Samara To Add Adus To Five Multifamily Properties In The Bay Area

California-based Samara, a manufacturer of accessory dwelling units (ADUs), will team up with Prometheus Real Estate Group to bring ADUs to five Prometheus multifamily communities in the San Francisco Bay Area. 

California recently expanded ADU capacity on multifamily parcels through SB 1211, which passed last year and took effect at the beginning of 2025. The legislation increases the cap on ADUs on multifamily properties from 2 to 8, effectively adding “infill” opportunities to already-operating rental communities. The measure also simplified the permitting process, giving municipalities a set of state-required rules for reviewing ADUs on multifamily sites.

Samara co-founder and CEO Mike McNamara tells HousingWire that the change allows multifamily operators more opportunity to repurpose underutilized land with ADUs. This boosts housing supply and benefits multifamily developer-owners and property managers by creating new rental opportunities.

“Think about if they’ve got a triangle over in the corner, or if they’ve got a fountain that they put up years ago that they don’t even use anymore. Maybe they put up 22 tennis courts when tennis courts were hot, and they only need six now. That’s where there’s excess space,” McNamara said. 

Samara, which spun off from Airbnb in 2022, has ADUs of varying sizes, including single units and duplexes. This product’s variability gives multifamily owners flexibility when expanding their rental properties. 

“The land’s already paid for, so it’s just a superb way to add incremental yield, because there’s no cost to the land. All they have to do is buy the building. It’s a great way to add capacity,” McNamara said. 

Samara builds ADUs in a modular process off-site. Once it is delivered to a property, it usually only takes a day to put it into the foundation and connect the utility hookups, which minimizes disruptions to tenants. 

The deal with Prometheus calls for installing more than 50 of Samara’s ADUs in communities in Silicon Valley, which have higher home prices than those in the East Bay. 

McNamara expects the ADUs Prometheus delivers will rent at about a 20% premium over the neighboring apartments, since they are standalone units with mini yards and greater privacy.  

However, adding new housing supply of varying sizes is essential in California, a state grappling with a deep housing shortage. Last year, housing policy nonprofit Up For Growth estimated that the state was short 840,000 residential units. 

A survey from the Bay Area Council found that 88% of Bay Area residents favored ADUs as a solution to adding more housing. McNamara highlighted this public support to note that there is usually little pushback on these types of ADU additions. 

“Another wing of a four-story apartment building … that’s the kind of thing that a lot of the residents object to,” he said. “These ADUs, … they tuck into the landscape, and they hide behind trees. So it’s a real gentle way to add density while maintaining and not destroying any of the character of the neighborhood.”