To Over-Do or To Under-Do? - That Is The Real Estate Investment Question
June 17th, 2008 by Mike Farmer | 16 Comments | Filed in Landlord TenantI guess it’s a philosophical difference. I know several investors who have a bare-bones approach to getting rentals ready and maintaining them. I see their point because they are looking at it as a revenue generating object. Maintain just enough to protect the object and the investment.
On the other hand, I tend to go in the other direction and perhaps do too much to get a property ready and maintain it. But here’s the deal: my philosophy is to increase value and attract better tenants and keep them satisfied.
I don’t know if I’m right, but there is method to my fix-up madness. I want to attract a tenant who will be pleased with the house. I also have this idealistic notion that people will take better care of the property if they see I care about the property. Okay, you can quit snickering now.
Here is a list of reasons why I go a little overboard on fix-up and maintenance.
- I want the tenant to know that I care about the property and that it means something to me.
- I want the tenant to be proud of where they live.
- I want the property to be much more valuable when I sell it than when I bought it.
- I want to get a reputation of renting good homes in good condition and keeping them maintained.
- I want to be respected as a landlord and attract tenants through word of mouth.
- To minimize turnover and vacancy.
However, I do see that doing too much can negatively affect return on investment, so I have learned from other investors how to be frugal and not throw money away on vanity and a overdeveloped sense of aesthetics. Like everything else, I guess it’s about balance, but I tend to go more in the direction of doing more rather than less in hopes of getting a better return in the long run. Naive? What are you, and over-doer or an under-doer?
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Not too long ago I went to a neighboring town to check out an investment possibility for an investor I work with - rental subdivisions. The owner had built these homes in a college town 15 years ago and they were all basically the same style, cottages — some 2/2, some 3/2, 1400 sq ft and 1600 sq ft, respectively. This particular deal didn’t work out because the owner wasn’t budging on price and the numbers didn’t quite work out — I think he was basically satisfied to sell them one by one unless he could get his price for all of them, but it got me to thinking.
























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