Refreshing Your Rental Property

Redecorating rental properties between tenants is a great opportunity to give your prized asset a make over, while helping it retain, or even increase, its earning potential.

There are a few things to consider to help make this task easier, more cost effective and to ensure you get the most out of your redecoration over the next tenancy.

Do I Need to do a complete redecoration?

Not always. It depends on how long the tenant has been in the property. If it was redecorated recently and the tenant was in for a short time and looked after the property, then sometimes just a touch up or a room or two will bring it back up to tip top shape.

If, however the paintwork is looking old and drab. If the pigment has faded or if there are marks and dings on the walls, then you’ll need to give it a good freshen up. 

Will my decorator be available? What about the lost rental income?

This is one of the big challenges we face as decorators. A client calls us and tells us a tenant is moving out next month and they want to redecorate as quickly as possible to get the house or apartment let again. The problem is that most established decorators are booked at least three months in advance. This is a lot of lost income, especially if you can’t show it to prospective new tenants in its current state. In an ideal world, you would have three months advance knowledge and could book the decorator in. A good strategy is to build a relationship with a decorator before you need them, so that they might be able to juggle some less urgent jobs around or fit you in if rained off from some outside work. Another one is to redecorate the property in the winter months when decorators are more available on a room by room basis, while the current tenant is still in, so that it’s not such a big job when they move out. It’s much easier for us decorators to fit in an urgent job if it’s a few days than planning a three week makeover.

What colour should I use? Is white OK?

Colour is where you can really make an impact on both the price of the job and how much value you add to your house.

It’s a good idea to keep it neutral. You don’t want to put off prospective tenants with bold colour choices and, as you don’t know what colour their furniture or artwork is going to be, it’s safer to find a middle ground.  White can be too cold and make your rental feel like a doctors surgery and magnolia just says “student apartment”. Another option is to choose a soft, off-white or neutral similar to a designer paint like Farrow and Ball or Little Greene. Most decorators can find a close match to these designer colours in a good quality trade paint. We love using Farrow and Ball for our clients own homes but using Estate Emulsion in a rental would be a big expense as well as perhaps not being all that durable. Use the website e-paint.co.uk to find the closest matches to your favourite designer colours in Johnstones and Dulux trade paints.

We recently suggested a colour close to Wimborne White for a rental cottage in Dorset. We used Johnstones Trade Durable Acrylic Matt and used colour drenching (very “On trend” in the interior design world) to paint the ceilings, walls and skirting the same colour. The result was a soft, modern and luxurious look throughout the house. Using the colour drenching idea will save you money on paint (paint gets cheaper in larger quantities) and time (Its easier and quicker for the decorator).

Also, it’s hugely important to choose a colour that works with the light coming into the space. It’s impossible to understate how much this will affect the look and feel of a space to prospective tenants. This article from Farrow and Ball explains the concept perfectly. https://www.farrow-ball.com/how-to-guide/how-light-affects-colour

What paint should I use?

We almost always suggest to our clients who have rentals that they use Johnstones Trade Acrylic Durable Matt or Dulux Trade Diamond Matt for rentals. These two trade paints are extremely tough. They are scrubbable instead of wipeable and being trade paints use high quality pigments which won’t fade quickly. I’ve seen it written in web articles that buying the paint yourself will make the job cheaper. This is false economy. The paint that you buy from B&Q usually has a coverage rate of 10-11 Sq metres compared to 17-18 for trade paints. Retail paints also contain lower quality pigments which tend to fade more quickly. Also, your decorator will get massive discounts for higher quality trade paints and he or she knows how to get a high quality finish with these paints. The main thing to consider is that by far the largest part of the cost of redecorating is the labour. The best way to save money is to ensure that the paintwork lasts and looks good for as long as possible so you don’t need to redecorate so frequently. 

Protecting against mould. 

Mould is big problem for landlords. Often it is caused by a build up of condensation caused by a lack of airflow. Often it’s a case of us neutralising the mould using high strength biocide and then stain blocking and painting. A good way to get ahead of this is to talk to your new tenants about opening windows periodically (15 minutes a day of through - flow can make a massive difference) as well as not putting big wardrobes in corners and cluttering up window sills, where condensation build up is common. There are also specialist additives which we can add to paint which protect against mould. Johnstones Trade Durable Acrylic Matt already contains mould protection. There are also products like Zinsser Permawhite and anti mould paints for small windowless bathrooms which are very good. We sometimes add an anti mould additive to paint created by a specialist industrial mould protection company. 

If mould is a constant problem, then perhaps explore whether it is caused by something more serious, such as rising damp or water ingress through the brickwork or roofing. In this case it is a good idea to get a specialist such as Wessex Damp and Timber in to give you a better idea of what’s going on and how to fix it. It is also worth considering a PIV (Positive Input Ventilation) system such as “Drimaster” to reduce condensation in older properties. These are surprisingly cost effective to install and maintain, and the savings by not needing to call your decorator to stain block and repair mouldy spots would make it easily pay for itself. 

Summary:

Redecorating a rental can be a big expense, but it can also be a big investment. I’ve seen properties left for so long with one long term tenant, that the cost of getting them back to a decent standard is eye watering. Redecoration, if done well, often and efficiently, can keep your property at the top end of it’s market rate, as well as signalling to your tenants that you care about your property.

I was talking to a client last year who had had a lot of work done on her rental properties. I asked her why she was not afraid to spend money on them. She replied that she’d done the math and the interest rate on her money in the bank was very poor. The cost of decorating had gone up in the UK 15-25% between 2019-2024, therefor, if she let her properties age and date over the next few years, then the cost of updating them when it came time to sell them would be far outweigh any gains she might have made keeping that money in the bank.