What's going on YouTube? It's Matt Faircloth. My company is called The DeRosa Group and we are
a residential landlording company. We turn over apartments and create great places for people to
live. And so I'm going to take you guys on a tour of an apartment that we're about to renovate on a
complex that we're buying in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. This is a one bedroom apartment. And the
question is, what should you, and what should you not bother with when you're turning an apartment?
Where's your most value? Where are you going to create the best and happiest living environment
for your tenants? Let's start in the common area out here, because the biggest thing in
a common area that you're going to want to talk about is flooring, right?
These are nice hardwood floors. See these? If you guys ever encounter these in an apartment, you
want to keep these, these are so easy to maintain and they're very hard for a tenant to damage.
So hardwood floors are something you want to go after. Now, I would not recommend putting hardwood
in, because the cost to install hardwood floors is somewhere in the realm of $5 to $6 a square foot
on installing it. But refinishing existing floors like this will cost you somewhere around,
say $1.30 to $1.70 a square foot. So for a apartment like this, which is roughly around 500
square feet, we're only talking, let's say a $1.70 per square foot, about $800 maybe to re-sand,
completely re-sand and refinish these, but these words could probably just be buffed and a new coat
of polyurethane put on top where in this case, you're looking at a couple of hundred dollars.
Now, if you have options for other flooring in an apartment that you're going to be renovating,
what you want to do is you want to consider good or best, okay, and worst case scenario.
Here they are for flooring on an apartment. Best case scenario, something like this that's sandable
or laminate vinyl plank, LVP flooring. That's something that you want to consider, because
LVP flooring is something where you can replace small segments of it. It's very durable, a lot of
times it comes with a 10 year warranty. So LVP flooring or this, this is ceramic tile. Okay?
Ceramic tile is great also because it's extremely durable, right? Yes, those are cockroaches and
we'll take care of that too. This is ceramic tile and it's extremely durable, probably was
put in a long time ago and it's something you could just upkeep and maintain. LVP flooring,
hardwood, ceramic tile, all at the same level. Now let's go one step down. Next step down would
be laminate floors, let's say. The worst is carpet. Okay? And I say this with love for
those of you guys that love carpet in your units, the only place I would put carpet in an apartment
is in the bedrooms. And that's because it's quiet, it's cushy, and so carpet can be stain magnets,
if anybody's got allergies, carpets are a problem. So carpet just is an expensive issue
attractor. It's an expensive issue magnet you're going to have to put in your units.
Now let's go ahead and take a look in the bathroom. So now we're here in the bathroom. Two
things really make and break a rental unit, which is where you want to spend the most of your bucks.
Kitchens and bathrooms. Okay? So we're here in a fairly nah bathroom. Yeah, it's okay. A few
things I would do in here that are going to be low investment, but high return, light fixtures,
right? This is a crummy light fixture. Your more affordable option is an enormous piece of glass
with a bigger vanity. Your other option is a medicine cabinet that's just bigger and nicer
than this lovely one here. Something that we've done in our bathroom renovations that I love to do
is a wood product called wainscoting. Okay? I think it's spelled W-A-I-N-S coating, right?
Wainscoting. So try that for your units if you guys are doing an affordable renovation on a
bathroom. It hides any blemishes in the wall. So wainscoting on the walls, new lighting,
new mirror, new vanity. I might've spent say I might've spent $500, maybe in this bathroom
so far. Next thing you want to do is you want to replace this toilet. Easy solution on the toilet,
this is probably a three and a half gallon toilet, it's also just old and
dingy so we're going to be replacing this. New toilet's probably 80 bucks, 100 bucks,
plus another say $30 or so to install it. This is going to save you water as the landlord and also
it's going to look nicer for the tenant. Where you're going to spend a few bucks is in here. This
is the bath tub obviously. Two things you've got to do in a bathtub, you got to look at the liner
and you got to look at the tub itself, right? So this is ceramic tile and the embarrassment
here is, look at the trim line, it's just like a little... Over here and here's the
fun part over here and they got like a little something something going on. And this is just
embarrassing. But this is what happens to ceramic tile eventually when you leave it in an apartment,
it's just going to corrode, it's not going to get maintained properly, so what you want to do,
and you're going to love it because it's going to be maintenance free and your tenant's going
to love it because it's going to look nice and clean is to drop a liner in here. Right?
Leave the tile, drop a tub liner right on top of this and you can get the nicer tub
liners that have a little shower, like a shower caddy thing with the shampoo holder and a little
soap bar thing with the handlebar down here. Tenants love that and it's going to be fairly
maintenance free for you, at least five-year life, maybe 10-year life
to drop a liner in a tub, probably talking maybe $300 all in installed. You could talk to a local
contractor, don't quote me on these prices. But tub liner is very affordable. On the tub itself,
you can drop a liner in here and line this tub or you can pull it out and put a new one in,
that's a lot of money. Yeah. This is a metal tub. I probably wouldn't want to pull this out,
so I probably would be resurfacing this, which is a couple hundred as well in that realm.
So last thing here is, what's missing? A shower bar, right? So I like to spend literally an extra
$10 on shower bars. If you guys ever stay in a hotel, they got the shower bar that has
the nice bow that goes around the outside like this. Why do people like that? Well,
they like it because it just gives you more room. The curtain's not right on top of you, you
got a little room you can spread out a little bit when you're in the shower. I love when I stay in
a hotel and they've got the bow. Your tenants are going to love that too, because tenants,
remember this guys, tenants love practical features. It's nice to have bougie, swanky looking
things in an apartment like granite countertops and everything like that, but tenants will pay
you just as much if things are practical when they see them in an apartment, like the bow and like
the tub liner and everything like that. Tenants can picture themselves in units and they can see,
"Oh geez, that's really nice. It's practical. It's functional. I can use that." Right?
Let's take a look at the kitchen. So we're here in the kitchen and like I said guys,
kitchens and bathrooms are what are going to lease an apartment for you, just like flipping a house,
kitchens and bathrooms are where people are going to give you money. This is where people
are going to give you money in rentals. We talked about the bathroom. Let's talk about the kitchen.
So you might think that cabinets like this are a little dated and everything like that might need
to get pulled out, and maybe they do, but there is a way more affordable way to make a kitchen
pop. Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn't. If the boxes, this part, is in good condition on
an apartment, what you do is you can take these doors off, you remove them and you paint the box,
inside, outside, the whole thing, maybe make it one color, maybe make it a nice modern color,
maybe not bone white like this, maybe paint a gray or a black or something like that to make
it match with modern desires where people want. Then you go and measure the outside of this box on
how big of a door you need. You can go online and buy just a cabinet door. That's a nice swankier
door than that, right? This is just a plain door. You can get them that have the recesses,
maybe you can get them to have glass or plexi or whatever on the inside of it. And it is a
fraction of the price for a brand new cabinet and the install is a fraction of the price because
all you're doing is doing a hinge set and a new handle here, right? So with a painted box
and a new door, you're probably talking, we have a complex in North Carolina that we're doing it,
I'm probably paying around $500 a unit all in for the labor, the paint, and the install, and the
doors and everything like that, versus replacing these would probably cost three times that.
So that's number one, these boxes. The next thing that you got to do
on an apartment turn is you got to examine your appliances. Now we've got a lovely black finish
dishwasher here, I've got, I don't know if you guys can see this, but I've got a white finish
stove here and I've got a white finish this and I have no washer dryer because there needs to be
one over there. So what you guys want to do is, you don't even have to match the brand,
you guys can just match the finish. So if you're going to do a black finish here or stainless,
whatever you want, match everything and do it all the same way. So in our experience, you're going
to pay somewhere around $1,000 to $1,300 for a new set, not including the washer dryer, but a stove,
a dishwasher, and a fridge for somewhere between $1,000 to $1,300 bucks. That's big money, but I
can tell you, that is what's going to sell. "Ooh, new appliances and they all match,
it's going to look nice." And the people that like to cook or whatever are going to
see they've got a reasonable appliance package they can use. And then look what you've got,
you've got nicely redone cabinets, you got new appliances. And then I am not a granite guy,
I do not do granite in any of my rental properties and it's only because I don't
want to create a liability for the tenant to go and damage and have to owe us a lot that's
going to absorb their entire security deposit. So from that standpoint, I don't want them to
have something like that that could cost them a lot of money to have to repair or replace.
And they make Formica countertops, like the basic stuff that looks almost like
granite. So just get the granite looking Formica countertops for probably for something like this,
you might be talking $200, $300, somewhere in there to do a nice granite looking countertop.
New sink fixture. This is a nice stainless steel double barrel sink, so I'm going to leave that.
New light fixture, could go LED depending on if a tenant's paying electricity, you could do LED
and market that it's a low energy cost unit. If you're obviously as the landlord paying utilities,
you want to consider doing that to save yourself a utility bill or do it for the tenant and
market it that you saved them something on utilities too. But a lighting package
in an apartment is not much either. I believe that I may have spent, even if
I'm replacing the flooring in this say 550, 600 square foot apartment, I may have spent $6,000,
but probably less than that if you do it right. Now, if you make that investment,
I think that with everything I just said, you can create a rent increase of somewhere between $100,
$150 for that nice apartment. That is a phenomenal return on investment, right? $100 a month times 12
is $1,200 a year, right? For a $6,000 investment on a turn, they create a happier place for a
tenant to live, somewhere they're going to want to stay and take care of and everything like
that. It's a great investment and it'll make your tenants happier that they've got a nice modernized
apartment and they would be willing to pay you a little bit more for it and you get a great return
on investment for yourself. It's a win-win. So that's it guys. Like I said,
leave some comments down below for other questions or thoughts you guys may have
or just tell us we did a great job, tell us our prices were completely off, whatever feedback
you guys have, because I'd love to hear from you. And come join us on all kinds of other cool stuff
we do here on YouTube and I know you guys enjoyed this. Love to hear from you. Have a great. Bye.
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