The Educated Landlord

Making Landlording Easier

You are here: Home / Archives for rental property renovations

Making a Quality First Impression

By

Exuding Quality

Quality productI recently purchased a new fall coat and as the weather is starting to really cool off in the mornings I felt today would be a great day to wear it out.

To be fair this wasn’t a really expensive jacket, in fact it wasn’t even a real “jacket”, but rather a nice hoodie that had a very fuzzy interior lining, plush according to the label. A lining that would keep me perfectly warm on a cooler day.

I don’t even think I paid $50 for it, but it looked good and felt warm and comfy when I tried it on, so I was hooked. That was back in early August and since it’s been so nice it’s been safely squirrelled away in my closet waiting for the cooler fall days.

Well, now that we’re into October, those cooler fall days have quickly arrived! So out comes the new fall hoodie and that’s when I made some observations. It was as I was cutting the tag off that I noticed something. Just a tiny little detail.

But a tiny detail that upgraded my impression of the jacket, sorry hoodie, to another level.

The tags were made of a very thick sturdy paper that instantly upgraded my thoughts about the quality of the clothing.

Feeling the heft and weight of the tag made a huge impression on me. This tiny little incidental item, a tag albeit a nice one, exuded quality and the feeling that the manufacturer’s of this product actually cared about it.

It was as if they they didn’t cut corners, as so many people do, and rather than throwing on the cheapest tag possible in order to save .0001 cents, they had a better product that deserved a better tag.

Have you ever felt like this when you bought something?

If you did, how did it make you feel? A little prouder to own it? Maybe you stood up a bit straighter when you wore it or your friends saw it?

Now here’s the zinger, do your tenants say the same thing about your rental property…

Exuding Quality With Your Rental

They say you only get once chance to make a first impression and it’s so true. Although with my coat it was actually the second impression when I looked closer, but you get the idea!

Well, what impression does your rental give to potential tenants? Or to add to it, what impression do you give?

Is the entrance tidy and clean, or worn and cluttered? Do you show up in a torn t-shirt and the same shoes you use to cut the grass (which may be ok if you are actually there cutting the grass…).

Did you pick up a welcome mat from the Dollar Store that looks cheap, or did you spend a few extra dollars and buy a nice sturdy mat from a home furnishing store? It’s little upgrades like this that can make that good first impression!

Maybe it’s just a new door handle instead of the old worn knob, maybe swapping out the broken and chipped door skirt for a new tidy looking one to help make your property stand out.

It’s little steps like these can can help ensure your property not only gets rented faster, but stays rented. We often forget that our rentals are people’s homes and its a trap that can bite you in the pocketbook later.

Sure when the rental market is hot it’s not much of an issue, but when things turn, and they inevitably do, and the market is a bit tighter with more vacancies and less tenants to go around that they suddenly become very pressing issues.

Consistently High Quality Rentals

first impressions make a difference with your rental property

That’s why it’s far easier to be consistent with your properties and be pro-active at setting a higher standard. Then you don’t run into the hurdles of the down times, or if you do, unlike your competition you coast through them as others flounder.

This type of pride of rental property ownership pays more dividends than just filling your property faster, it also helps you keep tenants longer, attract higher quality tenants and as you stay on top of your property it helps maintain values.

A story I share with many people involves a property I owned years ago that had a very similar property just down the street. At least very similar in the style of property.

Both were half duplexes, both had front decks and both had yards, but the similarities ended there.

My property had tenants in place usually two to three years at a time, theirs had a for rent sign out front every six to nine months.

Now we’d never personally been in the unit, but one day my wife was at our property and saw the other landlord was doing some showings so she invited herself in to check it out, and chat with the owner.

Upon entering the difference was easy to see.

Now this was only a decade ago, but the other property still had the original shag carpeting from the 70’s in it…

And quite possibly the original white paint color, great first impression.

Going further into the property and looking at the kitchen my wife found the original dark brown fake wood look cupboard doors with more original 1970’s hardware.

No wonder people kept leaving like it was a revolving door.

In comparison, our property had hard wood (which probably had shag carpet on top of it at one point), freshly painted walls with a modern color, newer white kitchen cabinets with newer countertops and bright shiny contemporary knobs on all the cabinets.

It’s Not Rocket Science

First Impression of qualitySo just by description alone, which would you chose?

And maybe that’s why we were always able to fill the property so quickly and kept tenants for so long!

Now, let’s talk about you and perhaps some homework?

What do you think your property gives off as a first impression? Cozy place to call home? Or pitstop until we find something better?

Your homework, if you truly want to be an educated landlord, is to stop and take an objective look at your property.

Would you live there? If not, that’s the first sign you might want to change things.

What could you do to spruce it up just a bit? New front door? Drastic updates at the entrance to make it more inviting? Or maybe simple steps like fresh paint on the door and a new handle or trim plate across the bottom of the door?

Taking simple steps like this pay handsome dividends over time and it’s a matter of small efforts to get this done that pay back so well with longer term tenants and shorter gaps between occupancy.

If you’re struggling to fill your vacant property this might want to be a priority. If you expect to have a vacancy soon it should also be high on your radar. At the same time, if you have great tenants it can also be an assurance to them that you want to take care of your property and can also be rewarded with them acknowledging it and taking even better care of your property for you.

So, ball is back in your court. Are you willing to do some homework? If you are I’d love to hear what YOUR thoughts are on YOUR property and what you might need to do to improve it and to start making a good first impression as soon as possible!

Leave me a comment below with any changes you may be making in the near future to your property or with any changes you’ve made in the past that have paid dividends!

Landlord Tools of the Trade – Painting Tools

By

Landlord Tools

Painting Tools for Landlords

Every business has the tools of the trade, whether it’s wrenches for a mechanic, spreadsheet for analysts or even color swatches for designers. Knowing what tools to have can make those jobs easier, faster and hopefully more profitable.

The same can be said for the landlord business. So to provide some ideas of items you may want to have, I’m going to create a few articles with some of the items and tools I use to make my work easier and in turn, hopefully yours too.

Speed Up Your Painting

Hopefully you’ve seen my previous article/video about choosing paint colors (A Quick And Easy Landlord Renovating Tip), if not maybe go take a quick look at it after you’re done here. It gives you some ideas about saving time later and it revolves around painting which is where today’s tools come to play.

Now as much as I would like you to hire someone to come in and do the painting for you, it doesn’t always work that way. Hiring someone may not fit in your budget, you may have plenty of spare time or you may even find it relaxing. So if you’re doing it, make sure you have the right tools to get the job done.

I actually have several of the tools I take with me whenever I have to paint a property in the image at the top of the page. The obvious ones are the huge bucket of paint, the small ladder and the drop clothes. The less obvious ones are the scraper on the floor, the roll of sandpaper (the sanding block actually isn’t in the picture, but you’ll want one of those too) and my handy rolling stick.

Obvious Painting Tools

We buy the large buckets of paint as we use the same color in all of our properties and by purchasing in larger containers we save money. The small ladder allows us to reach the corners and top edges when painting. In my case I’m over 6′ tall, so I don’t need a very larger ladder, you might want to consider a slightly larger one if you need it. My wife actually has one with a shelf to set the paint on and it’s her favorite ladder for painting.

Drop clothes, these should be mandatory! You can purchase them from most paint supply stores, but we also use old sheets and for those paying attention the blue sheets are actually old sheets from the surgery ward in hospitals. No, they weren’t used, but they were thrown out and a friend who worked at the hospital donated them to us. They are AWESOME!

Having drop clothes can save you a ton of clean up after the fact and although it takes a bit more prep time to lay them out, you will be thankful the first time a big glob of paint falls on them.

Less Obvious Tools

The less obvious tools are the scraper for cleaning up edges, removing silicon or for outside wooden frames with pealing paint. The sand paper may actually be one of the most important pieces.

I could probably turn this into a five thousand word article about painting, but to keep your attention, I’ll gloss over a few things, and just do some Coles notes on them. Starting with prepping the walls. The amount of prep work you do prior to painting will really help determine how it looks.

If you spend extra time mudding and sanding any imperfections, patching any plaster that is damaged and scraping any old paint off it will make the finished product so much better. That sandpaper you brought with you is worth it’s weight in gold to accomplishing that goal.

On top of that, doing a quick sanding between coats can also help create a smoother finish along with helping the second and/or third coat adhere better. Don’t skip this step.

That brings me to one other tool we use in concert with the sanding, the painting pole. Obviously we use this with the roller (should I have mentioned the roller as an obvious tool?), but we also have special sanding blocks that attach to the painting pole as well. This makes the process of doing a quick scuff up of the wall fast and easy.

It’s a quick sand, you don’t want to take the paint off, just scuff it a bit to smooth out any imperfections and to allow that next coat to stick more. Trust me, if you haven’t been using a pole already for rolling the walls, just having one will make a huge difference in your speed (and it makes you back feel better too).

Finally, don’t forget a couple plastic bags full of rags. This is dual purpose. The first time you paint a wall a new color you’ll need to do a couple coats. Wrapping your paint brush in a wet rag and leaving it in the fridge over night will help stop the paint from hardening allowing you to come back the next day and apply the second coat.. You’ll also be able to use the rags to touch up any booboos.

The plastic bags (sorry environmentalists) work great with the roller and the rolling tray. If you need to come back later or the next day for coat two, make sure the tray is full of paint, the roller is soaked and then then cover the tray with two bags, one over the thick end first, then across the other end. It keeps the air away from it and allows you again to set it aside until the next day without worrying about the paint hardening or destroying the roller.

Other Painting Tips

This one is a little more advanced and may not work for you, but we don’t use painting tape. We cut in by hand along the ceilings, baseboards (when we don’t remove them first) and door frames. It takes a steady hand and it doesn’t hurt that my wife is an artist as well so she can follow the lines. I’ve just had lots of practice and I stock extra rags in case I mess up…

If this is something you’re going to try, make sure you have a two or three inch wide wedge style paint brush as the wedge shape helps keep that line and we find it’s a bit easier on the hands. If you’re not familiar with this, it’s just having the tip of the brush angle down instead of squared off when you are looking at the brush when it’s flat on the floor. See the image for a visual explanation.

Paintbrushes

If you use drywall mud to patch holes, go over the mud after you patch with a wet rag. It will remove the excess and just leave the filled in hole making the wall look smoother instead of patchy.

You can use stir sticks to stir paint that has been sitting for a while or you can purchase attachments for your drill that will do a much better job of stirring paint. If you do a lot of painting, this attachment can be very handy.

Remove all switch plates and electrical covers and bring a couple boxes to put them in so they don’t get lost. If they are grimy and dirty we often put them in the sink with a little dish soap or cleaner to soak. then we remove them and wipe them down with some of our plentiful rags later and they come out much cleaner. If they aren’t coming out clean, consider purchasing new ones or the work you did making the walls all pretty is for nothing.

Did I miss any handy tips or tools to make your next painting project easier? Do you have some you can share with me? Either way I’d love to hear your thoughts about these tips and whether you would like access to more of the tools I use and how to take advantage of them to their fullest. So leave me a comment below.

Quick Update On Our Latest Floor Renovation

By

Replacing Laminate In Our Rental

What a crazy week! As it always seems to happen, if I take a long weekend off from work, I really pay for it the next week and this last week was no exception. Oh and I lied about the quick update, go get a coffee or tea, I couldn’t stop typing…

In my previous post, I talked about upgrading some water damaged floor in one of our shared accommodation properties with a newer product our flooring guy recommended called Sobella.  Well it was installed last week and it looks great.

Before and After shots of new flooring in Rental Property

I spent all morning removing the baseboards, moving the fridge, stove and other furniture out of the way, pulling the toilet and tearing out the old vanity and then finally removing the flooring. Now I normally recommend bringing someone else in to do a bunch of this for you, but sometimes you just have to get your hands dirty.

If this is the sort of thing you like to do, here’s my rogues gallery of essential tools.

Floor Demo Tools

Various pry and crow bars to remove baseboards and lift flooring, a utility knife to cut the silicone on the tops of the baseboards (this keeps the paint from pulling away from the wall) and the handy hammer to force the pry bars and crowbars when needed.

As always seems to occur, once you start a job like this you always end up with additional problems or headaches along the way. This was no exception. After spending hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars on reno and flip projects, here’s one rule I always employ when looking at my renovation budget.

Always count on exceeding your initial budget by 10%, and then add another 10% on top of that. Then hopefully, you end up under your budget. You never want to run out of money on a renovation, so that cushion can help protect you from unforeseen hiccups or hidden issues. And sometimes even this may leave you short!

One rental property we bought we needed to move some walls around in the semi finished basement to put a bathroom in and to finish it off properly. Part of this project involved removing the 1970’s style paneling form the outside walls. Once we removed the paneling, we discovered the homeowner had cheated and used 2 x 2’s as studs and insulated the concrete outer walls with cardboard rather than actual insulation.
Once we saw this, we were suddenly faced with rebuilding and insulating the entire basement which was the proper, yet expensive, thing to do. Needless to say, this blew the budget out of the water, but we got it done and made the property, better, warmer and a little more valuable.

We had inherited the installed laminate flooring with this property and although it looked fine in the most visible areas, in the kitchen, behind the appliances and in the bathroom I ran into some of those little issues that pop up.

First with laminate flooring, you need to let the floor float as it expands and contracts with the seasons. To allow this floating, you need to leave space against each wall allowing it to expand without buckling. If you leave too much space though, the floor can move and start to separate, which occurred in the kitchen.

Laminate flooring separating

Normally, you can use some special tools to tighten up the flooring and fix it, if you catch it early enough. But if the gaps against the walls are too loose, it will just happen over and over. Or if you tenants don’t tell you about it and food and crumbs collect in the gaps, you can’t tighten it either.

Since we were just ripping it out, this wasn’t going to be a problem, but then more problems. In the bathroom, you really want your flooring to be up tight against the toilets closet flange. The closet flange is basically where the toilet sits on the pipe and if the flooring is tight, you can easily seal it with silicone. Then if Toilet leaking under the flooringany leakage occurs, it shows up around the toilet, rather than getting caught between the flooring hidden from sight.

Guess what, yep, the flooring wasn’t tight and water had gotten underneath the laminate and on the sub floor. Fortunately it wasn’t too bad, it must have been a fairly recent leak and there was no mould, but I still had some water to deal with. So I removed the flooring, mopped up the excess water and now had to run to my storage garage to grab my huge industrial fan to start drying it out.

With water, it’s important to get the air flowing to help dry it out quickly and reduce complications like mould and ages ago we had acquired a very large industrial type fan unit that looks like a mini furnace, except it has a huge blower in it. More lost time.

Old parquet flooring under laminate

Finally, after several hours, I had all the flooring pulled and now I could see what we had to work with. This was the part the fellow who quoted us was worried about. We had a hodge podge of regular particle board sub flooring, old laminate and even parquet (yep it’s that old), all buried under the laminate.

I did have to use some filler in the bathroom where it looked like they used scrap pieces to fill in sections under the bathroom cabinet, but overall it wasn’t too bad. Since it was a new type of flooring to me though, I ended up calling the person who did the initial quotation and explained what it looked like.

He was only about 20 minutes away, so he offered to come over and take a look and once there, other than the bathroom section, thought the rest of the area the installers should be good with. So onward and upwards.

Fast forward to the next day and the installers met my wife at the property so she could explain everything to them and let them in (I had meetings that morning). Once they started, she ran off and took care of some other projects we had going on.

NEw sobella flooring installed in our rental propertyBy the time I finally arrived just before 1, they were already 90% complete. And it looked great!

We were originally told they would be able to install it as one continuous sheet, but once the installers looked at the layout they decided they would need to have one seem due to the layout.

In the after shot at the beginning of this, you can see the line of tape marking where they had to place it. With the little island that sticks out in the kitchen, it was a challenge to run the heavy section down without tearing it there.

Now that it’s installed you don’t even see the seam unless you know it’s there and the floor looks and feels great.

They ended up finishing by two (a five hour install) and this gave us another hour to make the next day’s list of projects to move this reno forward before we went to the dump with our old laminate.

As I mentioned before, that 10% add on to your budget (plus another 10%), gives you a ton of flexibility. Once we went through we decided to replace all the baseboard in the bathroom, to upgrade the fan fixture in the kitchen eating area and to do some quick painting in worn areas.

The fan and baseboards increased the cost, but we just happened to have over half of a five gallon bucket of Tequila (8672W) paint left over from another property. Since the property was originally painted this colour, it just meant some light sanding and minor touchup for prep work and good to go, but that was the next days’ project.

Onto the fun stuff. The flooring has been in for almost a week now and the tenants all seem to like it. This is in a shared accommodation property, so the guys are definitely hard on flooring and after the first week it’s holding up.

The flooring looks so much like wood that we also ran into a couple fun comments from the guys. There is a definite texture on it that imitates wood grain and one of the basement tenants who looked at it said they should have sanded the floor down a bit more (he thought it was real wood).

Another tenant who lives on the main floor noticed that the installers had forgotten to cut the floor vent out. He wanted to know if I would be back that night with a saw and drill to cut it open as he had an early morning the next day. He also thought it was real wood. I simply cut it out with a utility knife and dropped in the new vent we had for it. No drilling, so sawing, just a couple minutes work.

This type of article is definitely straying from the normal information I post. My question for you, Has it been helpful? Would you like more walk throughs of renovations projects, some of our day to day operations and other interesting parts of our lives as landlords, or should I just stick to the weekly tips and videos like I have been?

If you could take a minute or two and either leave me a comment below, or email me directly with some feedback, it would be extremely helpful and help shape what future articles look like. This project and the long weekend before have thrown my videos and posts schedule for a loop, but hopefully with the kids back in school and life on track I’ll have my next series of videos out and available over the next week.