Epic Real Estate Investing - Cheap Fixes to Increase Your Rentals Value | 1015

Episode Date: May 11, 2020

In today’s episode, Matt decided to share an experience in working with one of his REI Ace clients on increasing her rental values. Tune in and find out how cheap fixes can boost your rental prices in the blink of an eye! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is Terrio Media. Success in real estate has nothing to do with shiny objects. It has everything to do with mastering the basics. The three pillars of real estate investing. Attract, convert, exit. Matt Terrio has been helping real estate investors do just that for more than a decade now. If you want to make money in real estate, keep listening. If you want it faster, visit R-E-I-A's dot com.

Here's Matt. Hey, rock star, it's Matt Terrio from Epic Real Estate. And today, I want to share with you some cheap fixes to increase your rentals value. You know, I was talking to an RIAease client who has been able to amass a good number of rentals over the last couple years. And we were mapping out a strategy and how to get her out of the rat race in the next six months. And after reviewing all of her current assets, she can probably make this happen in the next 30 to 60 days. I mean, she's right on the brink of achieving her escape. And of the many actions that we'll be taking to get her there, one of those actions

is strategically increasing rents without scaring away her current tenants or future ones. And there are some really cheap, easy fixes she can do to increase the value of her rentals. And that's what she wanted. And as you may want that too, inexpensive, easy things you can do to either increase your rentals value or increase the rent you can demand so you can increase your ROI or overall cash flow. Because if you do the math with the ROI calculation with that formula, you know, just a $50 a month increase in rent, even a, I mean, if you got to $100 increase in rent, that's monumental. It's like a couple points on your ROI, which means your money is working that much harder

for you. So how can you do that cheaply and easily? without, you know, scaring away your tenants, without them looking for a different place in the same neighborhood or, or even if they do leave, how do you do that with still having the ability to attract new tenants? And so this is a great question because so many investors think big ticket first when it comes to adding value to their rentals. And they totally overlook the easy, inexpensive things that they can do for still a very significant impact. All right. So let's run down a few of these. First thing, make sure. everything works properly. So consider replacing the small stuff like, you know, faucets, handles, door handles, and cupboard handles, light switch covers,

you know, doorknobs, doorbells, screen doors, screens. I mean, these little details all tightened up, cleaned up, or just flat out renewed, can totally transform a property from, eh, to, ooh, this is nice. All right? So that's first thing. Make sure everything works. Second, make sure everything's clean. right? Going through it and doing a real thorough good cleaning of the property inside and out

can have a big impact. So if everything works and everything's clean, you are typically really far ahead of the other rentals in your market. Third is a new coat of paint. I mean, something as simple as paint adds a really clean, fresh look. And you want to look for light, neutral colors that tends to open up the space a bit. And if you're willing to do it yourself, that's not expensive at all. And if you're not willing to do it yourself, it's still not very expensive. So a new coat of paint. Another is assess the flooring. Could the carpet use a good professional steam cleaning? Or could the hardwood be refinished? Or maybe replace the carpets with hardwood. You know, it lasts longer and it looks cleaner too. And there's such a huge selection of hardwoods

and such a huge selection or maybe even a bigger selection of hardwood style flooring, like the synthetic type of hardwood. So it's not that expensive. It's really durable and it'll last a lot longer. So when you have turnover in your properties, you won't have to change the carpet, stuff like that, which can be really expensive if you have to do that on every single turnover. So assess the flooring.

So those are some ideas for the interior and all of them very inexpensively and easy to do and can be done rather quickly as well. like it's not going to be a 30 day, 60 day renovation type thing. You can have this done in probably five, seven days, all of that stuff done. All right. So that's the interior. Let's go outside. Paint on the outside as well.

It can have a huge impact there also. Or maybe even really just a good power washing of the siding. That can change everything. And I've read somewhere that dollar for dollar, the best thing that you can do for your property and actually put a dollar in and get. potentially $2 back out is replacing the siding. So that's a really good, an indicator that the exterior of the property is important to the value of the property.

So if you're not going to replace the siding, a good power washing of the existing siding is a good thing to do. And if you have the ability or if it flat out needs new paint, do it. It's a good investment for the value of the property. Also look for the broken or worn out things. look for the screens, rain gutters, you know, rusty rain gutters. We've seen rain gutters in houses where they're hanging down or they're crooked. Straighten those things out.

Replace them if you have to. And things like mailboxes. Spruce those things up. Maybe get a new mailbox. Like I said earlier, doorbells really important. The screen doors or the actual doors themselves. Those are all very easy, inexpensive fixes that can have a big impact on the value and really create some strong visual appeal for prospective tenants. And then also, don't forget the

landscaping. Plants or new grass can really help or in desert type areas, particularly on the West Coast is going to make a lot of sense. It's considered like native plants or rock gardens. There's a lot of communities I know in Southern California, there was an incentive if you took out your grass and replaced it with rock gardens, that the city would actually come out and do it for you. So they can look really great. I've seen some of them as well as they can be really good for the environment and it'll be really good for your water bill also. So consider that for curb appeal and long term water expenses also.

And so, you know, one thing Mercedes and I will do, whenever we're in town where our rentals are, we'll tour the neighborhoods and we'll compare our properties to all of the others. If possible, we'll walk into open houses and we'll just kind of take an assessment. of what are the other houses that are competing with ours? What do they look like? And we want to make sure that ours look better. And you know, you want to make sure that you're among the best looking ones. And when you do it that way, frequently you'll discover there's not as much you think that you need to do to stand out above the rest of which can be a big money saver also. So any of those things that I was had mentioned earlier, if you're considering those, you know, the first step you

might want to do is just go ahead and look at what you're competing against because that's how renters choose where they're going to live is they go out and they compare. And if you understand that, you can put yourself in a tenant's shoes. It's really easy to stand out and get top dollar for your market. All righty. So if you found that useful, feel free to share it with a friend that might find it just as useful. And if you'd like some help with your real estate investing, you might want to check out the new training video I just put up over at R-E-I-Aase.com. All righty. So that's it for today.

God bless to your success. I'm Matt Terrio, living the dream. Take care. Yeah, yeah, we got the cash flow. You didn't know, home for it. We got the cash flow. This podcast is a part of the C-suite Radio Network.

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