When it comes to making money off of a property you own, people usually go one of two ways. They can fix up the place until it’s sparking new and then sell it for a profit. Or they choose to rent it out, allowing people to take tenancy agreements one after the other. This will bring in a stream of revenue continuously for years and years. We’ve looked into how to make a rental feel like home when you first move in, but let’s tip the scale here. Let’s look into making sure someone can make the property you’ve rented to them feel like home. Here are a few tips on preparing your property for rent.
Preparing Your Property For Rent
Find an Agent
If you’re reading this post, there’s a good chance you’ve never tried renting out something you own before. Thus the first recommendation is to find someone convenient and brilliant for you. And that means, if you’re going to rent something out, you’re going to need a leasing agent. They’ll take care of the legal side of things, and make sure any tenancy agreements go off without a hitch.
Unless you’re absolutely sure about preparing your property for rent entirely by yourself, this is the best course of action. No one is completely capable on their own after all! Whoever it is that’s going to lease out your property needs to be local. They need to be someone who can help you throughout the entire process. Someone who knows the standard rent prices in the area, and what the value of your property is to someone willing to live in it.
You can find leasing agents both off and online. Do your research before settling on any one of them. Once you’ve hired their services, you can have all the hassle of the property in question off of your hands. You will only have to input confirmations when necessary.
Draw Up an Agreement Right For You
If you’ve got a leasing agent, they’ll draw this agreement automatically. They will outline all the standard terms of a tenancy contract. However, there’s nothing to say you have to agree with every line of this structure. If you have your own needs within the tenancy agreement, make sure you state them.
Maybe you can only do a 3-month tenancy before you need the property back. It’s not good if you leave the agreement on a 12-month structure! You want the right kind of people applying to your listing after all. And they need to be the kind of people who want the same terms.
Take a vacation apartment listing site as a good example here. There’s plenty of clauses which state there are only a few months inside the year in which someone can rent. The owner needs the house the rest of the time! You might want to check out this Buy-to-let page in their website for the right details. But when it comes to drawing up a tenancy agreement that suits you and anyone walking through your door, you always need to take into account your living situation. Don’t stick with the standard if it doesn’t suit you.
Clear Signs of Previous Occupants
If the house you’re thinking about leasing out is full of mementos and personality from either you or someone you bought the house from, you’re going to need to clear it out. When it comes to people wanting to rent a place, they need to know they can put their own mark on the building. They must be allowed to see their own taste around them. This is an important step in preparing your property for rent.
It’s a bit of extra work, but boxing up everything that might interrupt this atmosphere will be worth it. You can leave the biggest pieces of furniture, as long as it’s stated in the contract these can be used by the tenant. Keep everything else in storage. Might be a good time to declutter and downsize. You can make a bit of extra money selling off anything you don’t need! If you’re planning on having one tenant after another before you move in or use the place, this is a good long-term solution to avoid the hassle.
Set The Interior Design
Then turn to the interior design, and how colorful or neutral it is. If the walls and floors of your rental property are packing an impactful punch, it’d be a good idea to change this style. Simply buy some paint from the DIY store in a neutral tone. White is always the safest. Paint your walls and change the carpets if you can. Any investment you make in these small doses are going to pay off within a couple of months of having a tenant. This way, it’s also a lot easier to change the walls again between tenants if any cracks or marks have appeared.
Your floors would also benefit from being of a hardwood variety, as these are the easiest to clean and withstand the most wear and tear of any other material. They can also be easily fixed with a bit of sanding down and nailing in a loose board.
Clean Up Properly
Now that you’ve got all of the interior decorating out of the way, make sure the place is clean as well. When you have to impress people with a brand new rental property, and you need to set a standard to the market as well as have the hope of taking on future tenants beyond your first one, a deep and thorough clean is essential. This is a very important part of preparing your property for rent.
When it comes to satisfying the needs of people on the real estate market, it’s impossible to serve all types of people at once. But there is one rule that everyone likes to see in any potential property they could move into. It has to be clean and tidy. From the smallest of marks on the counter to an entire cracked wall or dusty sitting room, anything could turn a renter off of your property.
Depending on how you rate your home maintenance skills, this deep clean could be one you do yourself or hire a team of people for. Either way, making sure no corner is missed is going to make you a lot more attractive to any prospective tenants. Be a responsible landlord, and the property will have a sense of advertising itself!
Get Some Insurance
House insurance, by its very nature, makes sure you’ve got protection on your property and anything in it. So if you’re renting out to someone you don’t know, who wants to stay in your rooms for a few months whilst you’re away you’re going to need insurance.
Landlord’s insurance is best for these purposes, as home insurance won’t typically cover everything you’re going to need to get covered! Things are more likely to get damaged in a house you’re not living in, and paying for any consecutive repairs is something only landlord’s insurance can cover.
It also covers against any natural disasters and natural property damage, like that of subsidence. When you’re not around to keep an eye on these matters, it’s going to take a lot more out of your pocket to deal with them. And that’s not something you want to deal with when you’re making a life of it overseas or enjoying life on your homestead!
Get Everything Serviced
Every kind of system that exists on your property needs to be properly serviced while your preparing your property for rent. This makes sure you’re not leading any tenant into a faulty agreement, whether by choice or by accident. If something breaks down, a recent service report can help to prove whether it was your fault or not as the landlord, or on the part of the tenant. And that can make the cost so much cheaper on your pocket!
Make sure your central heating system and/or the boiler is working properly. Make sure that there are no leaks or blockages. At the same time, make sure all the electrical wiring is perfectly up to standard, and not likely to cause a fire or power outage after power outage. Is the water in your rental property running just fine, heating up when need be? If something doesn’t work, you can be sure a tenant is going to let you know about it. You don’t want to be dealing with that hassle when it could have been easily fixed beforehand!
Now You Know How to Prepare!
This isn’t an exhaustive list by any means, and if you see a gap in your property you know needs to be filled before renting it, be sure to do so! You can never be too safe with something you’ve sunk a lot of money into, especially if you want to come back at some point and live in the property yourself! Keep these points in mind when you are preparing your property for rent.
The main points remain the same. Get an agent, get a good agreement, clean up, and then ship out.
Have you prepared your property for being a rental for additional income? Please add any suggestion that my readers may find helpful in the comment box below.
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