Regular maintenance will keep your rental property’s value under control. It’s even possible to increase the value by taking practical steps towards getting a spotlessly clean and nicely renovated home. In this article, you’ll learn all about how regular maintenance can affect the rental property’s value. Follow these tips by Granite to help you maximize the return on investment for your property.
Why should you care about regular maintenance?
Regular maintenance isn’t only beneficial to your tenants. Focusing on offering the best value for your property can benefit your personal financial situation as well.
As they say, prevention is the best cure. The same goes for maintenance. You don’t want to end up in a situation where you’d need to invest greater sums of money fixing issues that have worsened due to neglect. Compare this to the cost of regularly maintaining the property. Fixing the roof before there’s serious water damage is a smart choice to cut costs in the long run.
Exterior maintenance is as important as keeping everything inside the house in check. Routine landscaping and paint jobs will do wonders for your property.
You might even influence your neighbors to improve their homes’ exterior. As a result, the value of living in the neighborhood might raise to unprecedented levels as all the homes look well-maintained.
The idea behind this is very simple. People want to live in beautiful places and good tenants are ready to pay a premium.
Furthermore, are you aware of the tax breaks for rental property maintenance and improvements? While some of the tax breaks require a bit more serious work compared to ordinary maintenance practices, you might still be inclined to raise your maintenance budget.
For example, consider replacing or upgrading the windows, repairing any foundation issues, or even installing a sprinkler system help you spread the depreciation cost over a longer time period.
What to keep in mind when maintaining your rental property?
The devil is in the details. We’ll take a closer look at some of the most important aspects you need to keep in mind when conducting regular maintenance.
1. Lock and seal maintenance
Doors not closing? Windows letting in cold air? All of these issues may seem minuscule compared to bigger problems, for example, foundation settlement or uncontained mold growth.
You need to address the rental property’s locks and seals when they start to lose their functionality. Failing to do this might really decrease the property’s value. Check the doors and windows as part of a regular maintenance routine. If you notice any problems, then find quick and lasting solutions.
2. Keep an eye on the appliances
Tenants gravitate towards places that have new and working appliances. There are even people out there that put functioning appliances on the same level as a location in a safe neighborhood.
Having old and barely functioning appliances makes your life more difficult in more ways than one. The rental property’s value definitely drops when the appliance package is substandard as it reflects poorly on the owner’s standards.
And you need to keep in mind that low-quality appliances need more frequent and costly maintenance. Combine these issues and you’ll see your rental property’s value decreasing. That’s why smart maintenance routine involves fixing or switching out any appliances that don’t work properly.
3. Freshen up the rental on a regular basis
Nobody likes a dirty home. Clean the property upon each turnover. In some cases, it’s better to hire a professional cleaner to do the job. Aside from keeping the space spotless, try to replace old fixtures, prioritizing running toilets, sticking door handles, and dripping faucets.
Painting the walls is an important step towards raising the property’s value as well. Some owners repaint the walls every three years. You can be a little more conservative, but don’t go over the five-year mark without any repainting.
The same goes for when replacing the carpets. While it’s common to conduct the replacement every 6-7 years, you increase the property’s worth when doing this more often.
So, how can regular maintenance increase your rental property value?
Regular maintenance not only helps to balance the depreciation value but it can actually increase its worth. When planning maintenance, you need to keep in mind the potential for both interior and exterior improvements.
While doing this, it’s also smart to upgrade the appliances whenever needed. Additionally, stand to save by checking how tax breaks for improvements could be tied into your maintenance plan.
