Normal Wear And Tear Of An Investment Property
Unless you happen to obtain the rare occupant that plans to stay in your rental long-term, you’re looking at a lot of transitioning. Residents come and go. Many different lifestyles may be lived in your rental during a single year.
A rental receives a lot of wear and tear in key areas. These include:
- The bathroom
- The kitchen
- The living room
Implementing the right renovation strategies for these areas can help ensure your investment property lasts longer, looks great, and is enticing to future renters.
You can make property management easy by following these three tips on renovating your rental.
1. Don’t Use Carpet
Many rental owners love to put carpet into their units. While carpet may have been desired in the ’80s and ’90s, it’s less so the case now. Renters like the fresh feel of hardwood floors beneath their feet. The perk of that for property management is that they’re also easier to maintain.
Some property owners may think that using hard flooring is too expensive. This isn’t the case. There are several types of hard flooring, like vinyl plank, that look great and are relatively inexpensive.
All you need to do to maintain them is to give them the occasional polyurethane treatment.
Hardwood floors also mean that the occurrence of bed bugs is less likely. Carpet fibers trap bed bugs and other small pests. Avoid costly carpet removal between each resident and invest in a good hard floor instead.
2. Paint
A rental unit should always have a fresh coat of paint between renters. It makes the unit look new and bright. One mistake that many managers make is that they use different paint colors for different units. While the idea of breaking up the units may be nice, it isn’t feasible in practice.
It can become difficult to know what paint color was used where and how much it cost. By sticking with just a single color for every unit, you never have to worry about remembering a dozen different colors. It’s also more cost-friendly since you can invest in a single paint color and buy it in stock.
3. Locks
Finally, another serious cost that property managers have to deal with is changing their locks. Any time a renter leaves, you have to change the locks. This ensures the safety of your new renter and the unit as a whole. Yet changing locks frequently can quickly become costly.
Luckily, there are several methods that can make changing locks cheaper. One example might be to use a locking system that uses a master lock. No matter how many times you change the lock, you always have a key to unlock it.
Another might be to go electronic. Giving your renters a code will allow them to enter their unit. You simply change the code any time they move out.
Renovate The Right Way
These tips can help you manage your property in a focused way. Try them today.