What materials would you use to improve a rental property?
Hickory Hills, IL · Member since 2018 · 29 posts · 7 votes
Hey everyone,
I wanted to see what recommendations the BP community has when it comes to rehabbing a property in preparation for it to be rented.
1. What kind of material would you use that is ideal (low cost, durable, etc.)?
2. Any strategies? For example, putting laminate flooring over hardwood floor for preservation prior to selling the property.
3. Any other tips/tricks/ideas?
Happy Holidays!
Here's a shortlist of what we do for SFR and small multifamily ranging between $650-$1400 in rent:
1. Solid hardwood or tile. Vinyl in all its many forms is the next best alternative. Get rid of carpet wherever you find it. Put in rugs in cold areas. Laminate will not take real tenant abuse.
2. Beautiful interior wood trim has no place in cheap rentals. Resign yourself to covering it in primer and paint.
3. Flat wall finishes hide imperfections best, semi-gloss for trim works best. Bathrooms and kitchens get painted in satin. Cheap paint fades and can't be touched up, expensive paint can take heavy-duty cleaning and repeated touching up, white is the only acceptable color for ceilings in interior residential painting.
4. Blinds on every window unless it's big enough to require curtains, and if it's big enough to require curtains, it's big enough to require inner and outer curtains.
5. A cheap, old furnace is guaranteed to screw you at the worst possible time. Put in Trane or American Standard if you can find any way to afford it.
6. @James Wise is absolute correct in my area as well when it comes to entry door handles. Defiant deadbolts are ten bucks a pop. That's your replacement cost if things go wrong. And you have to lock them with the key from the outside, so you avoid all Oops-I-locked-my-keys-inside-again" stupidities.
7. I disagree with @Dennis M. about smoke and carbon monoxide detectors. I like the cheap battery-operated ones that need to be switched out regularly. The reason is that it gives you a great excuse to do biannual inspections throughout the house -- ten bucks in batteries gives you trouble-free access throughout the house to check out what the tenant's been doing to your property...you're not poking your nose in their business, really, you're just switching out the batteries. Can't be helped...
8. In the same vein: do not provide tenants with furnace filters and expect them to switch them out. You go in to do the switching ever three months. Another problem-free excuse for an abbreviated inspection.
9. I am a huge fan of shower towers in the bathrooms even in cheap rentals. The ones I use are around 200 bucks. Once you get them in, you'll never need an expensive service call for a plumber or tech for any sort of shower/spigot-related issues. A minimally-competent handyman can go in and replace the whole shebang. And the tenants go bonkers over them.
Hey everyone,
I wanted to see what recommendations the BP community has when it comes to rehabbing a property in preparation for it to be rented.
1. What kind of material would you use that is ideal (low cost, durable, etc.)?
2. Any strategies? For example, putting laminate flooring over hardwood floor for preservation prior to selling the property.
3. Any other tips/tricks/ideas?
Happy Holidays!
Here are a few tips for your make ready renovation.
Make sure you have door stoppers in every bedroom, it will save you from having to repair holes in the wall when turning a unit over. Additionally, when you buy a property and are renovating it, be sure to replace all the old outlet/switch covers with brand new white ones (especially if you are painting) - it is a simple but effective thing you can do to make a unit look more aesthetically pleasing.
Here's a shortlist of what we do for SFR and small multifamily ranging between $650-$1400 in rent:
1. Solid hardwood or tile. Vinyl in all its many forms is the next best alternative. Get rid of carpet wherever you find it. Put in rugs in cold areas. Laminate will not take real tenant abuse.
2. Beautiful interior wood trim has no place in cheap rentals. Resign yourself to covering it in primer and paint.
3. Flat wall finishes hide imperfections best, semi-gloss for trim works best. Bathrooms and kitchens get painted in satin. Cheap paint fades and can't be touched up, expensive paint can take heavy-duty cleaning and repeated touching up, white is the only acceptable color for ceilings in interior residential painting.
4. Blinds on every window unless it's big enough to require curtains, and if it's big enough to require curtains, it's big enough to require inner and outer curtains.
5. A cheap, old furnace is guaranteed to screw you at the worst possible time. Put in Trane or American Standard if you can find any way to afford it.
6. @James Wise is absolute correct in my area as well when it comes to entry door handles. Defiant deadbolts are ten bucks a pop. That's your replacement cost if things go wrong. And you have to lock them with the key from the outside, so you avoid all Oops-I-locked-my-keys-inside-again" stupidities.
7. I disagree with @Dennis M. about smoke and carbon monoxide detectors. I like the cheap battery-operated ones that need to be switched out regularly. The reason is that it gives you a great excuse to do biannual inspections throughout the house -- ten bucks in batteries gives you trouble-free access throughout the house to check out what the tenant's been doing to your property...you're not poking your nose in their business, really, you're just switching out the batteries. Can't be helped...
8. In the same vein: do not provide tenants with furnace filters and expect them to switch them out. You go in to do the switching ever three months. Another problem-free excuse for an abbreviated inspection.
9. I am a huge fan of shower towers in the bathrooms even in cheap rentals. The ones I use are around 200 bucks. Once you get them in, you'll never need an expensive service call for a plumber or tech for any sort of shower/spigot-related issues. A minimally-competent handyman can go in and replace the whole shebang. And the tenants go bonkers over them.
Vinyl plank flooring in the kitchens and baths. If the hardwood floors are decent I refinish them, if not, more vinyl plank! No carpet!
Sherwin Williams Super paint in satin on the walls, Pro Classic Semi gloss on the trim and doors. Pick a color and stick with it for all properties.
Bathroom gets a simple shower surround and a good bath fan.
Good luck.
How would the shower tower be cheaper than a traditional faucet head?
I'm still an armchair investor so I have no experience with this yet
It isn't cheaper in terms of materials. Like I said, the shower towers I use go for $200. You can buy a showerhead for $2. Where you save with the shower towers is on long-term maintenance costs and your biggest real benefit is tenant satisfaction.
There is a significant amount of labor-intensive behind-the-wall plumbing in a traditional shower setup, and that plumbing has a finite lifespan. When it goes bad, specifically the mixing valve and its connections, replacing it with equivalent plumbing has become more and more expensive in both labor and materials. Most notably, to do it legally in many places, a licensed plumber has to go at it and you will also need a series of plumbing inspections. A shower tower bypasses all that plumbing and moves it OUTSIDE, to the front of the wall. Two flexible screw-on leads go into a hole in the wall. You turn off the water, pull the tower off the wall, unscrew the leads, flush the system, connect the new tower, and hang it back on the same brackets. This makes replacing the entire shower tower about as easy as replacing a washing machine, and it can legally be done by you or a handyman you're paying $15-$20/hour for, not a plumber sucking you dry at $100 per.
The different in long-term labor costs will really add up over the decades, especially if you invest in durable tile shower surrounds for your rentals, which we do -- you don't have to repair, replace, or cover over the surrounds after the plumber gets done cutting into them to get at or even just to check problems in the many soldered or crimped connections behind the wall in a traditional setup. There's one hot line and one cold line behind the wall and that's it.
This is what a Delta MultiChoice, perhaps the most common shower behind-the-wall rough-in valve used today, looks like in a copper shower setup. with lines running down from above and air chambers to mitigate water hammer. There are 13 soldered connections here. Any of them might go bad one day.
This is what the worse Moen tub/shower valve setup I've ever seen looked like. This started knocking heavily in a tract-built home built in the 1970s, and no wonder. I've removed the (unsupported) tub spout and drop ear setup in this picture. There were originally 22 soldered connections here in this spaghetti mess, right next to the electrical cables running up the wall.
But the maintenance savings and reliability improvements are not really the main benefit of a shower tower. Once you get a shower tower in a tenant's bathroom with eight massaging jets, temperature display, a raincan and a handshower, all those pretty bells and whistles, you start raising the rent every year. And every time the tenant has to justify leaving in her mind, it means leaving her beautiful, beautiful shower tower for what she'll get elsewhere, and what she'll get elsewhere will look decidedly unappealing.
@Brandon Abbott Will be able to help with this one.
I would refinish cabinets and counters instead of replacing. I would do the same for shower surrounds and tubs. I think carpet is gross as do most of my renters so every shred of carpet is usually removed. I use a beige paint on all my units, the exact same beige paint so touch ups are easy to match. Swiss Coffee for ceilings and trim. I try to make things nicer so I opt for used stainless or used white appliances.
I would refinish cabinets and counters instead of replacing. I would do the same for shower surrounds and tubs. I think carpet is gross as do most of my renters so every shred of carpet is usually removed. I use a beige paint on all my units, the exact same beige paint so touch ups are easy to match. Swiss Coffee for ceilings and trim. I try to make things nicer so I opt for used stainless or used white appliances.
If you need to replace exterior doors, use fiberglass instead of steel. Those steel doors always end up covered with dents and look terrible.
I know a lot of people don’t like it, but wood paneling holds up to wear so much better than drywall. I’m about to experiment with using LP smartside panels in one of my rentals.
I prefer ceramic tile or vinyl sheet flooring. The problem with any type of floating floor like laminate is if there’s a water spill it will stay wet underneath until it’s all pulled up.
I enjoyed reading the tips above. Below is my contribution
Create Standards. Use the same products throughout.
Use one color for all rentals. I use Navajo white on walls, eggshell.
Trim and baths are white semigloss
No ceiling paint, use only primer. It saves you $.
Use the same tile for walls and floors of doing a bath. Only use that tile in your rentals.
10 year sealed smoke and CO detectors. It's life safety! I date them with sharpies. You can buy 10 year batteries, too.
Hardwood Floors. Synteko.
Waterproof vinyl flooring and tile are fine. I don't use carpet
Locks. No batteries. Use SmartKey devices. They will pay for themselves after the first turnover.
Lights. Led, 15 year without changing lightbulbs.
Led photovoltaic exterior sensor lights.
I had bought used kitchens and countertops. It's matter of luck and timing. I've paid$800 for 20k in high end (10 year old) cabinets/ countertops
If keeping toilets, change the guts and buy them a plunger!
Put plastic tile underneath the kitchen sink. It will protect the cabinet.
Provide pedestal sinks in bath, no cabinets. It will not rot.
Have a master key in the property at all times. Put in lockbox. This will save you a trip to give access to contractors and when tenants lock themselves out.
Good luck,
Frank
This is good stuff. Thank you.
1. Any specific style/brand of countertops, cabinets, appliances, interior doors?
2. Refacing cabinets (new doors) vs. replacing cabinets?
3. Tile or no tile shower?
2. Any tips for the exterior (landscaping, paint, common areas, storage, security products, etc.)
Mike Sz.
Andy
This is good stuff. Thank you.
1. Any specific style/brand of countertops, cabinets, appliances, interior doors?
2. Refacing cabinets (new doors) vs. replacing cabinets?
3. Tile or no tile shower?
2. Any tips for the exterior (landscaping, paint, common areas, storage, security products, etc.)
Mike Sz.
I'm a self-managing, local DIY landlord working at small scale in low-income SFR in one of the best cash-flow neighborhoods in one of the best cash-flow cities in the USA. There's very little I hire out, and I see my business getting to perhaps 20 doors before I move into a more passive business model. Please keep that in mind reading these responses -- where I live and operate, DIY pays very handsomely and is a powerful way to generate passive income streams. This is not how much of the rest of the US regularly works, although there are outfits like mine finding ways to make it work in every city in this country.
1. I've had more general luck with the Whirlpool family of new appliances, not so much luck with GE, your mileage may vary, and anything goes with stuff you get from scratch-and-dent outfits.
2. Almost all "custom" cabinetmakers buy doors from online suppliers rather than make them. I do more than a little dabbling in woodworking and it's obvious why. It's too much work to make even simple cabinet doors.
3. I do my own tile work. The difference between a 50-year tile job and a 5-year tile job is really the skill level and knowledge base of the tile guy. This wild difference in quality in tile work solely based on the human factor is unreasonable compared to pretty much every other task of residential renovation. At this stage, I have very little trust in the skills of most people who do tile. When I switch to hiring people to do shower surrounds for me, I won't be paying for tile.
4. I've only implemented it on one property so far, but a sloping concrete walkway surrounding a building is a powerful tool for reducing rain-related foundation water infiltration. If you do surround a property in this matter, you should put your by-the-house bushes and greenery in wood planters made out of dimensional lumber, wood baskets, and large plastic stone-look pots. Be prepared for the plastic pots to crack and fall apart over time. You can use large glazed terra cotta pots and concrete planters but that gets prohibitively expensive.
- Home Depot sells prefabricated laminate countertops that might work for you. I have used them on some properties. I’ve also made my own, they are pretty simple to make a nice looking countertop. I also use a local countertop fabrication company when I have a weird layout or pressed for time.
- cabinets I have bought from a local company and Home Depot. For my properties I put cabinets in that are well built and will hold up to tenants.
- appliances I usually buy used for my rentals or a scratch and dent store.
- interior doors I buy from Home Depot, you may try Re-store if you have one.
- Cabinets, I have only completely replaced 1 whole kitchen with new cabinets because I totally changed the layout of the kitchen. The other properties I have made my own doors and drawers to fix what was at the property. I also have painted the cabinets. The old (1940’s) built in place cabinets are really well built. You can buy new doors and drawers online if you can not make them yourself. (It’s not that hard, google and YouTube are your friend) cabinets can get expensive quick.
-I put tub surrounds in on my properties, always the same. (All my rentals look the same) For me the tile is not worth it, the tub surround is $100.00 and pretty durable and easy to replace.
- I usually rip out all old and overgrown landscaping, plant with new easy to care for plants and mulch.
- paint I use Sherwin Williams
- i don’t add any extra storage, the garage should be fine.
Do you folks usually supply things like blinds for the windows? Have you found a certain type works best in rentals? I saw one person mention motorized blinds in a blog post but that feels excessive... but maybe it isn't?
What about people that pay utilities on your units... do you have digital thermostats with a floor and ceiling for temps?