"They're Trying to Put the City in the Country" — What My Surveyor Said this Morning About ADUs That Most People Never Hear
- David Cutler
- 1 day ago
- 6 min read
I just had my yard surveyed.
It's one of those things that sounds purely administrative — stakes in the ground, a few measurements, a plat map. But sometimes the most valuable conversations happen when you're just standing in your own backyard with someone who's been doing their job in your town for decades.
The surveyor I worked with has been walking properties across Avon and the surrounding area for a long time. He's seen neighborhoods change, watched housing trends come and go, and — more importantly — he's walked every inch of a lot before anyone builds anything on it. That gives you a perspective most people never get.
We got to talking about ADUs — Accessory Dwelling Units. You've probably heard the term. Governor Healey's Affordable Homes Act made them legal by-right across Massachusetts in early 2025, meaning homeowners can now build one on most single-family lots without jumping through the local approval hoops that used to block them. The state has approved over 1,200 of them in the first year, and there's a new MassHousing loan program offering up to $250,000 to help fund construction.
ADUs are being sold as a silver bullet — a way to generate rental income, house a family member, and boost your property's value all at once. The headlines make them sound like a no-brainer.
But here's what my surveyor said that stopped me in my tracks.
"They're trying to put the city in the country."— A surveyor who's been walking Avon's properties for decades
That was his bottom line on the ADU push happening across Massachusetts right now. And the more I thought about it, the more I couldn't shake it.
Avon is not Boston. The South Shore is not Somerville. The people who live here chose to live here — the space, the quiet, the feel of a neighborhood where houses have yards and yards have room to breathe. ADUs are a policy tool designed to solve a dense urban housing problem. Whether they belong at scale in towns like ours is a conversation worth having — and one most people aren't having honestly.
"You're cutting out half the market."
His point wasn't that ADUs are worthless. It was more nuanced than that — and more honest than what most people promoting them want to admit.
When you go to sell a home that has an ADU on it, you're no longer selling a single-family home to the full spectrum of buyers who are looking for one. You're now selling a property with a tenant situation attached to it — and that comes with a very specific buyer profile.
The buyers who want an ADU are: investors looking for income properties, multigenerational families who need space for a parent or adult child, or landlord-ready buyers who actively want the rental component. That's a narrower slice of the market than most homeowners realize.
The typical family — the couple moving up from their first home, the buyers who want a yard and a quiet single-family setup — they often look at an ADU and see complications, not value. A tenant on the property. Shared utilities. Less privacy. An arrangement they didn't sign up for.
This isn't just a gut feeling. Real estate professionals and appraisers have been wrestling with how to value ADUs because the comps simply don't exist at scale in most New England markets yet. In markets where ADUs aren't common or expected — and that includes most of the South Shore — appraisers struggle to find comparable sales, which makes financing harder for the buyer and can drag the sale price down even when the improvements are real.
The Landlord Problem Nobody Talks About
The surveyor raised something else that the glossy ADU brochures tend to gloss over: what it's actually like to be a landlord living twelve feet from your tenant.
Rental income sounds great on paper. But the moment you have a tenant in a detached unit on your own property, you've become a landlord — with all the obligations, complications, and relationship dynamics that go with it. Noise disputes. Parking conflicts. Lease renewals. Maintenance calls. Someone else's habits becoming your problem because they live close enough that you can hear them.
Massachusetts, for all its new ADU enthusiasm, is also a notoriously tenant-friendly state. Eviction timelines can stretch months. A bad tenant in a rental that's physically on your property — not across town, but right outside your back door — is a very different experience than a bad tenant in a building you don't live in.
The surveyor's take was direct: the income potential is real, but so are the headaches. And for many homeowners who haven't thought it all the way through, the reality of living that close to a tenant changes the calculus significantly.
His Alternative: Expand What You Have
Here's where his point of view gets interesting — and where I think he has something genuinely valuable to say.
His recommendation for most homeowners? If you need more space or want to add value, build an addition to your existing home instead.
Why? A few reasons:
It sells to everyone. An addition adds square footage that any buyer can immediately understand and use. A bigger kitchen. A fourth bedroom. A finished lower level. Those improvements don't require a buyer to opt into a landlord lifestyle or navigate a tenant situation. They appeal to the broadest possible market — which is always what you want when you're ready to sell.
Appraisers understand it. Additional square footage on a primary home is valued straightforwardly. There's a clear methodology. An ADU in a market without established comps is a guessing game for appraisers, which creates friction for buyers trying to finance the purchase at the sale price you're asking.
You're still living in one home. No shared lot dynamics. No tenant to manage. No wondering whether the rent covers what the complications cost you in stress and quality of life.
That said, he acknowledged that additions aren't without risk either. Over-improving for your neighborhood is a real danger — spending $150,000 on an addition in an area where the market ceiling won't support it is its own kind of trap. The key is knowing your market before you put a shovel in the ground, which brings us to the point I think matters most.
The Real Numbers on ADUs in Massachusetts
Let me share some context that's worth knowing before you make any decisions.
The cost to build an ADU in Massachusetts typically runs between $250,000 and $400,000. That's not a small number — and most homeowners don't have that sitting around in cash. MassHousing's new loan program helps bridge the gap, but it's a second mortgage on top of whatever you already owe. Construction costs are being pushed higher by tariffs on lumber, and there are upfront costs — architectural fees, permitting, feasibility studies — that can run $30,000 to $50,000 before a single foundation is poured.
Financing the purchase of a home with an ADU comes with its own complications. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have specific rules around properties with multiple units, and buyers using conventional financing may find the appraisal process more complex. If comps with ADUs don't exist in your neighborhood — and in most Avon streets, they don't — appraisers are working without a clear map, which creates uncertainty that can kill deals or compress the price.
In markets like California, where ADUs are mainstream and rental demand is enormous, the math works more cleanly. But this is Massachusetts. The South Shore. A market where single-family homes are the dominant product, buyers are largely families and move-up purchasers, and the rental culture looks very different than a dense urban coastal market.
Location matters enormously to how an ADU performs financially — and local experts with decades of ground-level experience tend to understand that in ways that national trend pieces don't.
Is This an Anti-ADU Post?
No. That's not the point.
There are absolutely situations where an ADU makes sense — housing an aging parent, supporting an adult child while they get on their feet, or a property specifically configured for multigenerational living with buyers who want exactly that. In those cases, you're building for your life, not for a hypothetical future buyer, and that's a legitimate reason to build one.
The point is that the conversation around ADUs in Massachusetts right now is very one-sided. The state wants more housing units. Builders want more projects. The media wants to run the story about the solution to the housing crisis. What gets left out is the nuance that my surveyor — a guy who's been walking this ground for decades — offered me in my own backyard.
Before you make a major investment decision based on a policy change or a trend piece, talk to people who've been watching your market for a long time. Survey your own situation — literally and figuratively — before you break ground.
Thinking About Adding Space or Value to Your Home?
This is exactly the kind of conversation I have with homeowners every day. Whether you're weighing an ADU, considering an addition, or just wondering what your home is worth in today's market, I'm happy to walk through it with you — no pressure, just a real conversation.
I've lived in Avon for 17 years. I know this market, these streets, and what buyers here are actually looking for. That local perspective matters when you're making decisions this big.
📞 Reach out anytime: david.cutler@raveis.com🌐 Or start here: cutler-realty.com
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