Considerations when rehabbing a rental

[Account Closed]

Recently I was reading something that suggested putting in crown molding and finer touches to a rental property. The purpose to attract quality tenants. The idea on the surface sounds good, we all want to attract quality tenants.

I suppose there are upscale rentals that this might make a lot of sense in.

My experience has been that many of these details are not that important to tenants. I'm sure that there are some tenants out there that will treat the rental like it was there home, but I haven't found many of these over the years.

I'm curious about other landlords experiences. Do you provide nice appliances for your rentals? Do you put in crown molding or other finer touches?

I work at providing a nice place at reasonable cost. There are many things that I don't put into rentals.

So what are your experiences? What would you consider when rehabbing a rental property?

[J Scott]

I certainly like to ensure that my properties are completely move in ready -- all appliances including washer/dryer, mini-blinds, etc -- as these things are functional differences between my house and others. Tenants like to know that it wont cost them additional time/effort/cost to get settled into my place, which differentiates it from my competitors.

That said, any non-functional upgrades -- like crown molding, upgraded appliances, etc -- are likely to lost on the tenant.

For example, a washer/dryer is going to make my house 10x more attractive than a similar one without WD. But an upgraded WD isn't really going to add any incremental value.

So, if you're considering putting money in, my opinion is to put it into functional items, not purely aesthetic ones like molding...

Just my $.02...