The Landlord Lens - Landlord Says Rentals Should Come With NOTHING - Is He Right?

Episode Date: September 26, 2025

Some landlords say rentals should come with NOTHING, no garbage disposals, no ceiling fans, no extras at all. Just canned lights, a refrigerator, and an oven. Their reason? Everything else breaks.But is that the smart move… or a huge mistake? In this video, we break down the argument, what it means for landlords and tenants, and whether “bare bones rentals” are actually the future of property management.👉 Do you think rentals should come fully equipped or stripped down? Comment below—we want to hear from both landlords and tenants.____

And rentals get nothing, no nothing. No garbage disposals. No ceiling fans, can lights, that's it. So today we're asking, what should actually go into your rental? His view is let's keep it really simple so that they just have eliminated as many maintenance requests as possible. Welcome back to another episode of The Landlord Lens. I'm Jess Fellini, and I'm joined with our CEO, Seamus Nally. we are this week talking about what should go into your rentals. We came across a semi-viral clip that Troy Hurons was a part of. He says rentals should get nothing. No garbage disposals, no ceiling fans, just canned lights, refrigerators, and ovens. And his reason is everything else breaks. So today we're asking what should actually go into your rental? We're going to start out with that

clip that I was just talking about. You include them in your rentals? No. No rentals get nothing. No nothing. No garbage disposals. No ceiling fans, can lights. That's it.

You include like refrigerators and ovens with them? Frigerators and ovens, yes. That's it. Because anything in a rental that, garbage disposal will always go wrong. Everything will always go wrong in that. You want to put can lights in your rentals. If I'm in a rental and I go change my light bulb,

pull that thing apart, set it over here, change my light bulb and forget to put it back up because I'm a renter. Not saying that every renter's like that, but a lot of them are. So a can light looks nice, right? So I put a can light, how easy is it to change that out? So I'm going to spend a little bit more money on the can light, but it's done forever. Really love Troy Hearns coming in hot in that clip, right?

He's got a big audience there, which is interesting. I really want to know who are all those people surrounding him. But coming in like keep it bare bones, right? As he's talking about the lock of ceiling fans, this garbage disposal. the dishwashers. One thing where I really agree with them was garbage disposals. That is one for my own rentals. If we're doing a remodel, we never had a garbage disposal into the kitchen.

Just because it's just a maintenance challenge, right? It also, I see this in my own family, right? Because we have a garbage disposal, people think, oh, we can put anything down there. Yeah. You know, I've fished out chicken wean bones. Yeah. Don't go in the garbage disposal, right? That doesn't work.

And so I think eliminating that as a potential maintenance problem is an absolute no-brainer. Agreed. Yeah, I just had to have mine service that it was $250 to get like a little piece of coffee ground. But, you know, that was like a basic thing to have accidentally gone down there. But imagine you've got tenants, this might be happening over and over. Very, very costly thing to keep up with. Absolutely. Now where I will completely disagree with Troy is actually around ceiling fans. Yeah. I've never had a ceiling fan break.

So that to me does not actually enter the department of like what may create maintenance in the future. I also think it's a nice touch. And at least one unit that I have, it really goes a long way to help what I think is kind of like a subpar HVAC system that doesn't have enough vents in each room to actually circulate the air. And so those ceiling fans have been awesome and we get zero complaints as a result of being able to have those run, whether it's hot or cool. Totally. No, especially here in Colorado. I think that's pretty common in the apartments I've lived in, in the condo that we rent out. We don't have air conditioning. And so those ceiling fans are, you know, they're clutch. We are in a garden level unit so it doesn't get too hot, but it's a nice touch to be able to have that. And then you're saving money to on not having to, you know, upkeep AC if you're in a place where you can get away with that. Absolutely. A couple other things where I would fall on probably Troy side of keep it bare bones is no curtains in our rentals. We have the simplest blinds that we can get inexpensive ones that are easy to replace because the reality is, and I just did a condition report two months ago. The blinds get dirty. They get ruined, especially if there's pets and it's something you're going to have to replace anyways. So I find those very simple pull downs as a really easy switch out when there's a turnover. another big area that I think super important is actually something to add to your rental, which is a TV wall mount.

If you have kind of a living room space, we have the TV wall mounts there so that the tenants aren't doing it in themselves. Yes. I actually try to think, I don't want to have to do maintenance, but I also want to avoid the amount of DIY projects that my tenants do in the property because that's just rife with opportunity for for damages right and sure especially where you're drilling yeah if you're drilling into a wall right so i make sure that our bathrooms have adequate towel bars yes right and that they're secured well you know i bring my three-year-old over and let him hang on them to make sure

that they're not going to fall off the wall at all uh once again with just the idea of let's eliminate as much DIY work as a tenant may do because at the end of the day that's something that you are going to have to patch or fix um and even if you're getting paid out of security share your deposit, I'd rather just not do it. So let's talk about the amenity of advantage. So going to the other side, what do you know, what are you always making sure that your rentals have before people move in? And then we can kind of talk about how we, how we upkeep. Yeah. So I, the big, you know, you have your basics, your oven stovetop, right, your refrigerator. I actually think a dishwasher. Yeah. If certainly if we're doing a remodel, we always put a room for a dishwasher. A dishwasher as an

appliance has become kind of a standard in most properties. Yep. And I'm not talking just Class A, right? I think all the way kind of down the scale of that property, a dishwasher is worth it. They're also not that expensive to replace if you need to. And so I'm a dishwasher fan. Washer and dryer is an interesting one for me. We have it in most of our rentals.

What's really grown on me is the concept of renting those out on a month-to-month basis. We don't do it on any of our rentals today. but I kind of like that idea of adding an extra, you know, maybe it's a $25 fee to the lease that you tell the renter about ahead of time, right? To actually show that this washer and dryer has its own value. Yeah. The one thing you have to be willing to do, though, is if they say, no, I don't want to rent the washer and dryer from you. Oh. You have to be willing to remove it.

And so actually, I have one of my units is on a second floor, right? and I was contemplating that idea. And then, you know, I was like, do I really want to pull a washer and dryer out of the laundry room there? And it was like, no way, right? Huge pain in the ass for me. And so I just included it in. You're like, okay, well, here you go. You get it for free.

Well, and so that's why for that unit specifically, I've never even charged or separated it, right, as an additional fee for the tenant. But I do like the idea of putting some value on that for the tenant. Okay. So let's talk about when you should keep it simple. I think that there are certain times where it makes sense to keep it, not bare bones, but keep it a little bit simple for yourself and for your tenants to maintain. What are some of those times you think? Yeah, I know individuals, if they have a property that is, you know, class C, class D where it will keep it more simple because the expectations there is often lower. The rent that you're getting is often lower. People have properties with higher

turnover, right? If they're really expecting higher turnover, I think college towns is a really good example. Right. If most of your tenants end up being students, keep it really simple, right? These are individuals that are, you know, they're out there. They got their kind of, this is their first go at living by themselves in most cases. They have no idea how to service these things. So keep it as simple as possible for them. So you're now don't have a reoccurring maintenance situation on your hands. What's interesting is Troy is actually a big fan of long-term tenants, right? And in fact, he brags a lot about the fact that he doesn't raise rent very often

because he wants to get a great tenant and keep them for a long time. And so where I just said, usually high turnover, right, to keep it really simple. His view is let's keep it really simple so that the duration of my tenant being at this property, they just have eliminated as many maintenance requests as possible. Okay. So next, let's talk a little bit about when you should. should add more. I think there are cases where it makes sense to, you know, create upgrades and it might be different from one rental to another. It could be, you know, based on where, where, what part of a

neighborhood that you have a rental in. So Seamus, how do you, how do you determine when you should add a little bit more to one rental versus another? It comes down to just knowing the market. So I, I take the same journey whenever I have a vacancy coming up that a renter is going to take, which is I go to the listing sites. I look at what's available in the area. I look at what they're promoting. I look at what they're charging, right? And then usually my approach is if my amenities line up, I try to price usually at the higher

side to start, see what sort of leads I get and see what sort of feedback I get during showings. I'll then drop the price accordingly. But it's all about what is the competition. doing, right, for that price point. And so I think you can't go into it blindly, right? You can't assume that you can rent something out without a washer and dryer and unit if every other listing you're looking at has washer and dryer's in unit, right? I do think, though, that landlords are sometimes too shy about bragging about the amenities that they have, right? And so I would say,

when you're creating that listing, make sure, you know, use a little bit of bold font, that's okay, right? Make sure, don't do all caps, though, please, for the love of God. But, but, you know, But make sure you are talking about all the different amenities so that they do jump off the screen a little bit when tenants are browsing. Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I'm in a pretty hot area of Denver with my rental. And I love it. I mean, we lived there for five years. It was absolutely like a dream.

And I, you know, when I was listing ours, I remember looking at like the comps nearby. And I was like, okay, we've got to actually install a washer and dryer because that was like something that set us apart, even though, yes, it might be a little bit more made. maintenance. But yeah, there are competitive areas, especially, you know, housing market right now, swinging towards a buyer's market, right? We're swinging towards a buyer's market. I think that that's actually having some impacts on landlords too. There are a lot of condos for sale in Denver, and a lot of those accidental landlords that we've talked about are popping up. So there are more choices for renters. So you do need to keep that in mind, I think, in these metro areas where there is a lot more competition. So Seamus, we've talked a lot about what you should include in your

rentals. What is your ultimate take? Is Troy too extreme in his views? Do you agree with some of them? Well, I think Troy is kind of right on in terms of low maintenance. What I would suggest, and my golden rule when trying to understand the amenities or offerings in a rental is, is this a place that I would have lived at at some point in my life, right? Maybe it's not a place I would have lived out with a family, but maybe I would have read after school, right? And if you own a rental and you're thinking there's no way in hell I would ever live there. My suggestion would be ask yourself why you own it, why should someone else live there?

And are there things that you believe, it's things you could do to make it a little bit more attractive so that you yourself would have lived there at some point? And it's a perfect golden rule for all of our viewers out there to ask themselves when they're considering what to do with their rental. Yep, absolutely. Could not agree more. Thank you guys so much for tuning into the landlord Lens

and let us know in the comments. Are you team bare bones or do you spruce up your rentals as you have new tenants? We would love to hear from you and catch us next time. TurboTenant is the all-in-one platform for landlords to manage their rental properties. From vacancy to tenancy, we have you covered with industry-leading tools and expert advice. Landlord better from anywhere for free at turbotenant.com.