Every backyard
is a second income
waiting to be built.

Backlot finds ADU-eligible homeowners in Santa Ana and Tustin, renders the build on their actual property, and delivers a personalized pitch — automatically. No staff. No cold calls.

600K+ ADU-eligible homes in Orange County
$2,640 Avg. monthly ADU rent in Orange County
334% ADU permit growth in California, 2016–2022
Aerial view of a Santa Ana home with a modern 800 sqft ADU rendered in the rear yard
ACTUAL PROPERTY TYPE · SANTA ANA
Santa Ana, CA — R1 Lot
800
sq ft unit
$2,000–$2,400
monthly rent
~$288K
10-yr revenue
4 ft rear & side setbacks. State-compliant 800 sqft floor. This is what ADU-eligible looks like on your street.
Est. build: $180,000–$230,000  ·  Santa Ana code compliant
The Problem

A housing crisis sitting
in plain sight.

Southern California is short hundreds of thousands of homes. Yet the fastest, cheapest new housing is already legal — it just hasn't been built. ADUs can be added to almost any single-family lot. California spent a decade making them legal. The bottleneck now isn't the law. It's that homeowners never realize the opportunity is sitting in their own backyard.

They don't know.

Most owners of ADU-eligible lots have no idea their property even qualifies.

They can't picture it.

Without a rendering on their own home, an ADU stays an abstract idea.

They assume it's out of reach.

Confusing city codes and unclear costs kill the idea before it starts.

The Engine

An agentic pipeline
that finds, qualifies,
and pitches.

No staff, no manual research. The pipeline finds the homeowner before a competitor knows the lot exists.

1

Scan

Continuously scan public parcel records across every Orange County city.

2

Filter

Apply each city's ADU code — lot size, setbacks, zoning — automatically.

3

Qualify

Confirm the unit physically fits against current satellite imagery.

4

Render

Generate a photoreal ADU placed in that home's actual backyard.

5

Deliver

Send a personalized marketing check showing the owner their rent upside.

Revenue Model

Four ways every
homeowner pays off.

~$6–12K per closed deal

Builder referral fees

Refer the homeowner to a vetted builder partner and earn a fee on every closed project.

Margin per unit on prefab sales

Prefab ADU sales

Sell a prefab unit directly and capture the product margin on each deal.

Per funded loan on financing

Financing commissions

Route owners to lender partners and earn a commission on every funded ADU loan.

Fee per application on grants

Grant assistance

Help owners capture state and local ADU grants as programs reopen.

Blended revenue per closed deal: ~$16,000. The homeowner is never charged to be found.
Unit Economics

Break-even at
less than one
deal per month.

Overhead is so low the business breaks even on 0.75 closed deals per month. Everything past that is margin. The model stays honest with a conservative scenario that loses money — proof the business depends on the mailer actually converting.

~1,260
Mailers sent per deal closed — the key sensitivity to test first.
$16,162 Blended revenue per closed deal
72% EBITDA margin at base-case run rate
Year 1 $2.1M
Year 2 $3.8M
Year 3 $4.9M
3-year base-case from financial model. Projections are estimates, not guarantees.
The Product

We hand over a
decision, not a
cold call.

The marketing check is a fully disclosed advertising mailer in the homeowner's name. The amount is their estimated monthly ADU rent. Inside: their own home with the ADU rendered in.

The QR code opens their address pre-loaded. They toggle between ADU layouts that actually fit their lot and see a real build estimate from live cost data.

your-home.backlot.app
YOUR PROPERTY · ADU RENDERING
Estimated Monthly ADU Rent $2,640/mo
Studio ~400 sqft
1-Bed ~600 sqft
2-Bed ~800 sqft
Est. build cost $232,000
Schedule a consultation

Every empty backyard
is a home waiting
to happen.

Orange County is the proof. Southern California is the map. Backlot is a search engine for hidden housing — and the homeowner, the builder, the lender, and the state all win when it finds one.

Built for the one-person company era.
ADU Eligibility Check

Find out if your property qualifies.

Check your property in 5 seconds.