Creating standards. Blinds / no blinds? What color paint, etc

[Justin McGinley]

Do you have standard things you do when getting a newly acquired place ready to rent out? Are there standard things you do every time (deep cleaning, fresh paint, etc).

[Jeff Copeland]

Definitely. 

As you grow and scale, you'll find it immensely helpful to use the same paint color and sheen on every property. Need touch up paint? Done. Need to paint one room and leave the others alone? Done. 

We even tend to use the same flooring, for the same reasons. 

That's not to say you can't update your "standard materials list" every few years to keep pace with trends or personal tastes. But there's nothing worse than having to paint an entire wall, or an entire room, or an entire house, just because you don't know the paint color. And even the best "color matches" are rarely good enough to be unnoticeable. 

Beyond that, we do usually install decent/durable blinds (otherwise your tenants will end up putting bedsheets, aluminum foil, and all kinds of other creative solutions in your windows, and/or damage things while trying to install and uninstall their own) and window screens. These are even required by some municipalities and programs such as Section VIII.