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Rancho Cordova · Custom ADU
A Rancho Cordova ADU drawn to fit one lot — and one family.
Flat ground, a fast city counter, SMUD power. We draw a bespoke unit around your house and the people moving in, then build it through final inspection.
Trusted by homeowners across Sacramento & surrounding areas.
Custom ADU in Rancho Cordova — fast facts
City
Rancho Cordova
ADU type
Custom ADU
Contractor license
CSLB #1119373
Free estimate
(916) 677-9774
Last updated
Why custom here
When a stock plan won't cut it
Rancho Cordova is one of the friendlier places we build. The lots run flat, the city counter moves fast, and a catalog rectangle drops onto most of these yards without a fight. So if a stock unit solves your problem, take it — you'll save money and we'll say so plainly. Custom is for the other situation. Parents who need their own accessible front door. An owner who wants real quartz and oak instead of a molded fiberglass insert. A pool, a mature oak, or an odd Cordova Meadows corner lot that a fixed footprint just won't respect. Our designer starts from your survey, your house, and exactly how the family plans to live. Here the lot usually cooperates. The plan still has to be yours alone.
Built for a one-off family need or a finish level a catalog can't reach
Designer works from your survey and your house, not a fixed pad
The right call for a pool, a big tree, or an awkward parcel
The design phase
Design phase, site walk to permit
Custom is won or lost in the drawings, so that's where we spend the hours. We open with a site walk and a measure-up. I've walked enough Anatolia and Cordova Village backyards to know a survey never tells the whole story — it won't show me the pool deck cutting your buildable area in half, or where a neighbor's second-story window stares into the spot you wanted for a bedroom. Then concept sketches. You react, we revise. Most clients run two or three rounds before the floor plan feels right; a few push past five. Once the layout locks we draw the full construction set: structural, Title-24, mechanical, plumbing, and a SMUD load calc. The honest part — this front end runs five to nine weeks before anything reaches the City of Rancho Cordova counter.
Site walk and measure-up before a single line gets drawn
Two to five revision rounds until the plan is genuinely right
Full documents drawn in-house, then filed with the City of Rancho Cordova
Matching the main house
Echoing your existing home
A custom unit should look like it grew out of your house, not like it got parked behind it. Rancho Cordova splits two ways, and the match changes with the side of town. North of the freeway you've got 1950s and 60s tracts near the old Mather field and Aerojet — low single-story ranches, shallow roof pitches, stucco or lap siding. South of Highway 50, the Anatolia and Sunridge master plans run bigger two-story homes with steeper roofs and tighter HOA expectations on how things look. We pull the roof pitch off your actual house, match the eave depth and trim profile, and source siding that reads the same from the curb. Drop the wrong massing behind either one and it announces itself as added-later the second you turn into the driveway.
Massing matched to the north-side ranch or the south-side master-plan look
Roof pitch, eaves and trim drawn straight off your home
HOA-aware design on Anatolia, Sunridge and Stonecreek lots
Multi-gen + finishes
Multi-generational layouts done right
A lot of our Rancho Cordova custom work is families solving one exact problem. Parents who want their own entrance. An adult kid who priced local rents along the White Rock Road corridor and decided the backyard wins. That reshapes the whole plan. We draw zero-step entries, 36-inch doorways, curbless showers with grab-bar blocking already in the walls, and a second primary suite so two generations each keep their privacy. The detached state ceiling is 1,200 sq ft, and custom clients tend to push right up against it — at 1,150 or so you fit two real bedrooms, a full kitchen, a proper living room. Then the finishes. Quartz, oak floors, a tiled shower instead of an insert. This is an affordable-to-mid market, so a premium budget stretches further here than it would in Folsom.
“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.
Custom is the priciest path — I won't soft-pedal it. For 2025-2026 we're seeing finished custom detached units in Rancho Cordova land roughly $309K to $492K depending on size, finish level and what the existing house needs, call it $285 to $420 a square foot. The flat lots keep site costs down, and this is an affordable-to-mid market, so the same unit usually comes in under what it would in Folsom or Granite Bay. The common add on the older north-side homes is the house itself — a panel upgrade off a 100-amp service, or a tired sewer lateral, each runs real money. A stock plan would cost less. You're paying for the design, the bespoke footprint and the finishes.
A stock plan is pre-drawn and repeated — quicker and cheaper because the design work is already finished. Custom starts at zero for your parcel: our designer sizes and shapes the unit around your lot, the look of your house, and exactly how the family will live in it. Custom costs more and takes longer up front. The reason to pick it is a one-off problem a catalog rectangle can't reach — a multi-gen layout, an accessible suite, a premium finish package, or an odd lot with a pool or a slope. On a flat, ordinary Sunridge backyard, stock is often the smarter buy, and we'll tell you that before you spend a dollar on design.
Longer than stock — that's the honest answer. Design and construction documents run five to nine weeks, City of Rancho Cordova permitting on a clean set is typically three to six weeks since their counter is one of the smoother ones in the metro, and the build itself is usually five to eight months for a custom detached unit. Door to door you're looking at roughly eight to twelve months. The flat lots and the fast city review keep the back half moving; it's the design front end that stretches custom past a stock plan, and that part you can't rush without losing the thing you came for.
The city. Rancho Cordova incorporated in 2003, so it's its own city inside Sacramento County, and that trips people up constantly. Your building permit and your planning review all go through the City of Rancho Cordova, not the county. Power is SMUD. Owners who built in unincorporated Sacramento County assume it's the same counter — it isn't. The upside: the Rancho Cordova counter is genuinely one of the faster, smoother ADU jurisdictions around here, so a complete set tends to move through review quicker than most of the metro. We file with the city and coordinate SMUD for the electrical service separately.
Maybe not. On the 1950s-60s tracts near Mather and Aerojet — Cordova Meadows, Cordova Village — a lot of homes still run a 100-amp main panel, and that was plenty for a 1960 household. A custom unit with a full kitchen, a heat pump and maybe an EV charger pulls real load on top of the existing house. We run a SMUD load calc during design. If the panel's maxed we'll either upgrade the main service to 200 amps or set the ADU on its own meter. It's an added cost, but it's far better to find it on paper than to discover it mid-build. South-side homes off Highway 50 are newer and rarely have this problem.
Worth raising early if you're in Anatolia, Sunridge, Stonecreek, Capital Village or The Preserve. State law makes the ADU permit itself ministerial, so the city has to approve a complete code-compliant set — but your HOA can still have architectural rules about siding, color and roofline that we design to from the start. We'll pull your CC&Rs before drawing. Mello-Roos is a separate matter — it's a special tax already on those master-planned parcels, not something an ADU triggers, but it's good to know it's there when you're budgeting. On the older north side there's usually no HOA at all, which keeps the design freer.
State law caps a detached ADU at 1,200 sq ft, and most of our custom clients build right near that ceiling — at 1,100 to 1,200 sq ft you fit two genuine bedrooms, a full kitchen and a real living room, which is usually the whole reason for going custom. Smaller is allowed; we just rarely see custom clients want it. The flat Rancho Cordova lots make the larger footprint easy to site, though south-side yards run modest, so we check setbacks against your actual parcel. Attached ADUs follow a different size rule tied to the main house, so if you're attaching we'll run those numbers for your specific home.
Yes, and that's one of the better reasons to go custom here. A stock rectangle assumes an empty, square backyard. Real Rancho Cordova lots have a pool eating the south-side yard, or a mature oak you don't want to lose, or an irrigation line you'd rather not relocate. Custom lets our designer shape the footprint around what's already there — pulling the unit to one corner, working an L-shape around a pool deck, or angling the building to keep a tree's drip line intact. We catch all of that on the site walk before anything gets drawn. A fixed plan would force you to choose between the unit and the thing you're trying to keep.
Yes — it's one of the most common reasons Rancho Cordova families go custom. We design zero-step entries, 36-inch doorways for walkers and wheelchairs, curbless roll-in showers with grab-bar blocking already set in the walls, lever handles, and a layout that keeps the bedroom and bath on one easy path. A stock plan rarely nails all of that at once. Designing it in from the start costs far less than retrofitting it five years down the road. The flat lots here help, too — a zero-step entry is simple when the grade isn't fighting you, which is most of this city.
We're a Sacramento design-build crew, CA license #1119373, and Rancho Cordova sits about fifteen minutes east of our home base — so yes, we're in town regularly. We've walked backyards from Cordova Meadows on the north side to Anatolia and The Preserve down off Highway 50, and we know the local realities: City of Rancho Cordova permits, SMUD power, the 100-amp panels and older sewer laterals on the Mather-era tracts, the HOAs and Mello-Roos on the master-planned south side. Call us at (916) 677-9774 and we'll come look at your actual lot before quoting anything.
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
11 min read2,461 words8 sections
Custom ADU design and construction in Rancho Cordova
Rancho Cordova is an easy place to build an ADU — flat lots, one of the faster city counters in the Sacramento metro, and an affordable-to-mid market where a budget goes a long way. So when do you go custom instead of stock? When a family need, a finish level, or an odd lot calls for it. We're a Sacramento design-build crew about fifteen minutes west (CA license #1119373) that draws a bespoke unit for your exact parcel and builds it through final inspection, one team the whole way. Call (916) 677-9774.
01Section
What actually makes an ADU custom
People throw the word "custom" around loosely, so let me draw the line the way we do. A stock or model ADU is a plan we've already drawn and built before — you pick a size, maybe swap a finish or two, and it drops onto a flat pad. It's the quickest, cheapest route, and on a clean rectangular Rancho Cordova backyard it's frequently the right one. The ground here cooperates. We build plenty of stock units and we're glad to. But that is not custom.
Custom means the design starts at zero, on your parcel, for your situation. Our designer takes the survey, the city setbacks, the position of the main house, the pool deck or the oak you want to keep, the way the afternoon sun hits the back fence, and how your family actually plans to live — then draws a unit that didn't exist until your lot called for it. The footprint answers the constraints. The roofline answers your house. The interior answers your people. Nobody else owns this plan.
