Outfitting Your Rental Property: Tips For First Time Landlords

Rental-HomeWhen you have a rental property you need to think how you’re going to outfit it to attract reliable and pleasant tenants. Of course, you can’t predict how people who rent your property are going to behave, but you can make your property attractive without spending too much money. After all, it’s your investment and you want to make the most of your potential returns from it.

Decide Whom You Want to Rent to

This is the key to how you are going to rent your property. You can decide to furnish it so that, for example, a professional couple can move in immediately. You can carpet floors attractively – though avoid white and other light colors because spills that happen mean extra cleaning – but it’s well worth considering hardwood floors where you can.

They are durable, less easy to damage or stain and can take a lot of wear and tear. If you do decide on carpets make then cheap, in darker colors, and easily washable.

Furniture and Furnishings

In terms of the furniture and furnishings you provide, your choices will depend on the type of people you want to attract to your rental property. Students will often want to stamp their own individuality onto a property and may not always be as respectful of the surroundings as you would like them to be. Set some guidelines, put in some good basic furniture – if they’ve moved away from home the chances are they won’t have any – and you have a good basis for a positive relationship with your tenants.

If you have professional people as tenants then you can discuss options for furniture and furnishings. They may have items from a previous home they want to bring so talking about what they want and need helps build a relationship.

You should bear in mind that whatever you put in your rental property may need to be replaced given wear and tear, so you should factor this in to your financial calculations.

If you have fabric coverings for chairs and couches then you could be in for a lot of washing and cleaning, so leather furniture can work well as it’s much more easy to clean.

Window Covers

The traditional take on covering your windows are curtains. Yes, they look nice, especially with tiebacks, but they can take a lot of maintenance. This is one of the reasons why window shutters are a go-to choice for landlords – they offer a sensible alternative to curtains. You can clean window shutters very easily, they are hardwearing and give you lots of possibilities for letting in or excluding light. They are elegant and attractive, adding a European or Mediterranean aspect to your rental décor. You canBuy them online.

Getting it Right

Potential renters are often wary about what they are going to get. If you make things good for them you’ll get a lot of interest and if you are a landlord who wants to present an attractive rental property then it’s worth putting some time and money into getting it right.