How to prepare an apartment for rent?

Preparing an apartment for rent is the first step in the entire process of finding a tenant. This is a very important stage, especially in the current market situation, where the number of apartments for rent is constantly increasing, and therefore competition is increasing. Learning this lesson carefully is half the success in finding a tenant quickly. Below we advise you how to prepare your property for medium- and long-term rental.

So where should we start? Definitely from analysing the local rental market, i.e. checking:

• our location, and specifically what has changed there since the last time we were looking for a tenant? Maybe three blocks identical to ours were built at that time and now we have a lot of apartments for rent, or maybe a tram line was laid, which means that people are more willing to rent in this area;
• what apartments are currently advertised in the immediate vicinity, i.e. we check the supply
• how many apartments are there similar in size and standard to ours,
• what standard does the advertised apartment present,
• how long listings are listed for?
• how much are apartments currently advertised for?

Why such an analysis – to see how our apartment compares to the competition and determine the market price. Remember to analyse advertisements carefully, especially in terms of price. There is no single accepted template and sometimes an apartment may be more expensive, for example, because all bills are already included in the price, and sometimes the low price is due to the fact that we pay separately for a parking space or there is no parking space.

The next step is to define the marketing strategy, i.e. who do we want to rent to and where will we advertise? This will partly depend on the location of our apartment, e.g. proximity to universities or office buildings automatically suggests a tenant profile. In turn, the tenant’s profile will largely tell us where to advertise the apartment, e.g. if we want foreign students, we need to find an appropriate English-language portal or think about social media. The tenant’s profile must also match the standard of our property. Corporate rentals will require a higher standard, while IKEA will be sufficient for students.

An analysis of the local market and a specific marketing strategy will show us whether our apartment is properly furnished and equipped in relation to the location, the price we want to achieve and the profile of our tenant. Adjusting the standard of the apartment to the expected rent and tenant’s profile will therefore be the next stage of our preparations. All activities related refurbishment,  replacing equipment,  adding extra equipment and renovating should be planned and carried out at this time.

The next step is to verify the current technical condition of the apartment. This is the moment when we remove all defects, repair what is broken and refresh the apartment after previous tenants. Finally, mandatory cleaning.

Such an apartment is ready for the next stage in finding a tenant, i.e. writing and preparing  rental listing, which will write about separately.