How to Attract Better Tenants: Top 5 Renovations
Renting is a great way to build a profitable business for yourself and expand your portfolio to include multiple properties. To ensure your rental properties succeed and you don’t miss mortgage payments, it’s crucial you find good tenants.
Attracting good tenants to your rental property maximizes your return on investment (ROI) and makes running a development easy. One of the best ways to find good tenants (and keep them around) is to invest in the property so it’s a pleasant place to live.
Keep reading to learn how to attract good tenants and which renovations offer the best ROI.
Refresh Paintwork
Nothing brings a breath of fresh air into a rental like a new paint job. While it’s a small (and inexpensive) change to make, a brighter, cleaner space can attract potential tenants.
Nobody likes moving into a place that looks like it has just been vacated by someone else a day prior. If there are signs that someone used to live in the apartment that are very apparent (like scrapes and scuff marks on the wall), you’re going to struggle to justify the rent.
If you’re looking for a good price for your property, you’ll definitely struggle to find good tenants. Most millennial tenants want to move into a house or apartment that looks new, fresh, and clean – ready for them to move in.
Therefore, one of the best ways to attract good tenants is to repaint the interior. You can’t go wrong with a neutral color scheme. Soft colors serve as a good foundation for all other décor elements and allow plenty of natural light into the space (which is another selling point of a property).
Replace Poor Finishings
Some of the best tenants have a very keen eye. They know what to look for in a rental and they know what they want. So, they will likely go through the rental with a fine-tooth comb until they are satisfied with what you’re offering.
With that in mind, there can be no room for mistakes on your end. Focusing on the details is a big improvement that can have a grand impact on the look and feel of the space. After all, it’s often the details that create a perfectly staged home, and they make a rental pop in the eyes of the tenants.
Start by cleaning the space from top to bottom to make everything look new. Next, replace and upgrade the hardware around the interior, install new faucets and a new showerhead, replace the shower curtain, update the cabinetry, fix the shelves and the drawers, and so on.
Focusing on these small repairs leaves tenants with a good first impression and elevates the value of your property.
Invest in the Kitchen & Energy Efficiency
The kitchen is, without a doubt, the room that potential tenants focus on the most. All other rooms are important, especially the quality of the bathroom. But the kitchen is the space where most of the action takes place. So, it needs to look good, be fully functional, and, ideally, run as efficiently as possible.
Focus on upgrading kitchen appliances to maximize the overall energy efficiency of the kitchen as a priority. This is particularly important to millennial tenants. For example, upgrade the old stove to a more energy-efficient gas burner to help lower the living costs. Or install a smarter refrigerator, an energy-efficient dishwasher, and smarter kitchen accessories overall.
If the kitchen is efficient and well-presenting, good tenants will know that living in the property is affordable and pleasant day-to-day. This is key for attracting good tenants that stick around.
Freshen Up the Exterior
If you’re renting an apartment in a building complex, there’s not much you can do to spruce up the exterior without the tenants’ association on your side.
However, if you own and control the exterior of the property, say a house, then you definitely need to include exterior renovation and remodeling in your plan to attract good tenants. This is because you can’t attract the best tenants if the quality of the exterior doesn’t match what’s on the inside.
One of the best improvements you can make is to upgrade the landscaping with creative, budget-friendly ideas and focus on creating a beautiful oasis full of peace and privacy. Tenants love their privacy, and since it’s becoming increasingly difficult to get these days, they’ll gladly pay for it.
Optimize & Scale Lighting
Lastly, make sure that the interior lighting is on point. The lighting scheme in your rental can make all the difference to a potential tenant. It has the power to shape the look and feel of every room.
Therefore, use curtains and blinds wisely and try to get as much natural light in as possible. For those hard-to-reach spots, use mirrors to bounce light through the space. For artificial lighting, be sure to use a combination of general overhead lighting with task and accent lights.
To attract even better tenants, consider investing in smart home technology, too. For example, you can install a programmable light switch in every room so the tenant can scale the lighting scheme for every occasion.
Conclusion
Attracting good tenants requires investment in the property. If you want to find good tenants and keep them around, you need to show them that your property is worth their while.
Remember, you don’t need to invest in expensive, cumbersome renovations to attract the best tenants. Many of these changes are happily affordable and don’t require significant time or financial investment.
However, they can make a big impact on potential tenants (especially good ones) and can encourage them to sign a lease on your home.
Are you looking to invest in a new rental property in Philadelphia or San Diego? Brotherly Love Real Estate are your local property experts. We buy and sell houses quickly for cash. To learn more, contact us online today or call our expert team of real estate agents at (215) 769-9875.
About the author: Mike Johnston is an experienced writer, blogger, and editor. He’s a regular contributor to numerous online publications where he writes about real estate, construction, home improvement, and interior design.