Key Takeaways
- Small, strategic upgrades can justify higher rent.
- Functionality and comfort matter to Tucson renters.
- Preventive maintenance and strong marketing protect income.
As a landlord in Tucson, AZ, maximizing the income from your rental property is probably one of your most important objectives. The good news about improving your rental income is that you don’t have to undertake expensive projects in your property to command a higher rent. A few targeted upgrades are what you need to make the rental more attractive to prospective tenants.
In a competitive rental market like Tucson’s, with its growing population, strong job market, and desirable desert lifestyle, smart landlords must constantly find new ways to make their rental property stand out from the competition. The tips discussed in this article will help to instantly boost your property's appeal and maximize its earning potential.
Whether you're getting ready to list your property for the first time or you're working with an existing rental, these strategies ensure that you don’t have to wait on lease renewals to improve rental income. Tucson Foothills has put together this guide to help you understand what Tucson renters value so you can add those features to your rental.
5 Effective Strategies to Increase Rental income
1. Improve the Appearance of the Property
Do not underestimate the power of first impressions when trying to get renters to pay more for your rental property. Perceived value is more important than actual value. Tenants don’t rent a home just for themselves. They always look at that home through the eyes of visitors and friends because a home is a status symbol.
For example, you can spend a few hundred dollars to replace cabinet doors, reface drawer fronts, replace the hardware, and apply new veneer to the exposed sides of boxes. Doors and door hardware are a magnet for attention. Replacing aging hardware and repainting your doors is a high-impact and cost-effective way to upgrade your rental.
Replacing outdated, worn-out, or builder-grade faucets and showerheads in the kitchen and bathrooms will instantly modernize the space.
The front entryway is one of the first things a tenant’s visitors see. Repaint the door with colors that grab attention without being loud. Make sure the approach to the doorway is well-lit and pay attention to the walkway.
Add window shutters, hedge any bushes and trees in the yard, replace your old mailbox with something more interesting, add a window box beneath windows, etc.
2. Upgrade Indoor and Outdoor Lighting
When designing the lighting for your rental property, there are three layers of lighting you must think about. Ambient lighting is general lighting that serves as the foundation. Its role is to provide a comfortable, even glow across the entire space. It sets the tone for social spaces and makes the home navigable.
Accent lighting helps to highlight specific features of the home, such as artwork, architectural details, bookshelves, or statement plants. They convert these key features into focal points. Accent lights are many times brighter than ambient lighting.
Task lighting is designed to illuminate certain areas of the home and provide targeted brightness for specific activities. They are best used for kitchen countertops, bathroom vanities, workshops, reading nooks, and home offices.
Implementing these design philosophies in your rental lighting scheme will improve functionality and aesthetics, and make the space feel more affluent.
3. Maximize Space
Most rental properties don’t have enough storage. Many landlords treat storage as an afterthought and do not go out of their way to maximize the under-utilized spaces in the home. But you can boost the appeal and income potential of your rental by implementing clever designs and functional storage solutions.
Great storage solutions could include cabinets with slim or floating shelves, custom-built shelving in closets and living areas. Over-the-door racks are a great option for bathrooms, tension rods are useful in standard closets, and tiered rolling carts can be placed between the fridge and counter.
4. Add Amenities and Perks
These are a wide range of features and services that make your rental feel luxurious while improving tenants' lives. Examples include in-unit laundry, hardwood floors that are easy to clean and important to renters with allergies, large windows that let more natural light into the unit, and ceiling fans.
Additionally, storm windows, wiring for high-speed internet, pet-friendly lease terms, paid lawn mowing or pet walking services, are all attractive amenities that don't have to break the bank.
5. Focus on Preventative Property Maintenance
This step will not increase your rental income directly, but it can boost income significantly by helping you reduce your operational costs. A well-maintained rental property also encourages your tenants to renew their leases consistently. By reducing the number of vacancies, you will dramatically cut your turnover costs.
This step is about preventing problems in your building rather than correcting them. With scheduled property inspections, you can identify budding issues and address them before they cause damage and disrupt the lives of your tenants. Preventive maintenance improves tenant satisfaction by helping you minimize repair requests.
Bottom Line
Without good marketing, the above steps will not have the desired impact. To reap the full benefits of the changes you make to your rental property, you must find ways to show them to a prospective tenant. This is the only way to justify the rental’s higher rental rate.
What does good rental property marketing look like? It means prioritizing high-quality photos/videos and professional descriptions in your listing, implementing video tours as a marketing tool, organizing an open house, responding to inquiries promptly, knowing how to communicate with renters, and implementing thorough tenant screening.
A good property manager like the team at Tucson Foothills can help. Contact us today to learn more.
