IMPROVE YOUR RENTAL

We Tell You How to Improve Your Rental!

Tenants today expect a nice clean and tidy property, which is easy care and not a lot of gardens.

Top 10 to improve your property and achieve great tenants and top rents.

1. Neat street appeal with easy care gardens, mulched gardens to improve soil and water retention, gutters in good condition
2. Alarm - this does not need to be a monitored alarm as a lot of tenants don't want to pay for the monitoring, just a normal alarm you can get one of these fitted for $1000/1400
3. Air conditioning - tenants want some type of air conditioning from split system in the 3 x 2 villas to ducted or reverse cycle in a large house (or even 3 or 4 split systems work well in the large houses ) The benefit with split air conditioners are they are heating and cooling and if have 2 in a property or more if one breaks down there is another to use. Today owners will get a lower rent if they don't have this, as tenants will keep looking
4. Good size bedrooms - we are finding more and more as rents are getting dearer people are sharing a property and are wanting at least 2 bedrooms to take queen size beds.
5. Dishwasher - we seem to find that a lot of people want the dishwasher as people are thinking this is more a must these days
6. Security door on the front door, people are getting more afraid to opening the front door with all the home attaches these day, this way people can open the door and have a locked security door between them and the person outside.
7. Tiled/timber floors throughout and just the bedrooms carpets and the lounge/theatre
8. Alfesco area or patio with our hot summers people want to sit out in the shade
9. Gardens to be reticulated and not very big, tenants don't want to have to pay $600+ water bill it is getting, to where as owners if you have big gardens and high bills, we as owners need to be paying some towards keeping the gardens looking good. Years ago in the nineties when I first started property management in Perth, owners would pay 25% towards the water in the summer period to help maintain the gardens. It is said about 40/60% of water is used on the average size gardens
10. Double garage - tenants like the security it brings as they can press the button, drive in close the door and then get out of the car and usually straight into the house.

When you have an investment for a while we forget that properties get tired, as we are not living in them.

In rentals with change of tenants more often than one usually has in owner occupiers a property has more wear and tear.

The majority of people including the courts will agree that you need to look at painting throughout every 5/7 years and I agree as this freshens it up and helps to keep achieving a good rent.

Carpets need to be replaced when they are looking worn and not leave it to they get tread bare. Carpets that have traffic wear and staining is not appealing . If you have a property which is tired and looking shabby you are going to get the same type of tenant and if it has stained carpet, peeling paint, mould, old oven with knobs off it is not going to attract a great tenant who takes pride in the property and treats it like their own.

Outside the gutters need to be in good condition not rusted out and falling off, they need to be painted to maintain them, if not colourbond and the eaves also when looking stained and mouldy they should be given a coat of paint.

Ovens and hotplates need to be in good working order, as they get older it is cheaper to replace then keep getting repaired.

Remember all repairs are tax deductible on your rental property.

If you need any further information please email me on susan@consolidatedpm.com.au