When you buy a rental home with a carpet already installed, it may hold a great surprise for you. Some homes have a beautiful hardwood floor hiding under the carpet. Now, the question is: Should you remove the carpet or leave it in place? For some property owners, the economical and efficient choice would be to continue with the carpeted floors. But for others, the decision to reveal those hardwood floors may just be what they need to achieve higher rental income and better tenants. In the end, as is with most difficult decisions, there are pros and cons to exposing your rental property’s hardwood floors.
When choosing between carpet and hardwood flooring in your Big Rapids rental property, it’s important that you think about some things. Hardwood floors can be an attractive feature in a rental home. Only a few carpets can match their beauty and durability. Nevertheless, not all rental homes would benefit from hardwood. So, do consider the type of tenant you have, the resale value of the property, the neighborhood, and the cost of preparing and maintaining each flooring type. Choosing to permanently remove your rental’s carpeting should not be done carelessly.
Different tenants would view the upgrade of a hardwood differently. They wouldn’t share the same reaction. There are some tenants that may appreciate the beauty of a hardwood floor and are also conscientious enough to take on the responsibility of keeping the door clean and dry. However, there are those that would only ruin the floor, for instance, tenants with pets and heavy furniture. These can easily scratch or gouge a wood floor and make it look unattractive. Some tenants may want hardwood floors for reasons other than the way it looks. For people who suffer allergies, a hard floor surface is more forgiving. It’s easier to clean and keep free of dust than carpet. But if that tenant doesn’t know how to properly care for hardwood, they could easily damage it with harsh cleaning products or hard scrubbing.
Beyond appearance, rental property owners should use the property’s current value and future value as the starting point when making their flooring choices. Because value is often influenced by a property’s location and nearby homes, it makes sense to find out if the other homes in the neighborhood feature hardwood floors or if they have carpet floors. If most of the homes in the area have carpet, then, maybe, you should think twice before removing yours. There are exceptions, however. For example, if the neighborhood is undergoing a renewal, offering upgrades like a hardwood floor could be what makes your rental house more attractive than the competition.
Finally, there are costs you need to account for when thinking about permanently removing your rental home’s carpet. You may save on the cost of replacing the carpet every five years, but these costs may be replaced by the additional expenses of removing the carpet and preparing the floor for your tenant. For one, newer hardwood finishes are more durable than those in the past, but it’s likely that the floor under your rental’s carpet is not exactly new.
Lurking beneath a layer of carpet for years didn’t do the hardwood much good, either. So, exposing a hardwood floor means that it would require refinishing, and then regular maintenance after that to make sure its condition doesn’t degrade. There are costs involved when you go through this process, and understanding how much this may cost can really help you make the best decision.
After careful study and with reliable information in hand, you can confidently decide whether exposing your rental property’s hardwood floors is beneficial for your rental home.
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