TO UPGRADE A RENTAL PROPERTY OR NOT?

[Lisa Lavie]

I have a rental property in Montreal that I purchased a year ago as a foreclosure. Upon purchase, tenants already resided in it & we signed a lease for a year. When they were approaching the end of their lease (last month), they gave me notice that they would be terminating it as they couldn't afford it anymore.

I purchased the property for 160K which is a lot lower than market value. In the condition that it was in, it would have sold for 220K.

Instead of doing the bare minimum to the property, I decided to do a lot of upgrades to the property so that I could then raise the rent & also attract a certain type of tenant. I spend 20K & now the house is gorgeous & it now rents for 300$ more than what I was previously renting it for.

Seeing that this is my first rental property makeover, I have a hard time drawing the line as to what I should renovate & what I should keep as is. Even though it's not my main residence, I tend to go all out as if it were. (Maybe that's not a bad thing)

Can you please give me some insight as to what you would have done in this situation & what the pros and cons are.

Thanks soooo much!

Lisa

(I was able to finish renovations in 3 weeks & found new tenants who love the house)