5 Signs It's Time to Renovate

Is it time to renovate? When you are in your 20’s, you think 30 is old, but when you are in your 40’s, 50 seems pretty young.  The same goes for your decorating. When your property is new, 10 years seems like a reasonable time to plan on renovating again. 10 years later, it’s seems reasonable to wait 5 more years, but it is not when you are in a competitive environment.

It’s a challenge to notice when your building goes out of style. Here’s a list to remember a few of the key ways to identify when your property has gone out of style.

1. The last time you renovated, grunge music was still popular. I know, the 90’s feel like they just passed us “bye bye bye”, but 1998 was 20 years ago. As odd as it sounds, modern design and pop stars have something in common. They don’t age well. We all saw what the limelight did to Brittany and Hansen. Hardwood floors may be eternal, but your design with beige carpeting is not. If Taylor Swift had to reinvent herself to stay relevant, so do you. Taste changes, what worked in 2008, “big leather couches and low cut jeans” are not popular in 2018 and won’t be in 2020.

2. Your cabinets, flooring and countertops are older than your tenants. Sometimes vintage looks great… but even then nobody wants rickety vintage. 1978 called, and they want their Laminate Countertops and Shag Bathroom carpeting back. When it comes to housing, buyers are attracted by wow factor. Bathrooms, countertops, and flooring are all important selling points. If you can’t identify what is new and “Wows” guests about your property, it is not new and has no wow factor. If this is the case, it is time to invest in an update to attract tenants.

3. Your tenants still think Adam West is Batman and Sean Connery is James Bond. It is great that your tenants are renewing, but everyone wants to live in a place where they are of similar age to the other residents. If your residents are getting older by the year, the segment of population that will want to rent is also getting smaller by the year. Even though people will complain about a costly renovation that raises rents, it helps to keep your building from aging and broadens the appeal to more people. Sometimes, this means that you’ll be forced to renovate more frequently in order to avoid becoming an old folks home.

4. Your level of occupancy is getting lower and your manager is saying, “the rent is too high.”  If your apartment complex is having a hard time attracting renters, that’s because it’s not desirable. People want to be proud of and enjoy the places they live in, not tolerate them. “It’s just fine.” would never been chosen for a marketing campaign outside of Minnesota and some small cities in Scandinavia. When your site’s design is obsolete, it will become increasingly challenging to attract and sustain quality tenants. Remember the new competition down the road is renting rooms at a higher price. It is ok to raise rent if you can add some Wow!

5. Your complex does not smell right. Does it smell old, musty, stale, institutional, or worse? You can’t tell, but everyone else can and it says a lot about you. Find out from someone else what your site smells like. If it is not positive, then do us and the Cranberries a favor, don’t let it linger. There is a reason realtors and high end hotels actively manage the smell of their building. There are few things in this world that create a more distinct reaction than smell. You can not manage their emotional judgement after the smell has been received, so manage the smell instead by making sure your hvac system is operating properly and you aren’t trapping stale cooking odors, cigarettes or mold. New, clean, fresh scents are the smell of money, and an improved ROI.