Anyone renovate while unit is occupied?
I've been lucky in that all my previous condos were bought vacant which allowed me to get in and renovate and change our wear items which gives me long term peace of mind. I bought a quad last November which was fully rented with long term (3+ years) tenants who all want to stay as they see me as more proactive than their previous landlord.
A few of the units look to have original kitchens (circa 1950's) but tile floors that were redone in the 90's (with some hideous grey pattern that reminds me of the set of the Golden Girls). For the most part it seems that some simple repairs and small updates would keep these places running except one unit.
This unit was not touched in a while and it is the largest in the building. The current tenants moved from another unit to this one with no repairs being made in between as they needed more room.The kitchen cabinets are starting to give up the ghost and the floors have a large amount of cracked tiles. I'm looking at the cabinets and thinking I can pull them out and just replace them with some store bought ones with a new counter pretty easily. I've only really seen that done though when the floor was redone before though.
Given that these tenants are very low maintenance and want to stay I'd like to figure out a way to start updating these units to force some appreciation. The tenants in this unit have said they will be traveling a bit during the summer so I can have access to the unit to do what needs to be done.
How would you guys suggest I tackle this problem? Replace the cabinets now, find some generic tiles to replace the cracked ones before they break and have sharp edges? Or bite the bullet, roll up a POD and have the unit cleared and re-tiled and replace the kitchen while the family is traveling?
Very interested in other ideas.