After spending lots of money on the renovation of my third rental property (RP#3), I had to do a post on rental home renovation costs, as this is the second property that I remodel. I will try to go over the kitchen design and remodel, bathroom remodel and remodeling cost in general. If you are looking on information on house renovation, I hope this post helps you. I will use one of the 6 units of the property as the reference.
Property specs
RP#3 is a 6-unit property that I bought for a very low price. It was clear from the beginning that I had to spend a lot of money towards remodeling this property, but as I said before, I have underestimated this rental home renovation costs twice. Because the property is in the city center, there are no garages and my main target tenants are students and millennials who do not own a car.
The property is divided into two different parts. The first part is a three-story house, where each story is one rental unit. There is a small common area which gives access to the three units. The other three units have independent accesses.
When I bought this property, I knew that it needed a full renovation and no units could be rented out as they were. Surprisingly, I’ve had tenants asking me for surprisingly low rents, and I ended up renting them one unit before remodeling it. I rented this unit for €150/mo, which increases automatically to €200/mo in September 2017. I have also rented one of the renovated units for €275/mo. For this first part of the renovation, I renewed two units entirely and the common area that they share.
Kitchen design and kitchen remodel
We all know that the kitchen sells the house. In rental properties, I’ve learned that the kitchen is also the most important element for tenants. Therefore, I typically spend more bucks towards the kitchen than any other room in the property. As the picture shows, I’ve chosen special tiles for both the wall and the floor. These tiles come out roughly at €20 every 11ft². There are way cheaper options (especially if we are talking about rental units), but I’ve accepted the fact that beautiful tiles do improve the chances of attracting great tenants and so I use them. Either way, the most expensive part of renovating homes is the man labor and so it does make sense to use medium end materials.
As you can also see, I applied stone countertops (black granite is also way more expensive than the rest and although Quartz is commonly preffered to granite, it is not Popular in Portugal) as I think that it is way better than any other material. Polished black granite is my favorite. This stone you see in the picture came out at €400. An equivalent laminate countertop would cost about €180. Still, stone countertops are way more beautiful and last way longer. That is, in fact, my first reason to choose stone over laminate or wood.
The second unit
The countertop I applied on the second unit is made out of regular polished granite:
Not as beautiful but way cheaper. This baby came out at €400, but it is way bigger than the countertop of the other unit. As you can see, the cabinets are identical to those in the other kitchen. The cabinets are made out of wood (real wood) and each kitchen cost about €700 – I know how to negotiate if you’re wondering…
I didn’t like these tiles, but it was too late to change when I saw them on. Lesson learned: I will never choose yellow or close-to-yellow tiles for a kitchen. I think that my first choice will primarily be black and white tiles as those I used for the kitchen above, or while all along.
It is very difficult to explain how these kitchens were before the renovation. They were in absolute bad shape and I am pretty positive nobody in this world would like to live there. Now, they look two modern, decent kitchens. I am very happy with the final result – except for the tiles of the second kitchen.
Bathroom remodel
Another big ch
unk of any home renovation costs is remodeling the bathroom. I personally think that we can renovate bathrooms with style without spending that much money. Unlike kitchens, bathrooms have more to do with how materials are used than what materials are used. For instance, have a look at this “tile window” in the shower, as you can see in the picture.
This is one of the advantages of having traveled so much and stayed at so many nice hotels. I got to see many 5 and 4 star hotels in my life and I copy several ideas. They will be usefull in my goal of owning 100 homes. 🙂
Another thing that helps with the looks in the fancy rubber-tile you see in the window. It is certainly expensive, but I try to buy it from contractors who bought too much for their own renovations. The one you see in the picture cost me about €10.
Lastly, I definitely recommend a fancy shower like the one in the picture. That cost me about €30.
Bedrooms
Bedrooms were, by far, the lowest portion of the home renovation costs. I typically use pergo for the bedrooms as pergo is warmer and cozier than tiles. From now on, I will apply the same style for every bedroom I renovate. That is, gray pergo, gray walls and white skirting. I like this combination a lot. The picture on the right side shows just that.
Summary
I didn’t go over the renovation of the property in full detail, as it is impractical to do that in 1000 words. However, I highlighted the main points of this renovation, which was the biggest I’ve ever made. Although the property is very optimized in terms of units, there was a lot of money to be spent on extra-unit parts of the property. For example, the common area of the first three units cost more than €4000.
There is a lot to say about rental home renovation costs, and I feel that I have acquired substantial knowledge of this subject over the past two years. Maybe there is enough content to write a book about it.