Preparing for routine upgrades to your single-family rental home every year is a good investment strategy. As much as rental homes need regular maintenance, they also have to be updated to keep them up to date and competitive in the market. Investing a little to upgrade things from time to time is worth the time and the cost involved since property values in and around Orlando depend so much on the internal and external condition of the home.
However, not all upgrades give direct benefits to property owners. As a matter of fact, certain upgrades have definite advantages for the residents but are not really increasing the overall value of the property or safeguarding your real estate investment. You need to thoroughly think about your options before deciding on any major updates for your rental property in Orlando.
For instance, installing new kitchen cabinets in your rental properties might feel like an upgrade that would benefit both you and your residents. Your residents would enjoy quality cabinets, and you might think that new cabinets would maintain the increase in your property values. However, kitchen cabinets are one upgrade that isn’t typically worth the cost, with whatever potential value increase often less than what was spent on the project. If the kitchen cabinets in your rental are really worse for wear, you should definitely replace them with something better. Other than that, all your cabinets need to stay fresh is a good cleaning or maybe a coat of paint or stain.
Another upgrade that benefits the residents more than the owner of a rental home is high-end window treatments. Your residents might be asking for upgraded blinds, valences, or drapery systems to personalize their space. However, while owners want residents to be comfortable in a rental home, there’s no real benefit to offering any window treatments past standard blinds or shutters. Fancy window treatments don’t add much to the overall value of your property and are so strongly tied to an individual style that they typically don’t have widespread appeal.
On the topic of personal style, other decorative features such as custom garage doors, trendy paint colors, and so on might seem like a good way to entice quality residents. Still, as with window treatments, the attractiveness of decorative features can vary so much between people. Because of this, upgrading beyond good quality, basic doors, windows, and interiors offers little to no benefit for property owners. For a quality rental home with lasting appeal, avoid the latest trends and stick to the less exciting but definitely more tried-and-true décor themes typically found in other rental homes.
Whether you’ve performed upgrades or not, rental property maintenance should always be a priority so as to maintain value. At Real Property Management South Orlando, we are dedicated to protecting your investment while creating great relationships with your residents. For more information about our property management services, please contact us online or call us directly at 407-982-2000.
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