Renovating the Rental Condo

I'm fortunate, through the foresight of my parents, to own a rental property. I once lived in said property and quite loved my home. I still do love that sweet little condo and hope to keep it for as long as it's reasonable.

My tenant moved out in December. Renovations had to be done. There had been a lovely silver carpet in the condo. After 5 years and 2 cats, it had to go. The walls needed painting and some upgrades were in order.

It took us 3 weeks to complete the renovations, painting, and cleaning.

On January 2nd, my dad and I got started. Baseboards were removed, walls were filled, sanded, and washed in order to be primed and painted.

This was mostly what things looked like for the first 2 weeks

I have never regretted painting the den this beautiful pumpkin orange

Not even after the many, many coats of paint required to turn it white

After the painting was complete, it was time for cleaning. I scrubbed each and every appliance down, inside and out, into corners and crevices. I scrubbed the kitchen cupboards, inside and out. The balcony was washed, twice. The bathroom was scrubbed, also twice. There are no pictures of the cleaning. It was unglamorous.

We replaced the kitchen faucet and all the plumbing under the sink. If you need a good plumber I know one! Also if your brass or copper pipes look like the below, please get them changed (especially if your dishwasher empties through them). The discolouration and crusty bits mean they are corroding. It happens over time and use. Eventually they become soft and will develop leaks.

We resealed the bathtub, put in a new shower head, and a new shower rod. We also installed a new cabinet for storage and a new set of hooks behind the door. Also a new door. Because the old door and I had a disagreement that didn't end well for the door...

I spent 7 days a week working at this condo for almost the full 3 weeks it took to get it ready for posting and viewing. My dad was with me for a portion of the day on many weekdays and Mr. P. was with me on the weekends. I could not have done this without them. In the first weeks I was often there for longer than 9 hours each day. Towards the end, I had trimmed that to 6-7 hours each day. Even then, I was exhausted at the end of every day. It says something about me that I didn't understand that for quite awhile. I had assumed that I could work on the condo and work on my art business at the same time. And because I made that assumption on autopilot, I didn't question it. Rather I assumed my inability to do both was some shortcoming on my part. I spent a long while feeling guilty at my perceived shortcoming, and then feeling resentful of the time and energy I spent on this. Not until the end of the 3 weeks did it dawn on me that it was ok to expend my time and energy on this very important project at the expense of my other projects. This was a rental property that needed to be renovated and put back on the market, and then a suitable tenant found to inhabit it. And that had to be done as soon as possible. Freelance Alisa cannot carry this property as easily as Corporate Alisa could. At the outset of January, I was aiming high: get 'er done and rented for February. Even so, that assumption that I could, and must, do EVERYTHING at the same time went unchallenged for too long. And I paid an extra price for not challenging it sooner. It was a relief when I finally gave myself permission to focus only on the condo.

The floors were due to be installed on January 15. The goal was to finish as much as possible before the installation. We did pretty well, but didn't quite finish everything. We hired the very same people who put the floors into my current home, and who also did my parents' home. Needless to say we are happy with their service. If you need good floors at a good price, I know a guy!

They removed the carpet and under pad, rolled it up, and carted it out at speed.

Two men measured, cut, and installed a new under pad and "Madagascar Oak" laminate.

Finished. Nosing taped down while it sets.

The new floors look great. And of course I had to clean the outside of everything again...

We also installed brand new light fixtures with new LED bulbs. They class up the joint. I learned that in real estate lingo, lights are called ELFs (for electronic light fixtures). Now that is the only word I will use to describe any light fixture.

Once all the work was done, it was time to photograph the condo in the hope of attracting the best tenant for the property.

Looking up the living room, towards the kitchen

Looking down the living room, towards the windows

Living room, with view of bedroom

Bathroom, avec new cabinet

View of the kitchen

Did you think we were done with the hard stuff? Nope. More hard stuff ahead.

We had photos we were satisfied with. Now...to engage a real estate agent or try to rent it myself? I agonized over this decision. I know there is a reason real estate agents have jobs. There are things they do well and information they know because of how they spend their days. But...I'd have to pay them a full month's rent as commission. I'm not a fan of this fact. After much agonizing, and much research, and with support from Mr. P. I decided to try renting it myself. I figured that if I wasn't successful within a week or two, then I could engage a professional. My largest concern was screening a prospective tenant. Once again, all teh research was done. In so doing, I discovered a Toronto start up called Naborly. They screen tenants for landlords across Canada and the US. Rather than filling out a paper application, prospective tenants can fill out an online (quite detailed) application and upload their documents. Naborly has a partnership with Equifax to fulfill the credit report portion of the screening. The landlord gets a detailed report on all prospective tenants that is consistent, easy to read, and contains an overall score that points to the suitability of the tenant for the property. I quite appreciated it.

I found all the places I could place an ad, ranked them based on the likelihood my target audience would search there, also ranked them on cost, then made my choices. I posted in several places and held my breath. I started getting inquiries within a few hours. Within a few days I had people signed up for 3 open houses we would host: 2 on a weeknight and 1 on a weekend. There was a great deal of communication with interested parties, on multiple channels, at all hours of the day and night. During this week, I questioned my choice to not engage a real estate agent. After all, they would handle all this communication and scheduling. Oh well. I was committed. We held our open houses and had about 3-4 prospective tenants visit on each occasion. Those who were keenly interested filled out Naborly applications.

It took just over a week from posting to choosing an applicant. This would be week #4 on this project.

Now for the really hard part. Each of the people who filled out applications were great. More agonizing for me. They were all lovely in person, we got along well during our short meeting. Their applications were sound. They all needed a new place to live. But there could only be one. Finally I used a combination of the Naborly score and timelines to help me choose. I wanted someone asap. But I wanted the right person asap. Telling my new tenants that we were happy to offer the condo to them was easy. Telling everyone else that someone else would be taking the condo was quite difficult. Again, more agonizing for me. Truly, I wish them all the best and hope they find the home they're looking for soon.

Finally, we are out of the weeds. It's been 4 weeks of non-stop physical and/or emotional work. Phew.

And this last part isn't hard. Spend 1 more week to draw up a lease, have the tenants review it, print it out, meet up, sign papers, and exchange keys for cheques. Conveniently, the Ontario government provides a standard lease agreement that all landlords in the province are required to use. It's pretty clear, seems to be comprehensive, and can be added to as needed. Handy dandy.

My new tenants now have their keys and more information about their new home than they can remember!

This whole project took 5 weeks, beginning to end. I'm glad it's finished. And I'm even more happy that it appears to have ended successfully.