Remodeling the interior of a home seems a lot more stressful than the outside did. The inside of a home is what the tenant will see on a daily basis and at close quarters. So in an attempt to do things right, I was forced to take my time and in a few cases, hire out for help.
The carpet is usually the first thing to go in any rental property. If you plan on renting property, my advice to you is to get rid of the carpet asap! Otherwise you will likely be replacing it every time a new moves in. I have some low end rental properties and I have some high end ones. Location makes a big weighing on how much money you should spend on a quick remodel. My lower end homes see vinyl tile and formica countertops, while my higher end homes see ceramic tile and granite countertops.
I always paint between renters and have even offered a discount to renters who are willing to paint the inside of the home themselves. I try my hardest to give people back their deposit, but I can only do so much if its obvious that the tenant did not care about the property. I have a systems check that I do for every home and I always video tape my first walk through after a tenant is gone, and before another tenant rents the house.
I recently bought a cabin in the hill country that over looks the supai river and the view is gorgeous from the back deck. Since it gets so cold there in the winters and I wanted people to be able to see that view at any given time of the day or season, I added high grade exterior french doors with 12 panel windows that allow for viewing from inside the home at any time. I paid to have them installed as it is not an easy task.
I do as little as I have to but do as much as I can. Your tenants are only as happy as the home they are presented with. Show them that you care about your property and they will usually show the same concern in return. There are good renters out there, and by being a good land lord you would be surprised how many tenants will be referred to you. Be fair, and honest and stay on top of your properties and you will see a nice return in a short period of time.
The four plex that I bought was a little run down as I mentioned earlier, and really was in need of an exterior face lift. Paint is the easiest way to really make a place look nice, especially when we are talking about curb side appeal. Paint will only do so much, so replacing window and door trim needed to be done along with replacing several soffit pieces and repairing some of the siding.
Replacing the soffit was a real task because of the fact that the building is 2 stories and it was very difficult to reach them. The house was originally built in the 40’s and the siding of choice for them was cedar. The cedar siding is strong and looks good, but for me personally i prefer a kind of cement board siding. In the few places where the the cedar siding needed to be replaced, I was able to use hardiplank in its place that was textured to resemble the cedar exactly. Once it was all painted you could even tell the difference. If you want to do some more reading on hardie siding, I found some good information at home owners resource guide.
The four plex has a nice covered entrance patio, that was plain concrete, well actually it was painted concrete and it was peeling. I scraped the paint as best I could and laid down a nice slate tile. From there I moved to yard and simply watered the grass every morning that I was there working. In a just a week or so the grass started to green, and I added a small flower bed along the front of the building to give it some color, and a couple bushes in front of the downstairs windows for a little privacy.
The drivesway was in great shape, and so was the car port in the year of the apartments. Didnt take too much work to sweep the carport clean and paint the roof trim work and the sides of it. The roof was in good condition and should last me several more years before it needs to be redone.
Some of the exterior plumbing clean outs needed to be replaced, but I can touch on those in another posting for another day….Thanks for checking back.
The economy is really making tough work of figuring out the best places to invest our hard earned money. I prefer to invest where I will see the best and highest return, but its hard right now because of the risks involved.
Ive decided recently that investing my money in real estate would be the way I would risk my money. I feel that the risk is low enough and I would most likely allways be able to at the very least get my money out of my investment. I decided a four plex would be the way to go, and so far so good.
I found a semi run down, 4 plex that was empty. I was glad it had no tennants because this gave me an easy oppurtunity to fix up the apartments one by one without having to kick anyone out. As I fixed up one, I put it on the market for rent, letting the tennant know that they would receive a discount on their rent until the renovation was complete. I felt bad for them cause the noise was loud pretty much from 8-5 or so every day. They didnt seem to mind and enjoyed the cheaper rent.
So with my blog here, I plan to kind of talk my way through the basic restoration or remodel involved for each apartment. They will pretty much all be identical, so I guess Ill only explain everything as a whole instead of each unit individually. Real estate has proven to be a great way for me to invest my money, as Apposed to investing on the stock market with high yield bond funds or online stock trades, which I have invested in, in the past. I now have several rental properties and have even flipped a home from start to finish.
I did manual labor my entire life, starting with mowing yards and landscaping to laying tile and remodeling homes. I have even built the home I am currently living in from the ground up. I didnt hire one contractor, but I guess its a good thing to have friends who can step in and give a hand once in a while. Thanks for stopping by and feel free to ask questions or post comments as I enjoy reading what you may have to say in responce to how I am getting things accomplished.
