Against what many on here have recommended against, we allowed one of our tenants to do some tiling in one of our rental houses. This guy has done a lot of tiling in the past as a “professional”, so we were somewhat comfortable with the idea. I went over with him what we expected, and he described all the care he would take. We just reviewed the job, and it is mediocre whereas we normally do and expect high quality work with quality materials. This is very disappointing. I really have to think at this point that the guy did a mediocre rush job because the house is a rental. He also did a sloppy job of painting, but that is trivial to correct.
Like many of you have suggested to others in the past, we will no longer allow tenants to work on our houses. :banghead
You know as parents it's kind of tough telling our kids what not to do, only to find out they did it anyways. I think a lot of kids think we don't want them to have any fun but in reality all we want to do is help them to not make the same mistakes we made.
Because we love our fellow investor kids! (Metaphor)
I agree with you on that… I’ve never felt comfortable allowing any of my tenants to update things in the home. The only instance where I’ve made exception is allowing them to paint. Typically, the worst that can be done is to get paint on the carpet and unless its trim paint, you can usually get it out. However, by allowing them to paint, it creates a longer lasting tenant with less turnover b/c they’ve created an environment they’d be happy living in for at least another year or two.
To me, that’s worth a couple drops of paint on the carpet plus it saves money from having to paint when they move out (sometimes at least). I just make sure they do have ‘some’ decent painting experience and also, what colors they will paint (or rather what I’d accept)
In any case, we learn and grow everyday so best of luck moving forward!
You can expect an extra cost of anywhere from $200 to $400 extra when the tenant vacates after letting tenant’s paint their unit and/or make other alterations. If that represents a savings on your vacancy factor, then why not.
My experience tells me that if my tenants are inclined to spend money painting or upgrading their units, their rent is too low.
The other alternative is to allow the rents to get so low, the tenants not only paint their units, but never call about it, never ask for repairs, pay their rent on time, and the next thing you know it’s been ten years, the house looks like crap, and even the tenant wants to move to a better place and wants to move. Meantime, you saved about $1000/year not doing minor maintenance, but now have $12,000 worth of major work to do at once, and you discover the rents are now half of what they could have been.
my problem with tenants panting is mine make horrible color choices,I do all walls in sherwin williams “Softer Tan”, and trim in Alabaster (an off white),same paint each house
I’ll go over to a house I haven’t been in for awhile, and notice a pink room,for me its normally pink,but hey, if they have been there for over a year I’m probable going to have to paint the interior when they leave anyway,so what the heck
I remind them that the cost of repainting when they move will be taken out of there security deposit,but like I said, I was probable going to have to repaint it anyway
Rehabbing and renovation should be clearly done by the landlord in which it can’t overlapped the rights of the tenants. And whatever the tenants is up to renovation he / she must open it up to the landlord.