When you own a rental property, any improvements you make should increase your return on investment. Your job is to generate as much revenue with as few headaches as possible.
Frequently, landlords and property managers focus on maintaining their location in a habitable condition. They don’t pay much attention to details like epoxying floors.
However, trends among homeowners often reflect tenant preferences, and many cite an attractive,well-organized parking area among their wants.
Should you renovate a rental garage? Here are five factors to consider.
1. Protect Your Investment
Even if you never intend to dwell in your property, it pays to protect the value of your investment. When determining whether you should renovate a rental’s garage, preventing avoidable repair headaches should factor into the decision. Making small-yet-sustainable upgrades now can prevent future extended vacancies and save you considerable cash on costs later.
For example, epoxy paints and sealers protect against moisture penetration, corrosive chemicals and stains. Failure to apply them now can mean investing in more costly floor coverings later at four or more times the price you’d pay for the stuff in a can. Worse, spills like battery acids might require subfloor repair before you make it pretty.
2. Improve Your Curb Appeal
Keep an eye on your lease expiration dates, and be proactive in contacting your tenants to ask if they intend to extend them. Doing so helps you prevent unwanted vacancies and time your property improvement strategies like whether you should renovate the rental’s garage.
Many seekers inspect potential garage spaces before signing a lease, meaning that you might want to take out a building loan in high-demand areas rather than risk losing quality prospects.
The next time you drive down a residential street, pay attention to homes with open garage doors. You can immediately see how those with organized wall storage and epoxied floors look nicer than those with untreated concrete and items scattered everywhere. Ask yourself where you would rather live.
3. Determine the Best Land Use
What if you purchased a parcel with a structure that isn’t attached to a residential dwelling? The ultimate value of any real estate investment is the unlimited useful life of the land on which it sits, which is why it doesn’t depreciate.
Therefore, if that investment isn’t pulling in cash, you need to determine whether you want to keep the existing structure or raze it to build something new. Once you decide your parcel’s purpose, you can decide how best to attack clearing the space for renovation.
For example, chemical herbicides might remove unwanted weeds from a future office complex space, but not residential areas where tenants might garden in the soil.
4. Attract Higher Quality Tenants
It doesn’t matter whether your rental properties generate all or only a small portion of your overall income. Dealing with tenant headaches is one of the least palatable aspects of your job. The better-qualified individuals you can attract from the get-go, the less chance you’ll have to deal with hassles like evictions.
Even before the pandemic, organized garage space ranked high on homebuyer — and prospective tenant — wish lists. Now, as telecommuting professionals demand more practicality in their living spaces, providing ways to keep your rental garage tidy and organized might cost little but generate considerable ROI.
You can pick-up a pegboard and mount a place to hang gardening supplies and other outdoor tools for less than $50. Metal storage shelves stand the test of time better than plastic ones, and you can mount them as wall fixtures to prevent less scrupulous sorts from adding them to their moving truck.
5. Enjoy Improved Resale Value
At some point, you’ll need to decide whether you want to pass on your rental property through inheritance or sell it for cash. Like any business, you’ll eventually want to retire from the landlord gig, and this event might dictate whether you should renovate your rental’s garage.
A renovated garage can go a considerable way toward getting you a higher sticker price when you do. Now’s the time to consider upgrades like advanced storage systems with attached locking cabinets where buyers can store dangerous materials safely away from little fingers.
Look skyward when making resale renovations. Keep in mind that many homeowners use their garage space as a man-cave, gym or home workshop.
It doesn’t take much effort to replace that dingy single-bulb lamp with a more stylish model and add a few puck lights beneath cabinets. When you host a showing, you can illuminate the area to showcase your improvements.
Should You Renovate a Rental’s Garage?
When you own income-generating property, generating a higher ROI is the name of the game. Determine whether you should renovate your rental’s garage with these tips.
Oscar Collins is the managing editor at Modded. He writes about cars, fitness, the outdoors and more. Follow @TModded on Twitter for more articles from the Modded team.
