How do you know you’re investing in an Arcata rental property that will perform well? Once you have a tenant in place and you’re collecting rent every month, how can you be sure that you’re maximizing what you earn and bringing in the highest rents and the most ROI?

Let’s take a look at the key features of a profitable Arcata rental property. This can help you decide where and how to invest, and it can also serve you when you’re evaluating your portfolio of properties against your investment goals. To make good decisions, you need to know exactly where you stand. If a particular property in your investment portfolio is not serving those investment goals, it might be time to do something else with it.

High Rental Values

How much rent can your rental property earn? 

This is perhaps the most basic benchmark for whether your property is performing well. Are you bringing in the rents you should? Is that rent enough? 

Let’s review what really impacts rental values: 

• The Arcata rental market. This is going to be the largest influence on your rental price. If the market is performing well, you’re in a strong position. Rents are high and competition among tenants is fierce. Right now, we are in such a market. There’s high demand for rental housing in Arcata, and that means you should not have a lot of trouble maximizing what you earn on a monthly basis. 
• Property location. Tenants want to live in desirable, safe neighborhoods that are close to schools, shopping, recreation, and entertainment. A rental home that’s more remote or closed off in an industrial or commercial neighborhood will not command the highest rents. You may not have a property that performs well on the rental market. 
• Property condition. There’s not much you, as an investor, can do about the market or the location of your investment property. You can, however, have an impact on the condition of your rental home. If it’s well-maintained and updated, you’ll charge higher rents without a problem and your property will perform well in the long and short term. 

Compare your rental value to those competing properties in your neighborhood. If your rental price is trending low, determine what you need to do to raise it. 

Renovations, Updates, and Upgrades 

Are you keeping up with renovations and improvements at your Arcata rental property? 

This is a key feature in any rental home that performs well. When you consistently upgrade and update your property, it remains attractive to potential tenants. You are able to place and retain high quality tenants. You’re also able to continue increasing your rental amounts. Tenants are not going to pay high rental prices for homes that have 20-year-old appliances or wood paneling on the walls. Offer a modern home that has all the updates tenants are looking for such as:

• Good lighting
• Clean carpet or hard surface flooring
• Fresh paint on the walls
• Attractive, low-maintenance landscaping 
• Clean, modern fixtures like faucets and drawer pulls
• Energy-efficient appliances

As you’re preparing your property for the rental market or turning it over between tenants, think about what you can do to make it more attractive to those new renters. Make it look fresh, modern, and new. If that refrigerator has needed repairs over the last year or two and the ice maker in the freezer isn’t working, it may be time to replace it. When the paint is looking faded on the outside of the home, consider a fresh coat on the exterior. Power washing can really brighten up a home and simple upgrades in the kitchen like tile backsplash can give the home an entirely new look and feel, which will raise your rental values, attract great tenants, and ensure your rental property performs well on the market.

Retaining Arcata Tenants