What Happens During BuildX's Free ADU Feasibility Process? (Four Steps Before You Spend a Dime)

By Buz Artiano, BuildX | July 2026

Watch: How Much Does It Really Cost to Build an ADU in Massachusetts, the BuildX Way

You've got a spot in mind for an ADU on your property that maybe you want to use for a parent, adult child, or for a rental. But there are important questions that need to be answered first. Like will an ADU even work on your lot, and how much does it cost to find out? In order to find out you call a builder and listen to their sales pitch, but before you get any real answers they are asking you to pay for a survey, drawings, or a deposit, but you want answers to your questions before you spend any money.

My name is Buz Artiano, founder of BuildX. We've built dozens of ADUs all over Massachusetts, but most of our projects have been around the South Shore and Plymouth County. We design, permit, and build every project ourselves, so we understand how a lot's zoning setbacks, its septic or sewer situation, and its site conditions all play into how feasible an ADU is on a given property. Every town has its own processes, and we work with all of them.

It might surprise you that the first three steps of our feasibility process cost you nothing, and should answer the one question you actually have, which is whether an ADU makes sense on your property before you spend any money on it. Each of the four steps has a purpose, a cost, and something you walk away with.

What Are the Four Free Steps Before You Sign Anything?

The feasibility process goes in a certain order, and the first three steps don't cost you anything. A phone call, a visit to our home tour, and a Zoom meeting all happen before you are asked to pay for anything. The fourth step, the on-site visit, gives you a written proposal and a set of plans. By the end, you will know whether an ADU fits your lot, how big it can be, and what it's probably going to cost. That all happens before you pay for a surveyor or drawings.

The reason we do the assessment for free is that we'd rather find out early whether a project makes sense than have you spend money on one that won't work. Each step builds on the one before it.

Step One: What Should You Expect From the First Call?

Step one is a phone call. You tell us a little bit about who you are, where the property is, and what your goals are for an ADU. Maybe it's a place for your mom, or a son or daughter who's moving back home, or a long-term rental. We're listening for the shape of the project so we can point you to the correct next step. There's no pressure and no sales pitch on this call. It's just to open the door and get you scheduled for the home tour, which is where the process gets real.

We keep this call short on purpose. The details that decide everything, your setbacks, your site conditions, and your budget, are all discussed in the next two steps where we can actually look at them. Think of the phone call as the introductory handshake.

Step Two: Why Does the Home Tour Beat a Sales Pitch?

Step two is a visit to our ADU home tour, and this one isn't something anybody else does. When you come to the tour, you get to meet four ADU customers we recently built for. They are there every weekend. You don't have to take our word for anything, because you can talk directly to four different families who already went through the exact process. No other builder in our market puts you in a room with their active customers and lets you ask whatever you want.

If you have been putting off calling a builder because you expect a hard sell, this step is built for you. We've had people come by themselves the first weekend, come back the next with a sibling or a parent, and keep coming back for months until they're ready. Some of the families signing contracts now have been visiting for over a year because they wanted to see different models and be sure. That's no problem, we want you to go at your own pace. The tour is there so you can take all the time you need.

You can also check our work before you ever visit. Our website has a full learning center with 68 podcast episodes, more than 500 videos, and 36 customer testimonial videos, and we have earned 35 five-star Google reviews. The reason we provide all that is because you should be able to verify who we are before you trust us with your project.

Step Three: Will an ADU Actually Work on Your Lot?

Step three is a Zoom meeting, and it's also free. On that call we pull up six different software tools and put your property on the screen. We can show you whether an ADU makes sense on your lot, how big it can be, where your zoning setbacks are (the distances your town requires between the ADU and your property lines), and what challenges we notice. By the end of the meeting the goal is for you to leave with a clear idea of what you already know and what we still need to find out.

The most important tool we use is called the probability index. We grade your project in three colors. Green is clear. Yellow is a question we need to answer. Red is a real obstacle. You leave the meeting seeing all of it, the greens, the yellows, and the reds, along with a budget range for what a build is likely to cost.

We run this assessment before anyone pays for a surveyor on purpose, and it comes from building enough of these to know what the biggest costs tend to be. Site work is the single biggest variable in an ADU. Two lots that look identical from the street can be tens of thousands of dollars apart once you account for ledge under the surface, a high water table, large trees that have to come out, or a long distance to run electric and utilities. You're not going to see any of that on a listing or an assessor card. If we sent you to pay a surveyor before we went over all those variables with you, you could end up spending money on a project that isn't even possible in the first place. The probability index is there so you only spend on the survey and the drawings after we both agree the lot is worth it.

Step Four: What Do You Walk Away With?

Step four is the on-site visit. We come to the property, walk the actual location where the ADU would go, and look at everything we need to see in person. From that visit we can give you a written proposal. It's very detailed and about 40 pages long, and it spells out absolutely everything that is included, down to a set of plans. This is what you look over and use to make a decision, because it's built around your specific lot, it's not a generic estimate.

The proposal also sets expectations on time. We guarantee a 100-day construction timeline from the day we start digging for the foundation. If your lot has ledge and the schedule needs to run longer, we tell you all that up front and we tell you how much time it's going to add to the project. Ledge adds 30 to 45 days, and unfortunately there's no way around that, so we always tell you that number before you start, nobody likes surprises when it comes to construction.

From the day you sign, the pre-construction work is a partnership. We work on your plans and your selections together, so that by the time the contract is signed you know exactly what the house will look like, where it will be built on the lot, and how much it's going to cost. You have a final price before we start.

What If the Answer Is No?

Since we build ADUs for a living, maybe you think we tell every family that their lot is perfect. That's not how this works at all, and it's not what the probability index is for. Some lots come back with reds we have no way of working around. Sometimes the setbacks don't allow enough room for the build. Other times the site work makes the project way too expensive. Or the septic can't support another bedroom. When that happens, we tell you, and we tell you before you've spent any money.

An honest no early is a lot better than an expensive maybe later. If an ADU doesn't make sense on your property, you deserve to know, and we'll tell you that in a free Zoom meeting, not after you have paid for a survey and a set of drawings. We would rather earn your trust with a straight answer than sell you a project you'll regret. If the lot works, we'll show you exactly why. If it doesn't, we will show you that too.

Your Feasibility Process Starts With One Call

The whole point of this four-step process is to make sure you're not at risk. You get a phone call, a home tour with real customers, a Zoom meeting with a probability index, and an on-site visit that gives you a written proposal, and the assessment costs you nothing. By the end you know whether an ADU fits your lot, how big it can be, and what it will cost, before you commit to a single expense. When you are ready to find out where your property lands, the first step is a conversation.