Preparing Your Rental Home

CARPETS

Carpets must be cleaned professionally with a truck mounted system. A rented steam cleaner from the supermarket will impart too much soap and water into the carpets, creating more muck than they remove. If your carpet is in poor condition, dated or unusual in color, it should be replaced.

PAINT

The house should be as neutral as possible. It may be necessary to repaint rooms that offer limited color schemes. At a minimum, walls and baseboards will need to be touched up with paint. If the paint is old, it is not always possible to do this. We have also found that in some newer homes, contractors have mixed paint brands and colors together to produce a paint that is impossible to match.

NEUTRALITY

Light, neutral colors throughout the house are the best choices for rentals. Older homes that are dated with unpopular colors, countertops, appliances, and window coverings usually require longer marketing times for lower rents.

PEST CONTROL

The house should be sprayed for bugs between tenancies. After the tenant has moved in, pest control is the tenants responsibility. The exception would be unusual pests such as packrats, bees and hornets nests and the like which generally would present themselves to the exterior of the house.

LANDSCAPING

The yard should be weed-free, pruned and tidy. A timed irrigation system should be provided to help maintain your landscape. It will not guarantee your landscape. Power outages, equipment failure, weather, and root eating insects can create problems for all yards. Discuss with one of our agents whether a periodic landscaper would be recommended for your particular property.

KEYS

Properties should be keyed to one key. Again, this should be considered a business startup expense. Make sure we have a mailbox key, its mailbox number, a pool key and working garage door openers. Garages that have handle locks should also have a key. Houses may be re-keyed between tenancies at our option.

SWIMMING POOLS

Talk to your insurance agent about extra liability insurance.

DIVING BOARDS AND SLIDES MUST BE REMOVED

Be prepared to fence the pool to separate it from the house.

ON-GOING MAINTENANCE

It is our mission to respond to maintenance calls quickly. This corresponds with landlord/tenant laws, respect for your tenant and as importantly, to the integrity of your property. We use licensed, and insured vendors almost exclusively. Replacements are "like for like". Our management agreement authorizes Arizona Living Rentals & Property Management LLC to make routine expenditures as described in our management agreement, except essential components and services which must be made immediately, notwithstanding the cost. Emergency repairs will not be “put out for bid”. The few dollars you might possibly save by the bidding process could quickly be consumed in rent credits and hotel bills while the bids are gathered. Some landlords wish to perform their own maintenance or have one of their friends perform all maintenance requests. We will try to honor those requests whenever practicable. Unreasonable delays are not practicable.