Whether you have had tenants before or you’re about to have tenants for the first time, you need to get your home ready for them to move in. The right tenants will treat your home as if it’s their own, and they will look after it with everything they have. Some tenants will even decorate and pour money into your property, knowing that they are making it somewhere livable and comfortable for them to live.
Renting out a property is an excellent source of passive income, and there will be landlords out there who tell you about the house meth test that they had to do on the last tenants all they’ll tell you about tenants who come with their own brand of horror stories. The thing is, if you want to become a landlord, you are going to need to make sure that the house is ready for the people to move into it. Making sure the house is tenant ready is one of the best things that you can do to ensure that your investment is looked after.
You need to start as you mean to go on and here are some of the ways that you can do that:
Find a good property management company or estate agent.
Making a list of estate agents and property managers is the first thing that you need to do with the landlord. You may not fancy managing the property yourself and everything that comes with it, so you do need to ensure that you have somebody who can do it for you. Reaching out to property management companies is important because then you will be able to ensure that your property is well looked after at all times.
Change your locks and alarm codes.
Property before, and even if you have received all the keys back from when they left, it’s a good idea to change the locks and change all the alarm codes over again. You want to make sure that old keys will be unusable and that they can’t stop the alarms themselves. Of course, it’s very unlikely that this will even need to be a factor, but it’s always better to err on the side of caution.
Make repairs.
Go around the house with a fine toothcomb and make repairs where they need to be made. Both minor and major repairs should be taken care of before you show any potential tenants the house just in case you end up having to duck down your price as a result of bad management. Nobody wants to rent a house that’s half falling apart, so make sure that your house isn’t one of those ones.
Give the place a lick of paint.
If the walls are looking a bit shabby, think about a fresh layer of paint all over the place. New paint can freshen up the space and it’s going to make the overall look of the house stand out in the best possible way.
Call in the professional cleaners.
Before anybody moves into your home you need to ensure that you have cleaners come in and look after it for you. Windows inside and out should be considered as well as wall washing.
