that because it's bespoke design, premium finishes, and usually a larger footprint. What bends the number: the seismic and fault-zone engineering, the slope and the foundation it forces, the level of the finish package you choose, and the high city permit fees. A roughly 612 sq ft accessible unit on a flatter lot sits lower; a 1,140 sq ft multi-gen unit on a Westlake slope with a high-end finish climbs toward the top and past it. We don't quote blind — we walk the lot, get the soils, the fault line and the access right, then write a fixed price you can hold us to.
Other services
Not quite the right fit?
Every Sacramento ADU project is different. Here are the other paths we build under one roof — and we're happy to talk through which one fits your lot best.
We treat every home like it's our own — quality work, clear communication, and happy homeowners.
PaulOwner · Future Generation
9 min read1,963 words8 sections
Building a Custom ADU in Daly City — A Straight Guide to Bespoke Design on a Hard Lot
A custom ADU is the version you build when a stock plan won't fit — a slope, a fault setback, a tree you're keeping, or a family who needs the unit drawn around them. It's the priciest and slowest of the four ADU paths, and I won't pretend otherwise. But it's the only one that solves a one-off lot or a one-off need, and Daly City hands out plenty of both. This guide is about designing and building one here specifically: the in-house design phase, the City of Daly City permit path, the San Andreas Fault that dictates the foundation, the tight hillside lots, the fog, and the real Bay Area numbers. We're a Sacramento builder who extends out here, so I'll be honest about the two-hour drive and where custom is worth it.
01Section
What "custom" actually means here
Custom means we draw the unit from scratch, for your lot and your needs, instead of placing a pre-drawn plan and adjusting around the edges. A stock or model ADU is fast and cheaper precisely because the design is already done — sometimes pre-reviewed by the city — and you're buying a known quantity. Custom throws that out and starts with a blank sheet, an architect-level design, and the specific situation of your property.
The reason custom fits a lot of Daly City lots is that this town rarely gives you the flat, empty rectangle a stock plan assumes. There's a slope. A fault setback. A mature tree someone wants to keep, a pool that's staying, an odd corner left after the setbacks take their cut. A catalog unit fights all of that; a custom design solves it by being drawn around it. The trade is cost and time — custom is the priciest, slowest ADU path, and if your lot is a clean rectangle with ordinary needs, I'll point you at a model plan to save the money. It's for the lot or family a catalog can't serve, and in Daly City that's a larger share of properties than most towns.
