Blog/How building materials dealers can win ADU projects

How building materials dealers can win ADU projects

Nov 88 min read

ADUs are a growing share of new homes in some markets. How dealer reps can find repeat ADU builders, quote their standard plans and win the full package.

Sales Strategy
How building materials dealers can win ADU projects

To win ADU business, treat accessory dwelling units as a builder segment and stop handling them as one-off homeowner calls. Find the companies that build them again and again, using permit leads and your city's list of preapproved ADU plans. Check what each of those builders already buys from you. Then offer a package quote for the plans they build most, and follow every permit through to the next category on the job.

This guide is for outside reps, inside reps and sales managers at multi-category dealers and lumber yards, and at window, door and millwork suppliers that sell into the same jobs. It covers the selling decisions: which ADU buyers deserve a rep's time, where to find them and how to turn one plan into repeat orders. Design, permitting, financing and building code questions belong to the builder and the local building department, so they are left out here.

Why ADUs need a sales plan of their own

In some markets, ADUs are now a large share of new homes. The California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) says in its March 2026 ADU Handbook that the number of ADUs permitted each year in the state grew from 1,336 in 2016 to 30,354 in 2024, and that ADUs made up more than 26.6 percent of all homes permitted statewide in 2024. The same handbook notes that ADUs are often built with wood frame construction.

An analysis by Buildbusters of the cities' own annual reports to HCD puts 2025 at 32,359 ADU permits, with the City of Los Angeles alone at 7,446. Growth has slowed, from 61 percent in 2021 to 5.8 percent in 2025. Two other findings matter for sales timing. In the jurisdictions where Buildbusters could trace permits to completion, 70 percent of ADUs permitted from 2018 to 2022 had a recorded completion by the end of 2025, and the median time from permit to completion for finished units was 351 days. A permit is a reason to call, and the job can run for most of a year.

California is the largest example, not the only one. Washington's Department of Commerce says most cities and counties inside urban growth areas must allow two ADUs per residential lot. Rules and volumes differ by state and city, so start with what your own permit data shows.

ADUs also differ from the other new-home work most dealers already sell. A production builder awards a community or phase once, and each house follows as a release against that award. Our guide to production builder community bids covers that sale. ADU builders usually work lot by lot on existing properties scattered across your territory, and each job has its own permit. Yet a small backyard home still needs much of what a house needs, from framing and roofing to windows, doors, siding, insulation, drywall and trim. The opportunity is in winning the whole package from builders who repeat it.

Decide which ADU buyers to pursue

ADU permits come from three kinds of buyers, and each deserves a different amount of rep time.

  • Repeat ADU builders and design-build companies. These firms build ADUs as their main line of work, often from a small set of standard plans. They are the best fit for outside sales, because one good quote can be reused across many jobs.
  • General contractors and remodelers who build the occasional ADU. Many of them may already buy from you. The task here is to make sure their ADU jobs come to you along with their other work.
  • Owner-builders. A homeowner managing their own build buys once. Your counter or showroom team can usually serve them better than an outside rep can.

For each builder on your list, a sales manager can decide quickly with four facts: how many ADU permits the builder pulled in the last year, which plans they use, which of those plan's categories you sell and whether the builder already has an account with you. Put rep time on repeat builders with several active permits, then on existing customers whose ADU jobs you are missing.

Find the builders in permit leads and preapproved plan lists

Two sources do most of the work.

Permit leads. Building permits show the address, the contractor and the kind of work. How clearly a permit is labeled as an ADU varies by jurisdiction, so test a few months of your local data before you rely on a filter. Our article on turning permit data into sales explains the general approach. In SalesJack, teams can filter permit leads by the project types and regions they serve, and AI matches leads to existing customers and addresses before routing them to the assigned rep. A rep can also ask Radar a question such as "Which of my customers have active permits but no recent orders?" to find existing accounts with ADU work underway that is not coming to you.

Preapproved plan lists. Since January 1, 2025, California law has required every city and county to run a program for preapproving ADU plans. HCD's handbook says the local agency must post the preapproved plans and the applicant's contact information on its website. The City of San José's list is a good example. It names each vendor, the size and layout of each plan and a phone number and email. San José says these plans come from ADU companies, private contractors and licensed architects and designers, and it advises owners to have the vendor or contractor pull the permits.

Treat these lists as a prospect source with limits. Some applicants are designers who never buy materials, so check permit history to see who actually builds. A published plan also does not prove volume. The City of Sacramento reported 390 ADUs permitted in 2025, yet as of January 1, 2026, its free shelf-ready plans had been used for 21 permits. There is no statewide index either. ADU Record, which has checked 70 California programs, notes that each jurisdiction posts its own.

Suppliers outside California are looking at the same idea. Fireside Lumber & Sawmill says it hopes to offer lumber cutlists based on the ADU designs that the City of Raleigh fast-tracked. That is one supplier's stated plan, not a result, but it shows how a standard plan can become a sales offer.

Check what each builder already buys from you

Before the first call, look at the builder's account. Which categories have they bought from you in the past year? Which jobs did those orders go to? Are there open quotes? Then compare their recent ADU permit addresses with your orders. An address with a permit and no orders tells you where the builder is buying elsewhere.

Look for category gaps as well. A builder who buys framing from you but nothing for windows, doors or exterior trim is a different conversation from a builder you have never sold. Our guide to winning more of a builder's jobs covers how to raise the jobs an existing customer gives to someone else.

Offer a package quote for the plans they build most

The first conversation should be about their plans, not your price list. Ask:

  • Which two or three plans do you build most?
  • Which revision are you using now? ADU Record notes that the 2025 California Building Code took effect on January 1, 2026, and that plans drawn to the old code are being pulled and reissued.
  • What do you usually specify for windows, doors, siding and trim, and where do you buy those today?
  • How many of these do you expect to start in the next few months?

With those answers, ask your estimator to take off the builder's most common plan once. Keep that takeoff as the starting point for every job on that plan, then adjust each quote for the site and the owner's choices. Include the categories the builder currently buys elsewhere, and list alternates separately so the base package stays easy to compare. How long a price holds, and whether you offer plan pricing at all, is a decision for your management, so confirm it before you promise anything.

If a window, door or millwork specialist prepares part of the quote, keep the whole package together. SalesJack can group connected quotes by project and surface cross-sell opportunities in the categories you sell, so the outside rep can see the full package before the next call.

Follow each permit to the next category

ADU jobs move in stages, and different categories are bought at different times. Set a follow-up for each active permit at the points that matter for what you sell. That usually means at permit issue for the framing package, before the unit is closed in for windows, doors and siding, and before interior work for insulation, drywall and trim. At each call, ask what comes next on the job and who is buying it.

Record the result on the job: what was quoted, what was ordered and why the builder bought elsewhere when they did. Once a quarter, a sales manager can review each ADU builder with three questions. How many of their permits did we see? How many did we quote? Which categories did we win and lose? The answers show which builders deserve more time and which plans are worth a standing quote. If you lose a package, our guide to learning from lost quotes explains how to use the reason.

Limitations

ADU volume is concentrated in some states and cities, and California growth has slowed. Nothing here is a forecast. Permit labeling and preapproved plan programs vary by jurisdiction, and a plan list names designers as well as builders. A reusable takeoff speeds up quoting, but each job still needs a check for site conditions and owner selections. Pricing, credit and how much estimating time to invest in a builder remain management decisions.

If you want to see how permit leads, quotes and purchase history come together for a team selling into ADU work, you can book a SalesJack demo.

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