For $1,500 each per month, I’m liking this idea. I wonder how many criminals I could cram in a 2 bedroom concrete house. I’m guessing about 50.
Mike
I wonder how many criminals I could cram in a 2 bedroom concrete house. I'm guessing about 50.Atleast!
Then to make the deal a little sweeter, you take advantage of their cheap labor (25 cents/ hour) to build assemble and repair anything you want.
That’s too funny!!!..You always crack me up, Mike
With my pricey houses in Virginia, plush/berber carpet is the only way to go…
I carried that over to the lower income houses I’m doing in Buffalo and used a cheap $0.52/sf (after my 20% discount) berber from Lowes (beautiful brown/beige diamond pattern carpet) for all living areas, with ceramic tile in the kitchens, dining rooms (due to all the food), baths, and hallways…
I’m convinced after doing a lot of reading lately from other landlords here and recent books that I’ve read that painting the living room/bedroom floors is the way to go here…Let the tenants buy some area rugs at flea markets and let them destroy those…Though I haven’t had any turnover yet in almost 2 years here (gotta admit - the tenants love the carpet!), I’ve seen a perfect outline of an iron (complete with steam holes clearly visible - don’t know how long the kid left the iron on the carpet for that), along with crayons, finger paint, you name it, on bedroom carpets…Those would normally have to be replaced upon move out, but I’m doing the floor paint next time…Quicker, easier, and cheaper…And with the nice paint jobs we always do (all wood in semi-gloss white, beautiful beige walls, white ceilings) and ceramic tile (granite tile for countertops @$1.34sf) that tenants fall in love with, I don’t see too much of a downside to having the painted floors…The overall wow factor is still there…And the ceramic tile is so low maintenance it’s not even funny…With a 20% discount from Lowe’s/Home Depot it’s almost always under $1sf…Can’t beat it for the price…
Believe me, it doesn’t take long on a carpet to make an impression of an iron. My girlfriend dropped the iron on an area rug we have and it made a good mark by the time she was able to quickly reach down and grab it.
I may have missed this somewhere in this thread, but what do most of you use for kitchen flooring in rentals?
I’ve been using the vinyl tiles (not self-stick) that are cheap (~.68/ft) and easy to install. They’ll typically require stripping and rewaxing in between tenants.
I’ve been contemplating beginning to use a cheaper/but decent quality ceramic tile. I’m thinking they might hold up better and not require as much work in between tenants - hopefully offsetting the extra up-front cost.
What do you all think? Thanks for the help?
What would be a good price for a decent ceramic tile (for low-end market rental)? Where would you suggest looking? Big Box? Tile Specialists?
Thanks.
You can find cheap tile if you look hard, ask the guy at the tile shop what he has out back. Sometimes they have discontinued stuff laying around or even some where half the tiles in the case are cracked that you can get for practically nothing. If you go that route be damn sure you walk out with enough tiles or you won’t be able to get more.
Thanks. I would kind of rather go the route of finding a low-cost (but decent) tile that is generic/common enough that I could be sure to find it again the next time I used it. That way, I could also use leftover tile and reduce waste.
Thanks for the help.
I’ve never used linoleum flooring in my homes - I’m strictly a ceramic tile guy…Looks terrific, renters love it, and it lasts forever (except for the rare occasional broken tile that takes 5 minutes to replace)…Remember, when people are looking for a place to rent, you’re competing against the other rental properties out there…So why should they rent from you?..Give them something to remember your place by, not the run of the mill place that they’ve already seen a dozen times…The initial cost of the ceramic is just the same as linoleum…Granted, it’ll take an extra 1-2 days of labor to put it in but it’s in to stay and never has to be replaced…Makes financial sense in the long run and marketing sense all the time…
I’ve almost always gotten my tile at Lowe’s or Home Depot…They both receive fairly large quantities of tile they’ll put on sale…You can buy all kinds of basic almond tile for $0.60=$1.00/sf…Home Depot had a beautiful tile on sale once that I bought a full pallet of…It’s a reddish/brown 16" tile…Looks superb, and I never realized until I installed it just how much quicker a 16" tile goes down vs. a 12" tile…Buy the 16" for a little more per sf and you’ll save a ton of time on labor…
Also, always stagger the tile…Don’t do straight runs and especially not a diamond pattern (you’ll be cutting the tile all day!)…The stagger pattern looks incredible and it helps to cover up any pattern imperfections…
I have seen the hardwood linoleum and I think it looks cheap even for low income housing. Being located in Pinellas County Florida, many homes I work with have terrazo flooring. Terrazo flooring is amazing, nearly indestructable. The only problem is it needs to be sealed every few tenants. If the flooring is just concrete then I usually go with tile in all the main areas with carpet in bedrooms. The carpet always gets replaced after each tenant and the tile usually lasts about 3-4 tenants.
As Mike stated no matter what flooring you choose tenants will find a way to screw if up.