If home is where the heart is, then to entrepreneurs Zander Diamont and Jared Amzallag, Scottsdale is home. As Los Angeles transplants, this dynamic duo saw a unique real estate opportunity and made the most out of it.
In 2020, when they noticed that many people didn’t have a distraction-free space from which to work from home, they began to brainstorm solutions. Eventually, they moved from L.A. to Scottsdale to found Minimal Living Concepts, a company that designs and builds modern small homes and additions for Valley-based homes.
“Jared and I had been researching luxury home remodeling opportunities in L.A. when he started taking regular trips to Scottsdale to visit family,” says Diamont.
“I saw incredible opportunity in the Valley,” Amzallag adds. “Cranes were in the air, construction hadn’t slowed down, and we could do a lot more with a $2 million investment in Arizona than we could in Los Angeles.”
Fast-forward to today, and Minimal Living Concepts, headquartered in Scottsdale, has 10 employees and has built and sold 60 accessory dwelling units in Arizona.
“We’ve taken a process that is typically expensive, complicated, and disconnected, and we’ve simplified it,” Diamont explains. “We offer a turnkey experience that makes it easy for customers to choose the product they want, make a few personalized choices, then place their order.”
Currently, four concepts are available to customers: the Flex (429 square feet), Live (522 square feet), Live+ (750 square feet), Dwell (1,044 square feet), and Resi (1,600 square feet). Prices range from $150,000 to $418,000, depending on the model and add-ons.
“We provide transparent pricing and take care of everything end-to-end,” Amzallag adds. “Our clients know they are getting a beautiful modern guest house at a great price, and the experience is seamless.”
Currently, the company is focused on serving the greater Phoenix area.
“The majority of our clients are using our units for multi-generational living, primarily for having grandma and grandpa live on the property in their own space, instead of moving them to a senior living center,” Diamont explains. “It’s a beautiful thing to see, and a great long-term investment, as well. We also have clients who want a separate space for their teens to hang out, need a home office, a pool house, guest house, or in some cases, a ‘man cave’ or ‘she shed’ where they can easily get away to enjoy some solo time.”
The process to build the new space is meant to be as seamless as possible.
“Once a client completes their feasibility study and says ‘yes,’ we handle it all,” Diamont says. “This includes the site plan, grading and drainage plan, architectural documentation, and structural engineering. We carry the project through the entire permitting process, then see the project through construction. We keep our clients up to speed from inception to completion.”
Construction timelines vary, but most dwellings are completed within five to seven months.
“Customers who have been burned by bad construction and remodeling experiences often think that’s just the way things have to be,” Diamont adds. “It’s extremely rewarding to show them our revolutionary new way of simplifying the entire experience. We’ve taken our marketing and real estate backgrounds and combined them with the right technology to make a once-complicated process simple and enjoyable.”
While Minimal Living Concepts builds smaller abodes now, looking to the future, that won’t always be the case.
“It’s exciting to be in this space right now, and we have big plans for growth in 2023 and 2024,” Amzallag says. “We will soon be introducing new product designs, and later this year, we will be expanding into full-scale homes. We are dedicated to continual improvement and ready to scale our business to serve even more clients.”
“We are so glad we took the leap and left L.A. when we did,” Diamont says. “Scottsdale is the perfect spot for us to be launching and growing Minimal Living Concepts.”