If renters aren’t drawn to your property when browsing through listings or during a tour, you’ll have trouble filling your vacancy.
For this reason, it’s important that you take active steps to increase your property’s rental appeal. In this article, we’ll be covering some of the best ways you can do so.
Curb Appeal
When landlords think about their property’s appeal, they generally jump to the interior of the unit. With that said, your property’s exterior is extremely important to how prospective tenants perceive your property.
The first step of improving your property’s exterior is to focus on landscaping. This means staying on top of mowing, pulling weeds, clearing leaves, mulching, and trimming branches and bushes. As an easy and effective way to step up your curb appeal, you can also consider adding in-season flowers to your yard.
Curb appeal also includes maintaining your building’s exterior to ensure that it’s well-polished. This means clearing gutters, adding fresh paint, and power washing the driveway, walkways, and siding. If needed, you might need to replace your front door, mailbox, or window boxes.
Repairs and Cleaning
A property that isn’t in working order or that has a lot of damage isn’t appealing to renters. Get your property inspected and make a list of basic repairs that need to be done. These may include:
- Fixing hinges on doors and cabinets
- Repairing dents in the drywall
- Refreshing insulation
- Replacing water fixtures
- Adding window dressings
- Replacing window and door locks
Beyond repairs, it’s also important to keep your property looking fresh. Cleaning rental properties entails throwing away old furniture and items, cleaning carpets, and polishing the flooring. You should then add a fresh coat of paint to any rooms that need it. To keep your unit as appealing as possible for most renters, stick to warm, neutral colors.
Lastly, you may want to consider tackling larger renovation projects such as remodeling your kitchen/bathroom or installing hardwood flooring. While these projects may have higher up-front costs than basic repairs, they’ll increase your property’s value and be worth it in the long run.
Technology
Installing home technology is a great way to increase your property’s appeal, especially for younger renters. Beyond attracting a higher number of renters, technology adds tangible value to your property, which means you can increase your rent.
Here are some home technologies you should consider installing in your units:
- Energy-Efficient Appliances – Water-conserving washers, low-flow water fixtures, and convection ovens could be worthwhile additions to your property if you’re in need of new appliances. Units equipped with green appliances are attractive to environmentally conscious renters, and they’ll also save you and your tenants tons of money on energy bills. Just look for appliances with the energy start logo.
- Smart Security – Video doorbells and smart locks are appealing because they help protect your property, your tenants, and their belongings from criminal activity.
- Smart Lighting – These turn off automatically if tenants forget, which helps save on energy bills.
- Smart Thermostats – These automatically adjust the heating or air conditioning in your unit so that the temperature stays optimal throughout the day.
Staging
Staging rental properties is the last step of rental appeal. When a prospective tenant comes to your property for a showing, you want to make your property look like a place the renter could call home.
Here are some staging strategies you can use:
- Place furnishings – The idea here is to give each room an identifiable purpose, so renters have context. For example, you might place a desk in a small room designed to be a home office.
- Emphasize your property’s best features – Whatever sets your property apart from the pack—whether that be a great view of the city, large walk-in closets, or a rustic fireplace—draw attention to these features to make them memorable to renters.
- Accessorize, but don’t over-accessorize – Accessorizing your property with books, dishes, plants, towels, and generic art help give your property a natural and comfortable feel. With that being said, avoid cluttering rooms. You want renters to be able to fill out most of the space with their own imagination.
Conclusion
When preparing and showing your property, you should always be considering rental appeal. The more appealing your property is to prospective tenants, the better chances you’ll have at signing a lease with a great tenant quickly.
By prioritizing curb appeal, repairs, cleaning, home technology, and staging, you’ll have an edge over other properties in your market and be able to attract more tenants.