Renter of 13 years wants the interior painted and new bathtub

[Tim Greenfield]

Good Evening! Long distance real estate investor here. I am currently living overseas and I have a 3/2 located in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Current tenants have been there for 13 years. They are coming up on their next lease renewal with a $25 increase and are requesting that the interior be painted and a bathtub replaced. I am not arguing that it does not need it but I would prefer to have the whole house refurbished when it is empty. With that said, fresh paint in and out, new carpet and vinyl will only increase my rent to perhaps another $200 a month per my new property manager. The property cash flows $248 a month currently . They have been there along time and at this juncture I would probably prefer appeasing them and painting the interior. Previous PM was adamant that the rents would not sustain an increase so rent was stagnant for most of this time. I fired him last year and we increased rent last year and now are increasing again. They requested to paint the interior last year but as they are not professional painters and I was leery of what kind of paint job they would perform I said no. Have $3000 in cash reserves for maintenance for this house. Has anyone had any success with painting the interior when a long term tenant requests it? Thanks 

[David Halprin]

13 years? Wow you should throw these people a bone.  

You're worrying about a new tub? Get some pictures. If it's a bad tub, then just get a new one.

Don't get professional paint job done while they are still living in there - who knows how the paint will hold up by the time they do move out. Buy the people some cheap paint and let them paint some walls if they want - they will feel so much better, have more pride in the place, and want to stay longer. If you're going to refurb the place when they move out, the tenants doing a meh job at painting some walls is not going to really slow you down.