Tub or shower in rental property?

[Jeff Bisgier]

Hi Folks!

My wife and I are in the process of rehabbing our first investment property. The house is a 2bd / 1bth single family. We are having a slight disagreement about the bathroom. Right now, it has a corner shower stall only. My wife says that we need to redo the bathroom and but in a bath tub because any perspective tenants with young kids will not rent our property without a tub. I'm looking at the cost to do this and I think it will be pretty expensive. The bathroom is above a finished basement, so a contractor would have to tear open the basement ceiling to move around plumbing. We'd have to move the toilet and the sink and the baseboard heater as well.

I'm hoping to get a few opinions from you folks as to what you think would be our best move. As a side note, the house is 100 years old. Would the weight of the tub be an issue as far as the floor joists go?

Thanks!!

[Andrea Hauserman]

Is it in a neighborhood Where you can attract a non-family? 

Are you planning to own more properties so you aren't dependent on this one? 2 BR to me is single prof w home office, married with guest room, single parent with 1 child, young couple with baby. Speaking as someone who represented some of those demographics as a renter, half of those need a tub, the others might not care. You could always put it up for rent and ask people as they come through whether a tub is a must as your own personal survey. Although you'd hate to take it out of circulation in the future to do the rehab, maybe wait and earn some cash flow to pay for it if needed. Similar situation for me in my first BRRR - a truly humbling situation - taught me a lot about what I look for going forward. Also, everything will sell at a price. Make your price attractive for what you have to offer and it's going to rent. Then do a cost- benefit analysis on the tub payback period and what you think you could raise the rent by.

My guess is you can increase the potential tenant pool with a tub in a 2 BR house, but it's not clear that a tub will allow you to raise the rent. In a 3 BR it would be a no-brainer but not here. Perfection is the enemy of Good Enough!!