I don't think many tenants care what color of the house is.

Make sure you pick light paint colors throughout, get rid of any heavy/dark curtains and such, upgrade or install bright light fixtures where needed, etc.This all comes from my own experience in Southern California.

I just started an absentee owner campaign where I'm split testing white envelopes vs color.

Red brick and green accents= Christmas colors too!

@Alex Craig As always, the colorful metaphors.

If the make, model and color of refrigerator wasn't specifically addressed in your contract, you may be out of luck. 

There's all kinds of reasons not to allow it (i.e. they rarely/never do a good job, there's no incentive for them not to cut corners since it's not really their house, they could get hurt doing the work, they tend to pick weird colors, if the work doesn't come out good you have have little/no recourse, etc). 

Let them pick out blinds, paint color in kitchen, plant a tree or something that gives them some psychological ownership.Watch out for crappy property management in crappy areas as they tend to go hand in hand from what I hear.Thanks,Matt

Hi Scott, man the first thing I would do is get control, you must put together a Purchase Agreement subject too, if it's a desirable area you can fix it up, and recoup your 25k plus rehab cost, but I don't understand you said he is not very motivated seller, I thought you already bought the condo just with no paper work all verbal, if that's the case let him know you need to get it in your name, you need to put a agreement showing you give 25k for the purchase of the property, it maybe tight but you can get a good cash flow out every month, you just have to fix up the inside right, it can be done without sending a lot of money, just choose the right colors and the right material, make it look high-end with out sending a lot, find your self a young and new interior designer to help for a few hundreds dollars.

Here's an example that's been working pretty well recently: http://yellowletterscomplete.com/color-letterhead-letters