I recently had a unit in one of my investment properties become vacant, so I figured I would document some of the process of renovating it and preparing it for rent. The unit in question was a 2 bed, 1 bath apartment located in my multi-family in Cumberland, MD, which is about 3 1/2 hours away from Delaware. My boyfriend and I spent the weekend fixing it up.
I had actually never been in this unit before, or even seen pictures of it. When I did my tour before purchasing this house, the unit was rented and the real estate agent apparently didn't have a key to it. Side note, I might make a post in the future about how terrible my experience with this agent was and what NOT to put up with from a REALTOR®. With that being said, I had no idea what we were going to be walking in to.
Here's some photos my property manager sent after the tenant moved out:
As you can see, there was some pretty severe damage to the doors caused by the tenant's dog. These doors are decades old and very expensive (if even possible) to replace, so we tried our best to restore them. The majority of our time was spent sanding, hanging, and refinishing all of these doors. The ones that weren't destroyed by the dog were either rotted and falling apart, or they were detached completely. Considering how old and worn these doors were, this was by far the most frustrating and time consuming part of the process.
Most of the window blinds were destroyed as well, so those were all replaced. I was mortified by the bathroom and how decrepit it looked. New flooring and tile was out of the question, so we decided to paint it blue to break apart all the cream. We scrubbed this room top to bottom, and added new lighting and a shower curtain. The door to this room was so rotted that we ended up swapping out another door from the apartment hallway. I will need to add a vent to prevent this door from rotting too. I plan on eventually painting all this tile as well.
The kitchen and bedrooms were in pretty good condition, so we just cleaned these. The two front doors were falling apart, so these were sanded, stained, bolted, caulked, and re-keyed. Since we had to stain all the doors, we also had to stain all of the trim and the staircase, so this took a considerable amount of time as well.
Here's what it looked like after we spent a weekend working on it:
The apartment still needs to be painted and cleaned before it can be rented. It will be available by January 1st, 2025, and will be listed at $850. All of my rentals are pet-friendly, but on a case-by-case basis. After dealing with the extensive damage caused by a large-breed puppy, I will not be allowing large dogs in my apartment rentals.
Being that I am only licensed as a REALTOR® in Delaware, I'm not permitted to list any of my Maryland rentals. However, if you are interested in this unit, please contact me and I will connect you with my property manager.
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