Are you a real estate investor or landlord wondering how to design a rental property? As a landlord, the two things you want when designing the interior of your rental property are timelessness and mass appeal.

Timelessness: You don’t want the home’s design to become outdated in a few years. The style must not include temporary trends.

Mass appeal: You need your property to appeal to a wide range of potential renters. It must attract renters across demographic lines.

Keeping these two objectives in mind will help you achieve every landlord’s dream for their rental property; to make more money while lowering costs. That is because you will be able to reduce vacancies and maintenance costs.

How do you design a rental to make it widely appealing and ageless? The concepts for doing these are not difficult, and you do not need to be a professional interior designer to understand them. Just follow the design principles listed below, and you will reach that outcome.

Seven steps for how to design a rental property

1. Depersonalize it.

The first step is to separate your desires from what a potential renter might want. There is nothing wrong with the things you like, but you will not live in the home. You are designing it for someone else; the renter. What tenants want should be at the forefront of your design choices. If you impose your likes on the home, you will exclude potential renters who do not share your tastes. That will defeat the goal of imparting mass appeal to the rental.

2. Choose neutral colors

As a first step to making the home attractive to most prospective renters, use neutral colors. Do not get creative with your choice of colors. Don’t paint the rental in bright and bold colors. Color is something people are particular about, and almost everyone has their favorite color. However, most people will accommodate a neutral color because those have a soothing effect that people want. Painting the rental with neutral colors make spaces feel brighter, bigger, and more inviting. Tenants will find it easier to style the home because neutral colors won’t clash with their décor.

3. Light is critical

Lighting is as important as the colors you choose for the rental. The quality of lighting in rooms will dampen or improve their design. Dark shadows in room corners can leave your rental feeling cramped and uninviting. To light the home right, maximize your use of natural lighting. Secondly, choose fixtures and switches that simultaneously enhance illumination and beautify the home. Tenants’ lighting needs are not the same when reading, walking down a hallway, or chopping vegetables in the kitchen. The lighting should satisfy various uses, and incorporate different types of ambient, accents, and task lighting.

4. Keep it simple

Do not go overboard with the design; leave the details to the tenant. Tenants need room to add unique touches to the home and personalize it. Everyone who rents your property wants to transform it into their idea of home. That is only possible if you offer them a blank canvas. It means that the moment you have added the fundamental elements of the design, you should stop.
Do not include extra details like intricate moldings, patterns, or wall décor. They will only increase your costs, make the home hard to style (from a tenant’s perspective), and even harder to clean.

5. Use lots of natural materials

Most people love natural materials; there is a sense of harmony when humans are close to items made from nature. Including natural materials in the rental will impart a degree of magnetism to the home. Also, they never get outdated and are always in style because people prefer them. Lastly, natural materials have intrinsic value and will transfer that value to your home. If you can afford it and the rent justifies it, install hardwood flooring in parts of the house. For cabinets and countertops, give preference to wood and natural stone, respectively.

6. Maximize storage

Storage spaces never go out of style, and every tenant wants a lot of them. The quantity of storage in a rental property can be the sole reason someone rents it. The level of comfort that renters experience partly depends on how easily they can organize their belongings. A home with clutter loses its appeal and makes tenants want to leave. Having diverse storage for the different things tenants need to arrange or hide is a huge plus. Improving storage in a rental is not hard and does not cost a lot; it just requires you to be more attentive to your tenant’s needs.

6. Don’t buy cheap appliances

The rental does not need top-of-the-line appliances. Instead, it requires the ones that look good and do what they are supposed to do. Expensive gadgets are unnecessary unless your run an upscale rental. On the other hand, cheap accessories will break down often, annoy tenants and increase your costs. Reliable, clean, and attractive appliances; that’s all most tenants will ask from you.

Guest Post was written by Kevin with Realty Management Associates Inc. in Boise Idaho.

We hope this post helps shed some light on how to design your rental property! Be sure to connect with Sage & Soul Interiors for more inspiration – follow along on Instagram, check out the blog, or shoot us an email!