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SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A Rancho Cordova-based company specializing in mobility devices has recently received more requests for elevator installations, an amenity real estate experts say may not automatically increase home value.
Chris McIlwain said he founded McIlwain Mobility Solutions in the early 2000s and incorporated the company in 2017. The company installs a variety of elevators, stair lifts, ramps and safe bathtubs, according to its website.
“We will go almost anywhere in California,” McIlwain said. “However, I would say most of our (jobs) are within an hour radius from our Rancho Cordova shop.”
Elevator installation requests are becoming more and more common, he said. The main reason people install elevators or some sort of platform lift is to be able to get from one floor to another while riding a mobility device like a scooter or wheelchair, he said.
If they are not in a wheelchair or scooter, people will opt for reasonably-priced stair lifts.
“Typically when people see the overall cost (of an elevator), they usually opt for a stair lift or even vertical platform lift,” McIlwain said.
Generally, a vertical platform lift is different from an elevator because there is no enclosure protecting the rider from the edge.
McIlwain said the cheapest elevator model the company offers holds roughly 845 pounds and costs approximately $56,000; the most expensive sits around $125,000 before construction and installation costs and can hold roughly 881 pounds. There are many factors in pricing elevators, he said.
McIlwain said the company commonly installs vertical platform lifts that can move someone up from ground level to a level 4 feet to 6 feet high.
“These can range from $12,000 to $17,000 depending on what is required to make them usable,” he said. “A 10-foot unit can be around $30,000 when all is said and done.”
Some of the company’s elevator clients in 2023 and 2024 are located in El Dorado Hills, Elk Grove and Discovery Bay.
State law generally exempts single-unit private home elevators from safety orders. McIlwain said there are efforts to change this, which will likely increase home elevator costs.
Sacramento market analyst and appraiser Ryan Lundquist said home elevators are pretty uncommon in the local marketplace. He said he sees them show up in larger, higher-end homes, but even then they just aren’t all that common.
“I wouldn’t look at it as something that would automatically increase the value of a home,” Lundquist said. “Most buyers do not expect an elevator to be present.”
He recalls seeing an elevator in a house in Folsom in 2023. It was installed in a custom home because the owner had the idea to age in place when building the property, Lundquist said.
“People tend to downsize and buy a single-story house if too many levels become an issue rather than installing an elevator,” he said. “When we look at 55+ communities, it is extremely rare to see a multilevel house for this very reason.”
Lundquist also remembered seeing a multilevel El Dorado Hills home last year with views of Folsom Lake.
“For this home, maybe it made sense to have an elevator,” he said.
The Multiple Listing Service, where home listings live before they are scraped and posted onto Zillow and Redfin, showed elevators scattered locally in custom homes, in condo-adjacent property in midtown and in the Anatolia neighborhood of Rancho Cordova, Lundquist said.
He said real estate agents would absolutely list an elevator feature as a marketing point.
“I have seen people install chairs on the stairs in order to ride up to the next level, but I’m not sure I’ve seen an elevator installed before,” he said. “That would be an enormous cost. Granted, I’m sure somebody has done this.”
California is one of a Florida elevator company’s most active markets.
Pneumatic Vacuum Elevators (PVE) opened its first factory in Miami, Florida, in 2002, according to its website. Since then, it has grown to over 250 distributors worldwide, installing over 9,000 units in over 65 countries by 2016, its website said.
Patrick De Ledebur manages PVE’s sales and marketing. He said homeowners globally are looking to age in place.
“Advancements in modern medicine are allowing people to live longer than ever before and more people wish to remain in the comforts of their home,” De Ledebur said.
He said one of PVE’s upcoming Sacramento-area home elevator installations is in the Greenhaven neighborhood.
Each elevator produced is custom built and its cost can vary, De Ledebur said. The company’s website offers a variety of models, one of the cheapest being “The Cube,” whose manufacturer suggested retail price stands at $31,500.
“Similar to cars, there are a vast amount of home elevator and home lift technologies that all offer their own benefits and features,” he said.
Other home elevator companies serving the Sacramento area include Hankin Specialty Elevators Inc. and Stannah Acme Home Elevators.
Lundquist said he finds most builders try to be sensitive to the desire to age in place and design a primary bedroom and bathroom downstairs without implementing an elevator.
Sometimes buyers will target a single-story home with the intention of aging there, though this isn’t necessarily on the mind of younger first-time buyers, he said.
“I suspect many people would move before trying to install an elevator,” Lundquist said. “That can be a huge expense and there may not be room to do that structurally anyway.”
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