Rental advice in Lakewood Ohio

[Vic Delgado]

Hi everyone!

I'd like to get a bit of advice from the seasoned investors in the Lakewood, OH area. 

I just purchased my first investment property up/down double on Cook Street. I'm moving into the lower unit, and the upstairs tenants are vacating at the end of October. There is a large 3rd floor that I'd like to paint, add at least a half bath, and install a stand alone heating/cooling unit. This would be a part of the upstairs unit as a rental making it a large 3rd bedroom. This would bump rent from roughly 850 now to probably 1250. 

The question is would you renovate that right away? Or put renters in the top 2 bedrooms only while the 3rd floor gets rehabbed during the winter? Part of my thought process was that it was going to possibly be difficult renting the top unit this late in the season, but so far word of mouth has shown that to not be true.

Any advice or suggestions would be greatly appreciated from this new landlord!