4 Ways to Prep Your Older Rental Home for New Tenants
Posted on: 20 June 2017
Although tenants understand that most homes they consider renting have been resided in beforehand, they don't expect to move into a place that shows signs of wear and tear and has obviously seen better days. They want a clean place to move into that they can make their own with little effort. If you want to rent your older home out, you'll need to clean and prep it to give it new life. Here's what you can do to make prepping your older rental home for new tenants easier and less stressful:
Secure Some Scaffolding
One of the hardest jobs of updating an older home to give it a fresh, newer look is cleaning and making repairs to the exterior of the structure. Cleaning gutters, repairing a roof tile or shingle, and painting the trim typically involves moving a ladder around, climbing up and down to exchange tools, and risking the chance of injury at every step.
So, consider renting some scaffolding to set up along the exterior of your rental home to make repairs, cleaning, and upgrades easier and safer overall. You won't have to worry about moving a heavy ladder around when switching project locations. And you'll be able to keep all the tools and accessories you need easily accessible on the scaffolding with you—which makes the need to climb up and down during a project almost non-existent.
You should be able to rent scaffolding from a local construction company or tool rental store. Setting up the scaffolding may add an extra couple hours to your project ahead of time, but it will save you plenty of time throughout the process and make any job you're completing a more productive and pleasurable experience.
Rent a Dumpster
Whether you're cleaning out old furniture and appliances from your older rental home, pulling weeds in the yard, or emptying trash out of a garden shed, the task of taking everything you don't want on the property to the dump can be time consuming and expensive if you don't have a truck to accommodate the stuff. You'll have to rent a truck for the occasion or put extra wear and tear on your own truck. An excellent way to save yourself some time and the need to drive to the dump is to rent a dumpster and have it dropped off at the house before you start working on it.
You can schedule pickups to have the dumpster emptied at the local dump when it gets full, and then returned empty to you within the same day so you can continue working on the property. After you're finished cleaning up, you can have the dumpster taken away for good and never think about it again.
Hire a Stager
If you're renting your home out at least partly furnished, consider hiring a stager to come in and set everything up for you. Professional home stagers understand how to create environments that are clean and engaging while allowing prospective tenants to imagine living in the space with their own belongings. Your staging professional will cover older couches to make them look new again, paint the walls colors that encourages customization, and make sure that signs of past residencies are minimized.
Schedule a consultation with a staging professional a few weeks before you want the home to be ready for viewing by potential tenants. They may be able to recommend furniture or decor purchases that would increase the appeal of your home and help get it rented quickly.
Have Driveway Pavers Installed
If the driveway of your older rental home is cracked, chipped, or simply shows signs of wear, have driveway pavers installed. This improve curb appeal and make it easier to attract tenants, and can even increase your property value which may enable you to raise you rent prices accordingly. Pavers are easy to replace one at a time if they get damaged, which means that you won't have to pay to have the entire driveway repaved like you would a concrete or asphalt driveway if part of it chips in the future.
They're super durable and resist stains, making easy work of maintenance for your tenants as time goes on. And concrete pavers come in a variety of colors and patterns, so it's possible to create a custom look that nobody else in the neighborhood boasts.
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