BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast - 974: Maximalism: The New Renter-Friendly Trend Landlords Can’t Overlook w/Tay “BeepBoop” Nakamoto

Episode Date: June 19, 2024

Want to really stand out in your market? A few renter-friendly interior design ideas can make a world of difference, elevating a run-of-the-mill property into one that attracts tenants and guests and stays occupied year-round. Today’s guest has some affordable, do-it-yourself (DIY) design hacks centered around “maximalism,” the design trend you can’t afford to not know about.   Welcome back to the BiggerPockets Real Estate podcast! If you want to boost your property’s value, keep renters happy, and get even MORE cash flow from your portfolio, you’ve come to the right place. Today, interior designer Tay “BeepBoop” Nakamoto joins the show to share some of her most popular rental design tips. Regardless of your investing strategy, whether you own short-term rentals or are flipping houses for a profit, you won’t want to miss out on these enormous value-adds. The best part? They are extremely cost-effective, easy to implement, and, most importantly, reversible!   In this episode, Tay delves into maximalism—the interior design trend that is taking the world by storm in 2024—and shares how you can seamlessly integrate this popular style with your rental properties. She even shares some of the best places to find furniture, décor, and materials, as well as some common pitfalls to avoid when tackling your own home renovation projects! In This Episode We Cover The best renter-friendly, do-it-yourself (DIY) design hacks for rentals How to implement maximalism throughout your rental properties Why you must know your limits when making design changes Where to find budget-friendly furniture and décor for your property How landlords can benefit from keeping up with the latest design trends Common pitfalls to avoid when tackling your own home design projects And So Much More! (00:00) Intro (01:17) What Is Maximalism? (04:31) Fixing Up Her First Home (11:02) Renter-Friendly DIY Projects (20:50) Common Pitfalls & Cosmetic Changes (26:42) How to Implement Maximalism (27:49) Connect with Tay! (28:24) Boost Your Property's Value! Check out more resources from this show on BiggerPockets.com and https://www.biggerpockets.com/blog/real-estate-974 Interested in learning more about today’s sponsors or becoming a BiggerPockets partner yourself? Email [e-mail]. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you're busy balancing a rental portfolio and maybe even a full-time job, you might not spend much time researching design trends. I definitely don't. But today, we are going to cover a really cool trend in design, which is maximalism. This trend is taking the internet by storm, especially with younger folks, Gen Z and millennials. And we're going to talk through the nuts and bolts of this design trend and how you as an investor can benefit from this in a short-term rental, a flip or even a buy and hold investment. Hey everyone, I'm your host, Dave Meyer, and with me today is Henry Washington.

Henry, thanks for joining us today. Hey, thank you for having me, as always, enjoy doing these with you. And today we're talking to Internet Sensation Tay Beepboop, who is an expert in renter-friendly hacks and maximalist design. And we're going to be covering what exactly maximalism design is. We'll learn about renter-friendly design hacks that we can do inexpensively and that homeowners can use and stick around after our interview with Tay because Dave and I are going to talk about why this matters for investors. Tay, welcome to the podcast. Thanks for joining us.

I'm so excited. Thanks for having me. We are excited to have you here. I'd love to start our conversation with just framing what maximalist design is in the first place. Let's see. Okay. Maximilism to me is an expression of just like fully creative not caring about what someone else would think. So it's just your brain on absolute steroids with no hesitation. So that's what maximalism to me, it's just like unabashed thoughts put into reality. Wow, that sounds very liberating. It is nice, not having boundaries. And it seems I am an idiot when it comes to design, but it seems like maximalism is really sort of becoming a really popular trend right now. Why do you think that is?

I hate that it's become a trend because I genuinely, I genuinely like it. Like, I've always been like this. And so I'm like, oh, what I like is now trendy and I wish it were just unique. But yeah, I think what happened is the pandemic really kind of blew that door wide open because people were stuck in their homes when before the pandemic, you spent maybe 20% of your day. And at home. The rest was outside at work. And so when people were stuck in their homes, they were like, I'm kind of sick of seeing white walls all day every day. So I think that's what changed things and why it's become so much more popular. You know, when we were growing up, so I'm an 80s baby, right? I was, I was born in 81, so I'm chilling everybody how old I am. But our homes were just

always full of things. Like, everyone collected things. Like my grandma collected salt and shakers and it was this weird like eclectic mix of salt and pepper shakers from all over the world in every shape, size form and fashion. My stepmother collects roosters and like, like live ones. No, like I should have, I should have caveated that. Yeah. No, this, there's, it just roosters on anything. Like, it's just. I don't know. Like, there's something comforting to me about maximalism and just doing what you want and having what you want in there. And, and, and, and, being okay with it. And I think maybe it relates to like just how people in the 80s and early 90s were raised. Oh, yeah. I grew up in Hawaii and I'm, I'm Asian. So like, I think it's common in the Asian culture of like a lot of people are just hoarders. Like my auntie and uncle's houses where like you could, there are boxes everywhere. You could hardly walk. But it wasn't it wasn't like scary hoarding. It's just like everyone's house is kind of like that. And it's probably also like immigrant stories.

of it's hard to let things go you want to collect. And so same growing up in the 90s of you're surrounded by things constantly. And it's kind of overwhelming. But I think in the modern remake of maximalism, it's curated things or it's intentional things. It's not just I'm collecting trash, which is how I feel my family was doing it. It's more so you're collecting things that make you happy and bring joy. I like that. That's a better version of it.

A lot of this can seem, you know, expensive. How did you figure out how to implement this into your lifestyle in a way that was portable? My origin story is I bought my first home. It needed fixing up because it was a Victorian home, like built in 1900. And so it was a bit of a wreck. It needed to be fixed. And I bought the house. All of my money was sunk into it.

And I had zero dollars for hiring a contractor. or for decorating or buying wallpaper. So how I started was finding extremely cheap hacks to make my home original and make it my own. So the easiest thing I did, which wasn't even intentional, it's really because I had no idea what I was doing. Like Dave, you mentioned, like, you do not know the world of design. I also do not know the world of design. I don't know what I'm doing. I'm learning on the way.

So I started out being just uninformed. and I thought, okay, I have no money, but this house is really depressing and I need to fix it up. So I just wanted to make a simple mural in like a corner of my wall. And I went to the hardware store. I bought five gallons of paint because I was like, I need five colors of paint. So I bought five gallons. I come home, do my mural. I still have five full gallons of paint.

Like murals don't take that much paint. And so I was like, well, now I have five gallons of a rainbow color of paint. what do I do with it? And that's when I just made the most of it. And I was like, what can't I paint in this house? And I'm just going to do all of it from there. Once I had painted walls, I was like, okay, well, now I need furniture. So I started sourcing things from Facebook Marketplace or literally off of the street.

And then I would upcycle them and customize them so they fit my style. And everything was done on the very, very cheap end. I do want to dig into this concept of all the DIY you did. But since this is a show for real estate people, just curious, where is this Victorian house from the 1900s you bought? That's what is like people on the internet, they might be like, you're so relatable, you're so real. But no, I'm completely unrelatable.

I bought a house in San Francisco, like in the mission and in a very desirable neighborhood. Sorry, it's not a house. It's a condo. But that was the first place I bought. and that is why I could not afford any help because it costs so much money to buy this place. Are you sitting in that place right now? Oh, no, I really ended up hating that home. Like, truly, it made me mentally ill.

I had, like, severe health issues and safety issues, and I did zero research on the house that I bought because I was an uninformed, unexperienced first-time homeowner. So I found the house on the internet on a Wednesday. I have never viewed a house before, don't have a realtor. By Thursday, I got a realtor, pre-approved for a mortgage. By Friday, I went to see the house, and I was in escrow. So I found it on Wednesday in escrow by Friday. I know nothing about home owning.

And once I moved in, I quickly found out that there was no heating or air, like AC. And I didn't realize that's something I had to look for. I just assumed. And so it was winter and I was freezing and I don't know if this is even like allowed or normal, but I got the contact information for the previous owner. And I'm just so I'm so uninformed. I text them and I'm like, hey, can you like tell me how to turn the heat on? And they said, oh, there is no heat.

I spent so much money on this house and I'm so stupid. I didn't check if there was heat. So there was a lot of mistakes I made and I moved out as fast as I could. Yeah, I mean, sounds like health-wise you needed to. I'm curious, did you just, did you sell it or rent it out? No, I am personally very afraid of renting out. I don't want to be a landlord. It really terrifies me. Like, you know, at least in San Francisco, the renter rights are so strict that someone can just really, really screw you over by renting. and I've made the mistake already proven that I do not do my research. So I was not going to risk just letting anybody into that house and me being tied to that

house for an indefinite amount of time when I just wanted to get out. Yeah. Yeah. No, it makes sense. And I think, you know, we're a show and a community of people who invest in real estate. But we often talk about just knowing yourself. And if you don't want to be a landlord, it's not right. It's not the right business for everyone.

All right. We've got to take a short break, but we'll be. right back with more from Tay after the break. Did you know your house gets bored when you leave? I can't actually prove that, but it probably misses out on the action, the footsteps, the late night fridge raids. Yeah, when you're gone, your place is basically on unpaid leave. It's sitting there in the dark thinking,

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Speed up your hiring right now with Indeed. And listeners of the show will get a $75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility at Indeed.com slash rookie. Just go to Indeed.com slash rookie right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. That's Indeed.com slash rookie. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring Indeed is all you need. Welcome back to the show. We're here with Tay Nakamoto talking about rental-friendly design and how property owners can use it to benefit their bottom line. Let's jump back in. But I was asking if you sold because I was curious, you made all these changes to the house. You did all this painting. all this maximalism, did it add any value to the house when you went to go sell it?

I wanted such a clean slate. I wanted to sell it completely as is with all the furniture. I didn't want anything. So that just really, that really minimizes the pool of people who happen to not want to keep their own furniture, the amount of people who like my design style. So it limits the pool, but I was still able to find a buyer who was really excited and who, of course, like really appreciated my style. So I don't know if it actually lowers the value of the home because everything is completely fixable and can all be undone. I do a lot of renter-friendly tricks and tips, even though I own, I like to do renter-friendly changes. I opened up the question to the internet. I posted a video saying, do you think it's possible for me to sell this as is? I don't

particularly want to do the work to undo it all, and maybe there's people out there who appreciate it. And it had like millions and millions of views on all different platforms where a lot of real estate agents, they were messaging me, they were commenting, they were saying, you absolutely can do this. It might take time, but you can. So I listened to the internet and it actually worked. One situation where listening to the internet was beneficial. View and far between. So everything on the internet is true. Wonderful.

And so what more specifically did that teach you about? rent-friendly DIY tips and tricks that people can use. Like, what should someone focus on if they want to DIY some part of their property that they can get their style into it without compromising somebody else's home, essentially? Yeah, or compromising your own value and hurting yourself in the future. I know Dave mentioned this, knowing your limits is important. And that's what I say a lot in the captions of my videos. I'm like, know your limits. If you can't do that, like, hire someone who can.

Like, I do projects myself of changing out fixtures, doing plumbing, doing electrical work just because, like, I've taught myself it. I'm a lot more experienced than the layman, and I trust myself. I am not saying that the average person should be doing that type of work. So that's why I lean heavily into DIY projects because I'm not trying to damage my house. In terms of like my tips for people to not damage the resale value of their home, my personal view is go renter friendly. It is the safest option. It is the least permanent.

You can undo it if the styles change. If this is completely out of style and no longer the trend in five years, which it likely won't be, you can undo it. And then the next owners have free reign to do what they want to do. Yeah, I think it in in real estate investor parlance, this would probably be, Henry, I don't know what you think, like sort of like cosmetic, what we would call like a cosmetic rehab, which is like you're not pulling down walls. You're not rearranging the layout. You're doing paint. You're doing tile.

You're doing fixtures, stuff that you can learn. And like you said, is easily reversible if you need to. Yeah, I try to stay away from anything that requires contractor work. Because if I had my way, I would have all, every doorway would be a giant arch. There would be no doors. There'd be no doors on my closets. I would just have squiggles everywhere. Nothing would make sense. And in the future, people aren't going to appreciate that. I would appreciate it because my home, but that's not going to work for the majority of people. So I try to stay away from really messing with the, like, the integrity and the structure of the home. And since in San Francisco, everything is mostly Victorian style, I try to highlight the Victorian aspect. of it, like all this crown molding, all the trim. Clearly, you can see that I'm, like, highlighting it and making it pop versus trying to minimize it, even though my style is actually more mid-century modern. It's, like, a lot more clean lines. But I'm working with what I have

and trying to not mess with the integrity of the home itself. So what are some, like, specific examples of, like, a renter-friendly DIY project that you would do or have done to that adds style for you but could easily be undone and no one would know. The biggest, easiest and fastest change someone can make is installing peel and stick wallpaper. I love peeling stick wallpaper. I have it in every single room of my house. The thing is, it can be a bit pricey. So it's completely possible to just paint what you want. Like you see say you see a wallpaper and you love the pattern, you can teach yourself how to paint, paint a mural, and it's very easy to undo paint the same way it's easy to undo wallpaper.

So that is my biggest tip of changing big walls, making it a statement wall. Like, boom, within an hour, you have a different room, which is so cool. Not everyone can learn to paint, Tay. Like, I love how you're just like, oh, just paint a mural. Like, oh, anyone could do that. I definitely cannot do that. Have you seen Bob Ross videos? Like, anyone can.

Yes. I am also, you mentioned know your limits. My limit would be if it involves a tool of any kind, I shouldn't do it. That's good. You know that. You know it. So I would hire somebody for literally everything that you have probably done. But that is, I understand my capacity for doing any type of.

of work and renovation. But you know what's really cool is like it's almost like the what a time to be alive, right? Because with technology and 3D printers and, you know, being able to get different types of products, there's so much advancement with products. Like we have done peel and stick back splash tiles in our apartments. And it looks like tile. It almost it feels like tile.

And you can still grout in between the lines to make it more permanent if you want to. I think if you just spend some time like researching and going to some of these stores and seeing what's out there, there are some really, really affordable super high design style things that would cost you a fortune if it was real tile or real wood. But there's really, really great products out there. That's super cool. The research is important because with every product in the world, there are really crappy versions and there's good versions. Like, there's a lot of people who claim to sell renter-friendly wallpaper, for example. And it's not actually wallpaper. It's actually contact paper, which is a very cheap alternative, but they're selling it as if it's peel and stick wallpaper.

And that will just rip off your paint. Like, they're just trying to make a buck on people. And so it's really important to do your research and see reviews and talk to people who've used the product so you know you're buying the right thing. That's my next big project is I'm coming out with a peel and stick tile line. And I've always wanted to do tile. But like you said, renovating a bathroom, renovating a kitchen, that's 40 grand each. I'm not trying to spend that money, but I will spend a couple grand, like two grand on fixtures and tile that I can rip out. like peel off in a couple years. I was watching some of your content and I saw there was like a

living room where you had hung three almost like chandelier style lights. Look. Yes, there, that, yes. But you didn't, you know, there was no like wiring and electrical work, but it looks like it was. So can you like share with us and especially me, you know, asking for a friend like how, how you're doing some of these lighting projects and making it look as if it was, you know, designed and built that way when the builder put it in. Which costs thousands of dollars. A lot of my projects come from problem solving because, for example, I made the same mistake if I bought this house and didn't do enough research.

I bought this house, obviously in the daytime I saw it. I move in at nighttime pitch black. I'm like, where's the light switch? There is no light switch. There is no lighting. in this whole room. There's not a single lighting. There's not outlet.

Because you don't think to, God, they really trick you at those home showings. They should have like a sleepover policy. You should be allowed to just sleep in the house for one night to just like see all the weird stuff that comes out when you like actually use the house. And in my case, I need to be able to try out one night in winter,

one night in summer. Yeah, there you go. But so everything's problem solving. So that's how I came out. with this lighting idea is I hired an electrician to come here and tell me how much would it cost to install lighting. He came and he started to look in the walls and he was like, oh, yeah, it's going to require me to break through multiple walls to get electricity here to the specific space that you want and it's going to cost you thousands of dollars. And I'm not trying to spend that money.

So I just came up with this way of like, okay, how can I get some light? into this room. So what I did was I bought these chandeliers. They're very lightweight, but they look massive. And I found rechargeable electric lighting pucks that actually, they have light bulb screws, so they screw into the chandelier, but you can just take them down. They're magnetic. You just pull them off, charge them, put them back up. And I installed these lightweight chandeliers into the the joists, the beams of my ceiling. So they're really secure, not a worry of them crashing down and like breaking your head. And it was just the perfect hack of now I have lighting. I did not have to break through multiple walls. And for reference, what did that cost versus the electrician's

quote, if you could remember? Okay, the electrician would have been, it would have been at least 2000, maybe 3,000. And I went overboard because, you know, I'm maximalist. So I got three chandeliers when I only need one. But the chandeliers are probably of 500, 600. So, yeah, 600 plus the light pucks, which are, I'll say, $40, $50 for all of them at most, compared to $3,000. Awesome. Yeah, well, that's much better.

Absolutely. And it looks really good. I think that's the best part about kind of what you do and what you show people how to do is you can really get these high-end design. style finishes and you can save a ton of money doing it. And I know you've done a bunch of different projects. And can you share with us maybe what are some of the pitfalls of like taking on some of these projects on your own or maybe some lessons that you've learned and that you take into

account every time you're going to do a project now to save yourself some time, headache, hassle? That's kind of my whole platform of I don't know what I'm doing and I'm teaching myself. So I'm sharing what I'm learning. And I make mistakes in almost every single project. And I tend to show them. And my very first project I ever did was I ripped out the, I ripped out the carpet of a stairwell because I bought the house.

It smelled like dog pee. It was disgusting and dirty. It was white carpet on stairs. And so I ripped it out thinking, oh, how hard can this be? I'm just taking out carpet. I didn't realize that it was decades old carpet on top of like a decades old runner. and so I had to pull out hundreds and hundreds of staples from the ground. Staples.

And then they used glue. They glued down the runner. So I was like, oh, I'm just going to stain the floors to match the rest of the house. I start staining and it doesn't match the rest of the house because there was glue on it, which I couldn't see. So it's completely mismatched. It took weeks and like crying because I couldn't figure out what's really. wrong and I really learned my lesson on why did I think I could rip out like Victorian stairs when

I have zero experience and I highly suggest looking into things before you start. I have this almost exact same story in perfect reverse when I first bought by first property. I tried to build a staircase into like a back patio. Not yourself, right? That's insane. It was the most humiliating. I've probably told this story on this podcast before, but it was so humiliating. It was like in the back of this fourplex and I had these very nice tenants and they were like, we need these stairs. It was just like five or six stairs. I was like, I got this. No. I had no idea what I was doing. I had to like, I went to a pawn shop and bought my first drill and my first hammer and I was like, or a screwdriver. I was like, I'm going to do this. And I like rolled up and day after day I was

just failing at this like watching YouTube trying to do it. And then one day I pulled up and there's just this beautiful staircase there. And I was like, oh my God, what happened? And my tenant's dad came out and he was like, I saw you out here the other day and I just felt really bad for you. So I just, I just did it for you. You're so lucky. Yes. But similar staircase story, learn your limits. Do a little bit of research before you jump into something because no one should mess with staircases. We're not, we're not qualified. No, no, no. It's for professionals only. Yeah. Well, back to back to sort of this idea of Maxwellism TAY. When I hear you talking, my investor brain starts going to the idea of short-term rentals,

because we've talked a lot about what renters can do, but I own a single short-term rental, but I've noticed doing that that you sort of have to redesign it every couple of years anyway. So like this seems like such a perfect and fun way that you could keep up trends in an inexpensive way and like always have a short-term rental that's super on trend and appealing to to modern consumers. I don't know if you've come across that at all on your platform if people are using these types of tricks or DIY projects in short-term rentals. Oh, I get requests all the time to design people's short-term rentals. So I understand like my type of work and my style is very short-term rental friendly. And like you said, it's the trend and people want it. So I'm a massive proponent of even if you own, renter-friendly is the way to decorate.

I will say a disclaimer because personally, morally, I am very against short-term rental. which you might not want to post about, but I just have to say it because it is very important to me. Just specifically in, I'm specifically talking about locations where there's massive housing crisis. Like, I'm from Hawaii and it has been completely destroyed by short-term rentals and the housing market has pushed out locals and natives and even my family was pushed out. You can't afford to live there anymore. So that's why I'm super, I have strong moral opinions on it, but specifically for very like touristy, areas where it's affecting locals. And that's why I've turned down like all asks to decorate for short-term rentals. But I know the benefit that it has for a lot of markets, like certain markets

where people, first of all, they need a place to stay. And then secondly, where they're trying to attract tourism. Like, there are some crazy short-term rentals that are specifically designed to be insane and to be like an attraction. Like I will travel two, three hours just to get to that weird house that is that is a potato. Like there's actually a it is literally a potato. I was wondering where you're going, but potato was not what I was expecting. No, there's some really, really crazy short-term rentals where it's like that is a tourist attraction and I would go there. And it helps those like small, those small areas that wouldn't get tourism. And so there's definitely a positive to it, but because of my own personal experience in my homeland of Hawaii, that's why

I don't respond to helping them design those places. All right, Tay. Well, thank you so much for sharing that and for your personal experience. We absolutely appreciate your sharing with us your feelings on all of this. I'd love to just hear any last tips that you have for us on maximalist design and how real estate investors or people who are just listening to this and want to do it for their personal home could add value and just add maybe some joy and fulfillment to their life through for these types of projects. Homeowning is such a massive goal to accomplish. And I'm so proud of everyone who gets there. Like it is so hard. And so for all the people listening who are homeowners, I understand that you might have so much money sunk into that place and you want to make it your own and make it.

it feel like your home. So finding the the cheap hacks to get it there, you don't have to do it the expensive way and do the full-blown demos to get it there. You can also find just cheaper alternatives. And don't feel like you have to break the bank to make your home even better. Just know that if you do some research, there are other options. I love that. Well, TAY, thank you so much for sharing your story and all your tips and tricks with our audience. If anyone wants to connect with Tay will, of course, put all of her contact information and social handles in the show description below. Thanks again, Tay. Thank you. Thank you very much. My wife will be super pumped. I hope I meet her. All right. We've got to take one more quick break, but when we come back,

we'll connect the dots on how investors can use maximalism and these rental-friendly hacks to increase the value of their properties. Stick around. Did you know your house gets bored when you leave. I can't actually prove that, but it probably misses out on the action, the footsteps, the late-night fridge raids. Yeah, when you're gone, your place is basically on unpaid leave. It's sitting there in the dark thinking, I could be contributing right now. Your side room wants a side hustle. Even your Wi-Fi is like, we could be networking. You're on vacation, spending money like it's a sport while your staircase at home is fully capable of sending your income upwards. Here's the twist. you can go on a trip and actually earn money.

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is all clean up, no progress. That's why hundreds of property managers rely on bill to streamline their finances. Bill for property management lets you add all your properties, assign permissions, pay bills, and receive payments quickly and efficiently, without the usual bottlenecks. It syncs with platforms like QuickBooks, Zero, NetSuite, and Sage intact, so your accounting stays aligned. You can automate bulk payments across properties and HOAs, choose flexible payment methods like same-day ACH, international wires, card or check, and set custom roles in approval policies. There's even a dedicated bill inbox for each property to keep everything organized. Ready to simplify your workflow, book your free demo at bill.com slash bigger pockets, and get a $100 Amazon gift card. That's bill.com

slash bigger pockets. All right, rental property investors, listen up. Our friends at Dominion Financial already have some of the best DSCR rates in the industry. Now they're the fastest, too. They just launched 10-day DSCR closing. That's right, 10 days. And they're still. still the only lender with a DSCR price beat guarantee. That means faster closing, the best terms, zero guesswork, that's Dominion Financial. Check them out at biggerpockets.com slash dominion. Again, that's Biggerpockets.com slash dominion. Tax season reminder for all the real estate investors listening. If you own rental properties, short-term rentals, commercial buildings, basically anything that's not your primary residence, you need to know about cost segregation. It's an IRS-compliance

strategy that lets you accelerate depreciation on your properties, which means you're paying less in taxes this year and keeping more cash in your pocket for your next deal. Cost segregation guys is the go-to firm, having done over 12,000 of these studies with $500 million in total depreciation identified. Head to costsegregationguise.com slash BP to get a free proposal and see your potential tax savings. Welcome back to the Bigger Pockets podcast. Let's jump back in. Superfund. conversation with Tay there, Henry. What do you make of all this? How can investors apply these ideas to their portfolios? Yeah, I think this is great information if you are a real estate investor, especially a landlord. Because I think when people think about flips, people, their brains

often go to like, what are things that I can do to make my house pop? But you also typically have bigger budgets on those projects. Where I think this is really helpful for people is landlords, because there's just a sea of the same white boring walls, the same boring finishes. They're very basic, cheap level finishes, and you get these products that are, there's no life in them. And what we've learned in our rental business is whenever I add a feature wall or wherever I add a something other than a subway tile backslash, like the property rents so much faster and they typically rent for a little more money yeah every single time and so we have started to every time a property turns over we try to find a wall in the living room that's big enough for us to add a feature wall too and when i say a feature wall all we're doing

is making a design out of little one-by trim and then we're painting that wall a color that pops oh that one-by trim people love that couple hundred bucks in materials couple hundred and labor and people love it and they want to rent the property faster. And so yeah, it's, it's, there are lots of really inexpensive things you can do to make your property stand out. Because you have to think about it. If you have a house and you've got people touring properties, they're not typically just looking at one unit that day that they're looking at properties to rent. They're going to look at a bunch. And so if they're going to look at three, four, five units, you want them to look at yours and remember it, right? You want to,

them to look at yours and feel at home. And for a few hundred bucks to be able to make some changes, like, I think peeling stick wallpaper is a great idea. And you can put that in smaller spaces and make them pop, like just creating something inexpensively that makes you stand out. It is proven for us to be a worthwhile endeavor, especially like the peeling stick backslash tiles we were talking about. We did that in a rental. We tested it in a rental. It's holding up great. I was just in that rental like last week checking up on it because we had storms go through and so I had to actually go into my units and it looks great. It holds up like regular tile and like people like these places rent so much faster. That's awesome. Yeah. I think I've been

guilty of this in the past of thinking, hey, I don't want to put off any potential renters. And that is sort of this reductive thing where you just do the gray with the white trim that everyone has everywhere. But you have to think that, yes, you might not put off anyone if you're doing that, but you're also not attracting anyone because it's boring. And so if you do something cool and interesting, maybe three out of five people aren't interesting. But the two people who like it might really like it and might be really interested in it and be enthusiastic and passionate about renting your play. So I really like it. And I also love the framework about what she calls rental-friendly design where it's just cosmetic stuff. This isn't like you're fundamentally

altering your house. Like she was joking about making every doorway in her house an arch. I don't think I'm going to do that anytime soon. But I like these idea of reversible things so you can stay on trend because as all of us who own rental properties already know, you have to upgrade them. you have to, you know, do a cosmetic refresh every couple of years anyway. So you might as well make it cool and trendy in what people want because you're going to have to update it five years, put new paint in anyway, and then you can adapt again. So I want to ask you, like on the other end of the spectrum, as a landlord, like, do you feel like, A, you should know what some of these trends are that people are doing

to, like, be aware of what's going on your property? And B, do you care? Like, do you want your tenants to come and tell you they're going to do this if they're just going to, if it's something so easy to undo? Well, everything design related gives me crippling anxiety. I hate it so much. Like, I can't make decisions about this. So I don't want to know. But I, the thing I really like about is because I often get tenants who ask me to alter the premise, the premises. And I sometimes say yes, but like a lot of times I'm like, no, I don't want you to do that. But there are so. many cool things like you were talking about that now I can even suggest or collaborate with them on like these idea of those like lighting pods. Like I have units. I was writing that down because I have units that don't have overhead lighting. I was like, that's a great feature I can add now. Or if someone requests something like that, even in a living room, I'll just buy that

and have that and make it a cooler experience. So to me, it's, I really like those kind of like tech hacks to upgrade the quality of the property. Don't put me in front of like wallpaper. and ask me to choose, I will, I'll just go blank and say nothing. Yeah, I think for me, from a landlord's perspective, if somebody were to come to me and want to do maybe some of these projects, I would most, like, if somebody comes to me and they want to paint my unit, I typically tell them no, because it's very rare that they're going to go back and paint it back the way it was. And so I think from the perspective, if it was me, I would want to know what was going on

so that I could do kind of what you said, is say, if somebody has a, idea that they want to do something. I could say, no, I don't want you to do that, but here are some options I am okay with. Here are some things that you can add that I'm totally fine with, because I would either know that I could quickly remove it when I need to, or I might want to keep it when it's done. Yeah, exactly. Like, you can't paint, but peel and stick wallpaper, cool with that idea. Like, I think that's a great way to build rapport with the tenant. All right. Well, thank you so much for joining me on this conversation. And please, I can't see Jess, your wife in the background, but was she just like over your shoulder watching this interview?

No, she wasn't. She couldn't be around today. So she's going to have to listen like a fan like everybody else. All right. Well, thank you all so much for listening. We'll see you again soon for another episode of the Bigger Pockets Real Estate podcast. Thank you all for listening to the Bigger Pockets Real Estate podcast. Make sure you get all our new episodes by subscribing on YouTube, Apple, Spotify, or any other podcast platform. Our new episodes come out Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I'm the host and executive producer of the show, Dave Meyer. The show is produced by Ian K. Copywriting is by Calicoke content, and editing is by Exodus Media. If you'd like to learn more about real estate investing or to sign up for our

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