There isn’t an apartment resident on earth that likes having their rent raised, but under the right circumstances you can successfully raise the rent in your apartment communities.
Owning apartments in Texas can be a great way to make money, but they can also be costly to properly maintain. Anyone with apartment investment properties knows how expensive late night repairs and general maintenance can be. After renting apartments out for a few years, you may find that it’s getting more difficult to break even.
If you’re finding that your maintenance costs are climbing, it may be time to consider raising the rent.
Don’t think that your resident will go for a raise in rent? We’ll tell you how you can easily raise the rent, increase desirability and keep the peace.
How To Raise Rents On Your Apartment Investments
Nobody wants to have to pay more money for rent, but reasonable renters understand the occasional rent increase.
The best way to ensure that your rent raises work out is to make them justifiable. If you have a good enough reason to raise the rent, your renters won’t mind the increase as much.
Curious about what could justify a rent increase to your renters? Here are six ways to raise rents in your apartment properties.
1. Add Amenities
Want to know an easy way to get more money from your apartment investments and renters?
In some cases, property owners have more to offer their renters than apartments and houses.
If you have apartments in an area where parking is hard to come by, giving someone a guaranteed spot is a simple way for you to raise the rent and make your property more appealing to existing and potential residents.
You could easily make a few extra hundred dollars per month per parking space by reserving parking spots for your residents. You may want to consider installing a parking pad or parking lot.
You can also also utilize empty space on your property to give your renters more perks and help you make more money.
Designate areas as safe places for people to store their bikes, or just divide it areas into storage space people can use.
2. Think About Furniture
When you’re trying to make money off of apartment investments, adding furniture may not immediately come to mind. But if you are creative, you can create co-relationships with rental furniture companies and set up resident referral programs.
This can work not only with furniture but a variety of area support services including restaurants, coffee shops and cultural venues.
3. Research Real Estate Costs
When was the last time you checked on the average going rate for apartment rent in your city or town?
If you notice that the surrounding rental rates around you are higher than yours and their properties are enjoying high occupancy, it’s time to make some increases of your own.
Property values can go up for a variety of reasons, and it’s a perfectly good reason for you to raise the rent. You need to be able to make a healthy profit from your apartment investments.
4. Be More Environmentally friendly
Alternately, instead of making more money off of your apartment investments, you can find ways to reduce maintenance costs.
Utilities can get expensive for apartment building owners. If you make your properties more energy efficient and utilize eco-friendly appliances, you can save a lot of money on monthly utility costs.
Did you know that Texas has a variety of solar rebate programs that can help make solar panel installation very affordable and easy to use? There are some programs at the city, state and federal levels you can utilize.
Once you install solar panels, electricity bill can often drastically decrease. Texas’ hot summers and abundant sunny days make it the perfect state to utilize solar power.
You could end up generating so much electric power that the electric company can pay you for the extra and buy it back from you!
Be sure to use as many eco-friendly products in your apartments as possible.
Low-flow toilets and water-efficient faucets can save a lot of water, and therefore save a lot of cost and help keep you from getting hit hard during drought restrictions. An environmentally friendly dishwasher can also help cut down on water costs.
If you want to do something small to help you save money on utilities, install energy efficient light bulbs in the hallways. Every little bit can help build bigger savings over time.
5. Hire A Great Maintenance Crew
Don’t underestimate how much value a great landscaper and a house cleaning crew can add to your apartment property. Professional apartment property management can handle all of these details for you.
When you’re trying to improve your apartment investments, look into what kind of building maintenance services you can add.
Landscapers that keep the outside lawn looking green and the flowers beautiful can be added to the rent as maintenance costs. Well-chosen landscaping can help you cut down on the amount of yard work you have to do.
A cleaning crew can do more than add value by keeping the hallways and foyers nice. You can recommend their services to your renters, and receive a finder’s fee for their repeat business. And vice versa. They can recommend your properties to potential residents and receive a referral fee. It’s all about creating local networks with like-minded businesses.
A professional maid service can be an additional cost for your renters and an additional source of revenue for your apartment community.
If you want to keep costs low, offer packages that only allow for certain rooms and tasks to be done. People that wish to pay extra can enjoy full maid service, which easily justifies raising the rent.
6. Improve The Property
Some of the needed maintenance tasks you were planning on doing could help you earn more money from rent.
Are you planning on replacing the roof soon? Have you recently redone the exterior or are planning on redoing exterior siding?
These costs can be added to the rent as improvement and maintenance fees. Upgrading a property upgrades desirability. Higher desirability earns higher rents.
If you want to really justify a rent increase, make improvements in each individual unit.
Simply take some time to ask your residents if there are any big repairs they think need to be done. Upgrading flooring, new tile in the bathrooms, and upgrading common areas with new desirable amenities such as outdoor kitchens or big screen TV’s are all acceptable reasons to expect more rent.
Next Steps
Now that you’ve found ways to reasonably increase rent for your apartment residents, you may be wondering about other ways to profit from your apartment investments.
We’re here to help existing apartment property owners succeed and help new apartment owners become smart apartment investors. Feel free to give us a call. Better yet, come visit. We’ll pour you a tall iced tea and take you on tour of some of the best deals in Texas. At Better World Properties LLC, we love nothing better than to talk apartments.
(713) 559-6975