Downgrading Refrigerator on Current Tenants

[Michael Parkins]

We have had our first rental property for almost a year now. We lucked out and have great tenants for our first experience! The fridge in the unit that came with the house when we bought it is now in need of replacement. It is a pretty old fridge the needs a valve replaced inside the fridge. I can get the part for $150, but I’m not 100% certain that will fix the issue, and the fridge is already fairly old and something else could easily fail after I drop the $150 to fix this other issue. The current one has an ice maker and water dispenser, but after reading through some forum posts on here it sounds like most people would recommend replacing it with a fridge that doesn’t have either?

Our tenants have been great thus far, and I do feel bad downgrading the fridge on them. I’ve thought about giving them the opportunity to purchase their own fridge with an ice maker/water dispenser if they would like those amenities, then they obviously can take the fridge with them when they move out and we will downgrade the fridge at that time. Would that be a reasonable thing to offer the tenants? Otherwise, does anybody have any recommendations on best way to go about letting our tenants know the good news is we are replacing the fridge, but the bad news is it will no longer have an ice maker or water dispenser?