Case Study: Cost to Repair a Home to Rent

I’ve recently had a resident purchase a house and because of this, they’ve had to move out of their rental home.

As a premise, I’ve purchased this rental home ~2.5 years ago as rental property #3 and it has been rented to the same resident since the original placement without many hiccups.

I wanted to share this with a line-by-line breakdown of costs with explanations so you have a sense of what actual costs look like when preparing a home to be rent ready.  The total cost of the repairs came out to $5,075.

General Interior Cleaning – $200

This one is self-explanatory and was the cost of cleaning the home.

Repair Walls + Window Screens, Install Light Fixtures, & Paint Doors – $800

As you could see from the images below, the home needed some cosmetic work to get it in rent-ready condition.

Repair Stove & Broken Toilet Handle – $75

The stove looked to be in working condition but missing a burner.

Remove All Carpet & Install Laminate Flooring – $4,000

This was the single largest cost by a long-shot but should be better for the rental home down-the-line.  We had the option of simply replacing the carpet but decided that though the laminate costed a bit more, it would be the most tenant-proof and looked better.

Ultimately, this came out to be a slightly larger expense than we had envisioned due to the flooring but we’re very happy with the work that was done and are excited to get this one rented again at the new, higher market rate ($1,350 vs $1,200 = $1,800 per year!).

Below are some pictures of the work!  Comment below your thoughts on my costs (too high, low, perfect?) and subscribe if you’d like to read about future projects.