6 Ways to Improve Your Rental Listing Price and ROI with Belong

What’s going to get you the best possible listing price and return on investment for your rental home? Livability. 

Sure, nice design and first impressions count when it comes to getting your home loved and lived in quickly. But it’s the practical upgrades that will improve your ROI long-term. If you want your residents to love your home as much as you do, making the home as comfortable as possible is key. 

Belong has worked with over 2,000 homeowners (and counting) to make sure they meet a high standard of safety and livability that reduces vacancy, increases rental values, and attracts dependable, long-term residents who want to call your place home.

In this article, we’ll take a look at six of Belong’s top picks for cost effective ways to improve your long-term rental ROI when getting your rental home ready for listing. 

1. Give residents a good experience

There’s nothing more frustrating than a home that looks great but doesn’t function well. If something in your home isn’t working, it’s going to bother you every day. It’s a sure-fire way to make sure your residents will want to leave when the lease is up. 

Of course, functional doesn’t scream value add. Making sure the plumbing is working won’t yield you a higher rental rate. This is where you need to look beyond the bare-minimum of “not broken” and consider how a functionality upgrade might make your home a more desirable place to live. 

Let’s use the bathroom shower as an example. Is there anything better than a good hot shower at the end of a long day? This is one area that homeowners often value the most in their personal space, but neglect in rental homes. If your rental home has a leaky shower head that falls off its hinge all the time, it will drive your residents crazy. 

You could fix the leak to make it functional. Or, to boost the value of your home to your new residents, you could replace it with a more modern fixture with good water pressure and flow. This will help elevate the bathroom aesthetics, while giving your residents a great experience every day. Not to mention avoiding the repeated repair requests. 

If you partner with Belong PRO, we’ll suggest some functional upgrades that will improve the resident experience and can attract a premium rental price for your home on our network. 

Read More: How Belong Inspections Reduce Vacancy and Prepare Your Home For New Residents

2. Go lighter and brighter

People rent homes because they have a practical need for somewhere to live. But a decision to spend more is often more emotional. A home that feels light and bright has the power to lift your mood. They look great in photos and feel good to walk through during tours. 

When new homeowners join Belong, we often recommend giving their rental homes a fresh coat of paint in a neutral color. Not only does it make the home appear bigger and brighter, it’s a simple and cost-effective way to make a rental home look updated. 

Upgrading old and outdated light fixtures is another great way to create a nice light ambiance in the home. A well-lit home is inviting and shows you have nothing to hide! 

You can even create the illusion of more square footage with light tricks. Ditch heavy drapes in favor of shutters or blinds that let more light in. Install a mirror or two to increase the visual size of rooms. 

3. Avoid costly problems

Keeping a strong return on investment also means protecting yourself against costly problems such as structural damage, safety hazards, and legal liability. 

Rental homes in the US have what’s known as an ‘implied warranty of habitability’. If your house becomes unsafe or unliveable and you don’t take action, your residents may have a legal right to stop paying rent, move out without notice, or even sue you. 

• Structural 
• Electrical and plumbing systems
• Working smoke detectors and alarms
• Indoor air quality problems such as mold, radon, and lead
• Security to minimize the risk of crime against residents in your home
• Pests

If you partner with Belong PRO, we’ll give your rental home a full safety inspection. This will get you off to a good start with your new residents and save you costly headaches down the road when things left unchecked would start to break down. We even offer rental home insurance to protect against unexpected damage. 

4. Keep it clean 

No one is going to pay top dollar for a home that isn’t clean. Just as a great first impression can lift a home’s appeal, things like dirty carpets, scratched up flooring and heavy scuff marks on the wall can work against you. A professional clean might not increase the price of your listing, but it won’t detract from it like listing an unclean home could. 

Belong also recommends having a no-smoking policy in your rental home. This will protect the rental value of your home by avoiding the staining and smell of nicotine that seeps into the paint work of houses. 

5. Reduce the running costs

A clever way to increase the value of your rental home long-term is to reduce the running costs and carbon footprint for your future residents. Energy-efficient homes cost less to run which makes them more attractive to applicants — reducing vacancies and attracting more rent than a non-efficient home. 

Sustainability is increasingly important to Millennial and Gen Z renters, with research already suggesting that 61% of renters would pay more each month in rent for an eco-friendly apartment. Single-family homes cost more to run than apartment rentals and we anticipate that in future, more sustainable rental homes will have the upper-hand on competing homes in their neighborhood. 

Read More: 7 Cost-Effective Ways To Make Your Rental Home Sustainable in 2023

6. Don’t neglect the yard

The weeds popping up through the cracks in your driveway may not bother you, but this can be a signal to potential renters that your home hasn’t been occupied or cared for in a while. Before listing your home, give the yard a tidy up. You should make a plan for keeping it that way. The outside of homes need regular maintenance to keep them in top shape — things like mowing lawns and clearing gutters. Decide if this is something you want to include in your rental as a service, or if residents need to take responsibility for it, so details can be included in the lease. 

Belong protects your financial freedom

Belong is not a traditional property management company. We do things differently to help people achieve financial freedom through real estate, on their own terms. 

With Belong PRO, we’ll partner with you to get your home the best price, guarantee your rent, and care for it the way you would. Never worry about bad residents, late rent, cost blowouts, or 2am phone calls ever again. 

Visit our homeowner's page to find out more about how our services are helping people to ditch Seattle Property Management, Redmond Property Management, Oakland Property Management, and more.