5 Rental Home Painting Tips for Landlords

Owning investment property, many of the smart landlord tips are about how to protect your property and take good care of your tenants at the same time. Naturally, this rule also applies to your painting choices. Tenants want a beautifully painted home, and to be able to fix little wall splatters and scuffs when they occur in the course of everyday life. You want your home to look good and for the walls not to take damage.
Fortunately, there are several choices and techniques that achieve both sets of goals quite satisfactorily. Let’s dive into smart painting choices that landlords can make for beauty, functionality, and long-lasting performance.

1) Satin and Semigloss: Washable Paint Types

Flat and eggshell paints look great but have one particular weakness: you can’t scrub them. They also scuff easily, and scuffs are difficult to remove. Tenants need a type of paint that can have splatters scrubbed off with the rough side of a sponge. For this, you need semi-gloss which is the most washable of the paints that aren’t devastatingly shiny. If semigloss is still too shiny for you, try a satin which is one stage closer to flat paint but can still usually be scrubbed. You’ll also want to look into brands of paint that advertise durability.

2) Look Up the Latest Colors, Pick the Best for Each Home

The top paint colors for rental homes changes every few years. Lately, the real estate industry went through a blue-gray stage, eased into a ‘greige’ stage (gray and beige) and recently has started to see colors warming up. These aren’t universal color tips and every region and home will have colors that work best. But it helps to keep up with the times on which undertones of neutral paint are most popular overall, as it can reflect the shifting mood and taste of the population.
In general, avoid too much ‘real’ color beyond neutral hints. Leave the actual decorating to the tenants.

3) The Wainscoting Trick

Traditional wainscoting is wooden boards that come up to “chair height” and are bordered by molding. You no longer need to use wood or follow conventional designs, but the idea of designing the lower half of your walls differently can be very clever for a landlord. Especially if you intend to allow pets or welcome families with toddlers.
The wainscoting trick can be as simple as painting satin above and semigloss below the chair-rail line or you can install damage-resistant boards on the lower half of walls to make your walls both more attractive and sturdier in the face of the most common risks.

4) Repaint Every Tenant Turnover

One way to keep your homes looking fantastic and avoid sweating the little scuffs is to simply repaint every time you turnover the home between tenants. Just as you bring in the steam cleaner and get all the appliance maintenance done; bring in professional painters to put up a fresh coat in the latest colors. Your next tenants will appreciate the beautiful freshly-painted feel and you don’t have to worry about any unspotted little paint damages left from the last tenant.

5) Leave a Pot of Paint for Tenants to do Touchups

Finally, and here’s a tip from the real pros, leave the last of your paint pots sealed and labeled by room for your tenants. Let’s say something does scratch or lightly stain the paint during their residence. The ability to lightly touch up the paint can help tenants to handle their own surface-level repairs to keep the home beautiful while they live there.
The right paint strategy is incredibly useful for savvy landlords. Whether you’re planning to make a home beautiful for long-term year-on-year tenants or keep a home fresh and attractive for quick-turnover, these paint tricks will serve you (and your tenants) well for years. Contact us today for more professional painting tips or to schedule your turnover repainting today!