Last week we began to discuss the ins and outs of selling an investment property. We covered topics such as tenant rights and obligations, and why you should sell your investment property. Today, we will cover staging, marketing, and showing requirements for tenanted properties.
Staging Your Investment Property
As a landlord, you don’t have the right to stage your tenant’s apartment. You can’t force your tenant to rearrange their furniture, take down their personal photos or keep it clean. Of course, how well a property is presented impacts price and how long it takes to sell. Here are a few strategies to getting cooperation from your tenant:
• You DO have the right to repair anything that isn’t working, give the walls a fresh coat of paint, change the light fixtures or wash the carpets.
• In our experience, most tenants are amenable to their landlord sending in a cleaning service before the property gets listed – who doesn’t want someone else to clean their home?
• Having a good relationship with your tenants or allowing your real estate agent to build a positive relationship with them, will go a long way to helping the sale. Happy tenants will be more open to de-cluttering and preparing their apartment. A fast sale is to your tenants’ benefit too.
Marketing a Tenanted Property
It can be more difficult to market a tenanted property. Depending on your Tenant (i.e. if they are messy), photos might work against you. Tenants are often not very cooperative with open houses, so reaching potential Buyers can be more difficult. A good agent will market your home online and will have a pool of investment Buyers they are working with to overcome some of the marketing challenges of selling a tenanted property.
Showings Requirements for Selling Tenanted Properties
You have a right to show the property to potential Buyers between 8 AM and 8 PM, provided appropriate notice (24 hours) is given. While it may not be convenient for a Tenant, it is your right. Don’t let your tenants bully you into restricted showing times, but always be respectful of the tenant. A cooperative tenant will go a long way to making the sale happen faster. The 24-hour notice requirement means that you’ll miss out on last-minute showings, but with so many investment properties in Toronto and the GTA, this isn’t unusual.
Ideally, your tenant will leave their apartment during a showing, but again, this isn’t something that you can require. We’ve shown properties where hungover tenants stayed in bed during the entire showing! A simple request from your tenant might resolve this obstacle.
Note: If your Tenant has provided you with notice that they are leaving, the Ontario Landlord & Tenant Act requires that the Landlord make reasonable efforts to provide notice of a showing – but the 24-hour rule does not apply.
Stay tuned next week for our third and final installation on how to sell an investment property!
Thanks for reading today’s BLOG!!!
Brian Kondo
Sales Representative / Team Leader
The Brian Kondo Real Estate Team
Re/Max Hallmark First Group Realty Ltd.
905-683-7800 office
905-426-7484 direct
brian@briankondo.com
www.BrianKondo.com
www.BrianKondoTeam.com
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