stoves refrigerators microwaves washers and dryers should you include all of these appliances in your rental properties as a landlord and if yes where should you buy them and what brands are best as a landlord of over 20 years that topic and more is what I'll cover in this video let's get [Music] started welcome to the podcast real estate investing with Coach Carson I'm your host Chad Carson you can also call me coach Carson and this is a show to help you get out of the finan grind so you can spend your time doing more of
what matters to help me talk appliances I ask Casey franchini from the channel Brick by Brick wealth to join me Casey's a mom of three and a successful self-managing rental investor with nine properties and she also knows a lot about appliances for rental properties so Casey I really wanted to talk to you about this topic of appliances and rentals because you self-managed your rentals for so many years and I thought it be fun to just chat about it to get into the the weeds I love getting into the details of this and so the reason
I thought appliances are so important and I know you've you've found this with your own rentals too is that number one we got to keep our tenants happy that if we have things that are working and that are useful and they can they're practical then they're going to stay longer which we all want as landlords but then there's this other side of things that appliances when I've looked at my bookkeeping like the biggest not the biggest expense I think my mortgages are probably my biggest expense but like PR pretty high on the list is like
Appliance expenses and repairs and spending thousands of dollars to replace appliances or hundreds of to repair them so this is a big deal that if we can do this better and if I can get better at this then we can improve our business as a a rental investor so uh would you you up for going down the list of all these appliances and just talking about you kind our thoughts on each one oh 100% absolutely I think appliances are a huge cost when it comes to landlording and property ownership so let's go awesome all right
well I'm G to start at the top of the list in the kitchen and we have a a stove where people have to cook and they have to do their their daily their daily meals what are some thoughts do you have on number one it seems pretty obvious we'd include a stove as a landlord but do do you include it do you not and then what kind of features and how do you think about a stove in your rental properties so stove okay stoves are must haves you have to have a stove to sell a
property and for me um I always include a stove now we're in the Memphis market and a lot of um a lot of other investors don't put stoves in properties at all matter of fact they don't put any appliances in their properties now I am sure that these investors are investing in the complete lower end of the market you know very d-class very rough gang infested areas and things get stolen all the time and so they don't put in anything um I don't invest in those areas so I invest in slightly better and even you
know I try my best to invest in B properties um I've invested in some C-Class um which some investors also say is b-class but I'm more realistic um in as far as my class the way I classify my neighborhoods um but for me I do put stoves in the properties I tried one time not putting in a stove because everyone doesn't put stoves and I wasn't getting the types of tenants that I wanted um so stoves for me are definitely a must have um I try and do electric stoves now I will definitely note what
type of stove is already in the house because you can't change it's can't easily change going from gas to electric most people prefer gas everybody wants a gas stove everybody wants to flip tortillas on the gas stove nobody wants electric but unfortunately you get what you get when you buy the house it comes one way or the other and it's really expensive to convert stoves and it's just not worth it so I put in electric stoves and I want the the the least expensive the cheapest stove I can get that is quality and works yeah
makes sense got it yeah I'm 100% with you on gas like I I would PR I don't have gas in my own home although I would prefer that for cooking it's just that if you have to you have to replace it it's a little bit more expensive there's also the risk you know if somebody doesn't do it correctly and you have leaks I if I could be do away with gas I would so 100% agree with you there have you found like you mentioned the the least expensive that also offers quality so sounds like you're
trying to kind of find like a sweet spot there have you found any particular Brands any types of stoves anything else you can think of in terms of features that kind of meet that sweet spot I I really like hot point I'll be honest and I know that some people don't like hot point I used to not like it but they last a really long time hot point does last they're very basic they don't have all the extra features and it's the features that break it's the clocks that break and the fancy timers and all
the all the extras are what break and I don't want things to break now if there is an a really close GE you know it's a that's a GE appliance and it's very close in price I will spend the extra 30 or 40 bucks and I'll get the nicer one but if it's you know $100 difference I'm not spending it but my preference would be a GE although I'm I'm fine with an Amana or a hot point got it yeah I like GE as well and I best I tried to this hasn't been something I
tracked over the years but I tried to ask my repair appliance repair person I said hey if on my stoves and we're going to get into all the other appliances too like do you have any preferred Brands and I was kind of surprised but his his he said if any of the big Brands you can get at Lowe's or Home or Home Dep which was Whirlpool GE things like that he said he had parts for and he he he thought they did okay so we we maybe we can talk as we go through here if
there's any Brands we've had a lot of bad luck with you know and yeah are there are there any for you for stoves you're like all right I'm never buying that kind of stove again or is it just pretty pretty straight forward just from my thousands of hours I feel like of research I will not buy a Samsung stove it's just going to be a no they're pretty they're cool you can get ones with blue interiors that looks so awesome and they have fake blue flames that come out the top and they're not real you
know for the induction stove they have some really cool features but they get three stars they are terrible with reviews and even for my own home when I was looking for a stove I just couldn't bring myself to buy a Samsung it was just um it would just be too painful for the repair cost got it okay so I know this is g to be timely information people listen to this at different times but into 2024 when we're doing this what what's the range of the type of stove you would probably buy the price range
of the ones you're looking at 500 bucks I keep it around 500 you can get them for 475 450 525 but somewhere around that range is what I kind of look for yeah same as me and stoves as opposed to some of the other stuff we're going to talk about seem to last a long time for me like I've had properties that we bought with some of these brands that keep on going if they're the good brand they're the you know don't have all the moving parts so this is one of those things 500 bucks
and you buy a decent brand it can last years and years and years at least in my experience so 100% And and if I'm if I buy a property it has a stove in it and it's cleanable and it's functionable I will keep it now if it has those electric burner Rings you know that you can you know they're I don't know how to explain them they're electric and they're swirly on top and you can you know I get rid of those stoves um that's those are too old I don't know if those are fire
hazards I will replace a stove if I do buy a house with the stove with those electric burners and I'll will put in like a glass cooktop stove I say electric because out here in the Midsouth it's electric when I was lived in California everyone had gas but it's electric out here and I've just rolled with it that's what everybody has yeah makes sense okay so flat top stove about 500 bucks you the bigger Brands and not Samsung got it all right so before we go to the next topic which is going to be like
vent hoods and microwaves you mentioned something about like maybe having for different price ranges of rentals maybe you think about appliances a little bit differently so I do want to dig into that a little bit because I think I we both have some things to say about that maybe let's start with like the idea that you you mentioned some people in Memphis maybe with like really the lowest rent properties might have one approach to to appliances and maybe if you're on the other end if you're doing luxury Airbnb kind of rentals maybe there's a different
consideration can you talk a little bit more about how you see that absolutely and it is very important it is before you buy a rental property you the number one thing you have to know is what class of neighborhood you're buying in what is your quote clientele who are your tenants what do they expect what amenities do they want what amenities have they had in the past if you want your property to quote sell AK you want to sell your rent you know you want to rent it out you want to sell to people which
no matter no matter any way you look at it when you're renting something you're selling someone a service you're selling someone on the idea of come rent my property so you want to put your best foot forward you want to have the best property around for the most affordable price appliances can make the difference depending upon what type of neighborhood you're in so if you're investing in a d-class you know more of the rougher area um with the cheaper rents around maybe more crime smaller properties a lot of deferred maintenance in the area and you're
buying you know those properties I would never put a stainless steel appliance in one of those houses first of all it's likely going to get stolen and then the tenant's going to expect you to replace that with a like valued property you know you're not going to be able to replace a you're not going to want to replace a stainless steel stove with another stainless steel stove and because they can cost a thousand dollars or more so in the lower-end neighborhoods when things might get stolen or people are you know a little more rougher on
how they handle the the appliance a lot of people don't take good care of things that aren't theirs um you want to put in kind of the most affordable that you can get you know you go to Lowe's or Home Depot online and you sort by Price cheapest to most expensive and what's the cheapest and what's on sale um usually those are going to be black or white appliances and they're not going to have hardly any features and they just they may not even have a clock now I do try and get ones with a
clock um so they can have a timer but those would be the ones I would be looking for for the a d-class property even a C-Class property even C-Class I'm looking for black or white appliances if there is a stainless steel appliance that is you know very similar price point I will go for the stainless but it has to be a better deal b-class properties if the property comes with appliances already when I buy it I'm going to leave them as long as they're newish they're clean and they work if it's that old you know
nasty dishwasher or something like that I'm going to get rid of that um if the stove is I like I said I had those circular little electric burners on top and it's from the 1970s I'm getting rid of that for my for my C-Class even and my bclass but for a d-class I'm leaving the electric burners I'm leaving whatever's there even if it's from 1970s if it works um so the better in class you get the more expensive the rent is the higher quality the tenants typically are the more money they make um and the
more nicer things they have in their home and if someone comes in with a Pottery Barn couch and you have a 1970s nasty gross appliances in there they're probably not going to want to rent your place so you want to give off the vibe you want your property to appeal to the type of person that's going to be living there got it okay that that makes sense and I'm gonna add one one other wrinkle kind of how I think about different classes of properties to me I've had properties that are C and D that have
done done well with really great tenants I've had you know actually property properties are probably not even my favorite because they seem to be more picky and they're not they don't stay and they go buy a house you know but here's how just to help people figure out in your neighborhood what a a b c d looks like in my estimation is if you look in town and you look on Zillow find the highest rent or highest sold properties in town and you you'll find that those are the a locations and what you also find
is that a locations have very very few rentals like I have two properties like I have a fourplex and another 3plex that happen to be like surrounded by a bunch of single family hous I just got lucky and I found these little multif Family Properties in in a neighborhood but that's that's pretty rare So 99% of properties there or for sale or people own them and live in them if you go to a b neighborhood I have a lot of B neighborhoods it's more like 10 to 20% rentals 80 to 90% owners a c neighborhood
for me at least is like 5050 owners and renters and then kind of a definition of a d for me is like mostly landlords and there's very few people who own a property which could be a negative it's not necessarily the tenant in my mind is more the landlords who are the problem because you have a lot of Slum Lords who don't take care of their properties and they're they're you know really you know just not doing the minimum deferred maintenance they can so you have you have to compete with that you have that kind
of person next door to you that landlord next door to you who doesn't take care of the property who also doesn't screen their tenis as well so that's just like I know this is not about that but appliances are really relevant to that because depend you want to match the expectations of the market and you don't want to overspend if you spend like you said you spend 1,200 bucks on something that you don't get any extra credit for that on a $800 rental then that you're kind of wasting your money in that case 100% I
agree with you everything you just said about all the rental classes for sure awesome all right well thanks for giving that feedback let's keep on going with the the list so we have our stove we kind of have a f we have a $500 in in their B and C-Class properties what right above that though we have this vent hood and maybe a microwave so what are your thoughts on that what to include so I you know I'm a little different and I put the microwave vent Hood hoods in I will put one in now
this latest property that we bought it's in a nicer area we have an island so I did a really nice you know vent hood that comes down over the island that's not a microwave so we went a little above because it's in an AB neighborhood and you know we redid the kitchen and that it's worthy of that but for all my other properties I will put in a microwave vent Hood now I get a lot of flack when I tell my investor friends that because kids hang on the doors they slam them the microwave Doors
Break um I've not had any issues with that and the tenants really appreciate it now I'm not going if if if there is no microwave um if there is no vent Hood now let me tell you I have bought properties that have no venting at all whatsoever over the stove and it depends on the type of tenants that live there some tenants they fry a lot of food and your cabinets around will turn yellow you get this little gunky grease stuff everywhere so it's really advantageous to install a venting system but it could cost $250
$300 to have someone just install the vent to the roof and sometimes you may not want to do that well microwaves have a recirculating feature so you can get a a charcoal recirculating feature in your microwave that goes above your your stove so you don't have to pay someone to come put a hole in your roof and vent it out through the roof so we have done that in the past now we do pay the guy to come install because there's nothing like having a really good sucker to suck up the stuff now the regular
vents they work better I know that they do um but tenants do appreciate and they get excited about seeing the microwave vent Hood so I've not had problems I haven't had anybody abuse the microwave and I've not had to replace one yeah I'm in the same way I mean to me early on in my career I did not install the vents to the outside but to me it's it's just one of those things like number one for the the cleanliness of the property like if you if you do have lot of smoke and a lot
of grease in there getting it vented to the outside is going to make your kitchen smell better it's going to be easier on your turnovers so and you know going back to the tenants the tenants are going to appreciate that so I'm with you on that I go and spend a few hundred bucks I have kind of been torn between the microwave and the the vent hood and some of my like lower lower price Apartments I have college student rentals they don't cook very much but they do microwave and so yes they microwave is a
microwave like more important than the stove if I mean we'll put a brand new stove in and they don't use it all semester in some of our student so the microwave is the most important thing so it definitely has to be there for some of our student rentals we've had some other apartments and like a mobile home here and there where just having a vent Hood was sufficient and then they could bring their own microwave later on and I will say too when I look at the kitchen I will feel bad some kitchens are small
I'm like where is someone going to put a tabletop microwave there's just no space no extra space in some of these kitchens to put a full-size microwave not to mention even a small one I I'm like well if I'm gonna put in a vent Hood I know they're gonna be putting a microwave on their counter and I feel bad it takes up so much counter space so that's just one more tick on the box of why I put the microwave above the above the stove yeah we all know in the housing business your kitchen is
the most important selling point whether it's a rental or a sale so if you could do yeah I like your attitude of if you have a little bit of extra you can spend to make it a little bit nicer even nicer than your competition or more functional and useful you're going to keep your tenants longer you're going to attract people better going back to our original point right people use microwaves so much Chad they use them a lot like you said even student housing I use my microwave all the time and if I didn't have
a microwave and I lived in a rental property and I was always constantly fighting with a small microwave on the on the countertop it might be one reason why I decide to move to another place well the kitchen is not functionable and I'm really tired of having to move this thing around all the time and you're in the kitchen a lot and especially if you have kids they're always heating stuff up or if you work late people use the microwave a lot and I would hate to have someone move out just because they're dissatisfied with
their daily life in the kitchen 100% all right so just like we did on the other one any brands or any comments on cost of microwaves or vent hoods I really try to get whirpool if I can world poool seems to last very well for me for microwaves um and you can still get one for 200 250 bucks you can get microwaves especially you know even the whirpool you can get them for 225 so I'm not opposed to spending a little bit more on getting a a name brand microwave just because they do get abused
you know they do hang on the doors and then you the door you know there the door is the issue not clo the door not closing and and you know it breaking off or whatnot so I would I think a name brand here would be beneficial um and they're really not much more than the non-name brand and I wonder if the known name brands are the name brands without the name on them because they look identical yeah 100% that's that seems to be more the everything we I've heard in my comments on my channel a
lot of people say oh the fact the factories are the same for all these brands exactly so who knows all right good so how about let's let's move to refrigerators this is a big one and this is one of those you know stove seems pretty obvious that most landlords are including that refrigerators maybe maybe not what's your thought on that one Casey if the refrigerator does not come with the property when I buy it then I don't put in a refrigerator I've never bought a fridge for a property and I've had some not great refrigerators
when I bought properties and I've left them in and said hey potential tenants this refrigerator I know it's not great I know it's really old it doesn't look that nice if you rent this place you are welcome to keep it or you can get rid of it and by golly they will keep them they don't even care if they're not beautiful they'll keep the ones that I would throw out if they're nasty they're yellowed or whatever or they're black and have scratches on the front they don't even care they will keep the fridge so I'm
glad that I keep it in and say hey you're welcome to toss this if you don't want it but it works it's just ugly you're welcome to use it um but I will not put in refrigerator a lot of people do have their own fridges funny enough um but you can get them for so cheap on Facebook Marketplace and people are getting rid of appliances all the time now I realize it's harder for out ofate investors to find local you know uh to find Facebook Marketplace applies for their properties and property management companies aren't going
to go the extra mile and do all of that so that may be harder but if you live nearby your rentals definitely check Facebook Marketplace especially if you want to put in a fridge you can get them for really cheap and we didn't mention this with stoves but this just popped into my mind I bought a stove for our rental that we just bought recently and remember I told you it was an island okay with the island had the stove in the center so I needed a flat top stove so I didn't want to spend
the 22500 bucks on a flat stove with no back a slide in stove so I found one on Facebook Marketplace for um the lady was selling for $100 because one of the front burners didn't work and it was the exact same stove that I have in my house which was over $2,000 but it was just an older model but it was beautiful it was GE it was great and one Front Burner didn't work I talk to my husband I go do you think we could fix this front burner and he's like he looked it up
he's like yes I think it's just like a switch something really easy to fix so I got the lady down for 7 to $75 and it was a great stove she just remodeling her kitchen so she got something else we went and picked up this stove for 75 bucks and for $28 we got the piece on Amazon and we have a slide in $2,000 stove we got for nearly $100 on Facebook so you can do the same thing with refrigerators you know um but I personally I don't put them in I but I do tell
my tenants if they are putting in a refrigerator obviously they need to measure because that's one of the biggest mistakes people make is buying a fridge that doesn't fit yeah either the cabinets are coming down too low and you need to get a shorter fridge or the the width is is a different size I mean I've had the same thing happen you you have it delivered you try to put it in there like oh doesn't fit gota gota go take it back right and not even that how are you going to get it in the
house you have to take off the door will it slide through any of the extra doorways sometimes it's very hard to get refrigerators in the in the house you have to take the doors off which is something to consider too oh boy yeah so so good good tips on this is especially a benefit if you're a self-managing landlord or small and mighty which we both like to advocate for if if you're managing five properties yourself like you can be more proactive with the saving money like the example you gave of the $75 stove with the
$28 part like if you're the person who's managing hundreds of units who has third party managers can't take that kind of level of of of of proactivity to save some money so that's just an advantage for smaller investors that people who are bigger or long distance maybe can't do right 100 perc yep that is a pro but the con is you got to do it yourself yeah exactly that's good and bad good I'm not in I'm not in the DIY camp at the moment but I've I've been there and I I appreciate that and the
other thing I'll say about fridge is like I this is another one of those nuances of knowing your market like going back I have some student rentals I have some long long long-term tenants or just Families my student rentals we always include fridges it's just one of those things that's expected in the market a stu you know 19y old student who's going to class not gonna be able to buy it on the other hand I've kind of come full circle on the refrigerators uh in a in a single family house that we rent longterm more
to your point we used to include them but some people wanted their they'd ask us hey can we put our own fridge in there instead of this fridge and then we had to you know talk negotiate that or move it out I think is I really like your strategy of saying especially for long-term tenants you're like hey it's not included so the thing the refrigerator's there if it breaks you know it's just you can get rid of it but this is It's just there for your convenience if you don't want it you know get rid
of it put it by the road that's a it's one of those things when you have to pay for refrigerator every five years if the tenant stays for 10 or 15 years like that's a big savings for you too and also they get the customization of getting their own fridge maybe they want a better one an upgraded one so it's just a better f for long-term tennis I found yeah now a lot of my students or rather I'll say new investors okay new Real Estate Investors want to buy and if you're listening to this you
may be like oh that's me want to buy matching packages of appliances for their rental properties and I have to say no no no no no no no no you do not need to buy matching appliance packages which include washer dryer refrigerator dishwasher stove all the things you don't need to do that and spend those thousands and thousands of dollars on this mid-range stainless steel name brand set it is not worth it and people are not going to notice if you have a Whirlpool dishwasher and a GE fridge or whatever they're they're not going to
notice nor are they going to care and one thing I one important thing I will say about refrigerators if people out there are wanting to buy fridges even though we're like don't do it be very wary of the fridge that you buy because day break and if I will tell you my ice maker has broken several times on my own refrigerator at my house I have a Samsung yes I have a Samsung refrigerator I've had it for 12 years but we've had the ice maker replace three times and currently it puts out like one Ice
Cube so I have bought a Costco ice maker countertop because I'm just tired of it not making ice and having to fix it blah blah blah and my husband can fix everything and we're just tired of fixing the ice maker but I promise you that if you have a refrigerator that has an ice maker and it stops working your tenants will be calling you to fix an ice maker and appliance repair guys they're what 160 bucks just to show up and then they're going to charge you for the parts and the labor and it's going
to be a minimum $300 charge for an ice maker that's just going to break again in the next year so if you are going to buy a refrigerator do yourself a favor do not get one with an ice maker really any ice maker ice cube trays are fine if you if you're going to get an ice maker at least don't do a door ice maker maker the one that's on the outside Mak it an interior ice maker um but even then I would say don't do any ice maker and let them use ice cube trays
agree I'm with you on that this is kind of a theme of finding The Sweet Spot of what they the tenant wants versus what your maintenance costs are and ice makers 100% have been a big maintenance problem and the little copper line that goes behind the fridge if the if the tenant or anybody your your repair person moves it it it breaks and it leaks it's one of the most common leaks that people don't see for a while leaking behind the fridge it leaks into the basement or the crawl space I mean it's it's got
all sorts of issues and so that's that's one of the themes I think I'm hearing from UK Casey that I agree with 100% is like the more bulletproof you can make your rental property and you can make small and big choices about what appliances to buy what repairs to do to your property like could save you like hundreds or thousands of dollars over the long run and still be able to attract good tenants like that's that's the the kind of tension we're trying to to find here 100% and again if there is already refrigerator in
the property I will leave it if it comes with an ice maker I will believe it but here's my secret chat I don't warranty my appliances I don't warranty them I say if it breaks tenant and in the lease agreement and even though it's in the lease agreement it's not something I I just don't mention it's in the lease agreement but we have a verbal face-to-face conversation about the important things in the lease agreement and appliances are one of them I let them know straight up even though they've read it and they've signed it people
do not read what they sign first of all they just sign then they call and tell you there's a problem and I go didn't you know that wasn't included and they're like no I didn't know that and then they get mad so I let them know in advance and it's a face-to-face very slow conversation that we don't warranty the appliances now if they're brand new appliances I would say they're brand new they have a factory warranty for one year from low so there should be nothing that happens to these and if these appliances break in
a year it's probably because you're not taking care of them properly because I've never broken a brand new Appliance so that's one thing and the second thing is if they are you know my warranty process is if they are existing and I don't warrantee them and they break the tenants can replace them or they can fix them on their own dime and I tell them if you want to replace my Appliance go for it you can replace and you can take it with you when you leave but and this has happened to me before I
have I let tenants do this and then one of them stole all of my appliances they stole them all and said well they all didn't work I said no way did they all not work like you just stole them that's why they're gone when you moved out so now in my my new version of my least agreement states that they're welcome to replace them with whatever Appliance they want but they have to prove to me first that they're broken and I want to take the appliance I want to check it and make sure that it's
broken before they remove it from the property yeah so that's an interesting strategy I I'm still going back and forth on my Appliance strategy you know we we do say that if it break it's in our lease if it breaks we fix it but like I said I'm really considering that especially on refrigerators which have been really expensive um so you're saying even a stove even our microwave even those that are included if that breaks they can replace it they cannot but that's that's on them at that point that's on them and you know the
new appliances have the Lowe's or Home Depot warranty and if I bought it for $75 on Facebook I'm not crying about it if it if it ends up breaking but I let them know that it was working when you moved in and you are welcome to replace it with your own I just want proof that it is not working before you remove it from the property because I don't want you to steal them and that's happened before got it okay all right well good good stuff let's keep going down the list we've covered stove we
covered vent hoods and microwaves refrigerators now let's get to some the final thing in the kitchen the dishwasher what how do you see a dishwashers and how do you do that with your reynals so I'm sure everyone has seen I'm sure you have seen the dishwasher board there's no dishwasher but there's a piece of plywood painted the color of the cabinets right next to it does that is that just not a slap in the face now I don't know if you do that Chad so sorry if I just not me not me but I see
this all too all too many times you look at a rental property and there's the wonderful spot for the dishwasher and some jerk landlord covered it up with a piece of plywood oh my gosh if you're gonna take out the dishwasher put a cabinet there okay you don't need to put a board up and be a slob so My Philosophy is if there is a hole for a dishwasher I will put in the dishwasher if there is not a hole for the dishwasher I'm not going to do the whole K redo the entire kitchen just
to put in a dishwasher but if I am redoing the kitchen any anyways I will include a dishwasher the only problems I have had with tenants and dishwashers and there have been a couple problems is that they put too much food in the dishwasher right and it clogs the drain so we've had to have the drain you know snaked so that the dishwasher drains so that that's happened a couple times um and it's been with the same tenant but otherwise people appreciate the dishwasher especially in older homes when there were no dishwashers to begin with
and the homes weren't built with a dishwasher at all if you are redoing the kitchen and you put in a dishwasher tenants may choose your property because you have a dishwasher because they've grown up their entire life lived their whole life without a dishwasher and this is like a dream come true to have a dishwasher I mean this is Lux to have a dishwasher so I try to put in a dishwasher when I can again they're not cheap either they are a few $100 you don't have to go highend and get the very quiet ones
with the stainless steel interiors and bottle washers and the multiple you know trays that move around and do all these fancy things you just need a regular dishwasher and one that works and cleans their dishes when what looks nice and they're super happy for that and super grateful y I'm 100% with you on that one this is another Nuance one for me where I have my long-term same the same houses where I have the long-term tenant who I probably wouldn't include a refrigerator now we would include a dishwasher in those it's just it's part of
the expectation of the market if that rent price rang we have also we have a lot of Studio one bedroom two-bedroom apartments many of these are student rentals or just kind of you know more trans transi at Ryals and those we actually don't include dishwashers most of them don't have them and we've never had a complaint that I could think of where somebody's like hey why does this property have a dishwasher they rent really well without it and you it's just kind of part of the ethos of those apartment there's small apartments there's not much
space you know somebody's living there solo typically or you know one two people so they're not they're not cooking for the whole family and they wash a couple dishes and then it's not a big deal so I think again I think the theme Here is know your Market understand what's expected there dishwasher is are one of those things that could be a really big deal like a single family house long-term tenant with a family but if not you know it's not necessarily GNA be a deal killer either no it's not a maker to break it
and if I were looking at properties to buy and I didn't have a dishwasher I wouldn't go oh I'm not going to buy it doesn't have a dishwasher I wouldn't do that I would still buy the property but I would also consider installing a dishwasher and making that a part of the kitchen if I were if and only if were already going to redo the layout got it all right so the final one on my list was laundry and so this is another one of those like I want to ask you like include it not
include it what what do different landlords different have different attitudes about this my thoughts are if it comes with the property when I buy it I will leave it otherwise it's up to the tenants to put in their own washer and dryer and most times my properties that I buy do not have washers and dryers sometimes I do and I leave them and I've not had any problems and if there's one dryer or one washer I will leave one doesn't have to be all or nothing I can leave a dryer and say hey there's a
dryer there you just need a washing machine funny enough a lot of tenants especially out here in Memphis do have their own washers and dryers so it must be something that is um more common to not have a washer and dryer at at least out here in Memphis I mean to not have it included because a lot of tenants do already have their own washers and dryers yeah agree this is one of those that I'm switching kind of like the refrigerator um but to if it's there just like your policy is then you can use
it but we're no warranties on it it's just your convenience if it breaks you need to you know put it by the road but you can get another one I found that to be just fine with our Market the other thing I'll say though if you if you get a house that doesn't even have a washer dryer hookup which is pretty rare these days to not have that yeah you got you got to have the hookup you got to have at least the availability and this is applied to us in sometimes when we buy Apartments
it's kind of a small space you might have to do something a little more dramatic like taking out part of a closet building like a stackable washer we've had to do that a lot with small apartments of building stackable washer dryer spaces and showing people where it could be like I think that's really important at least having the availability of us there but whether you include the machine or not I think that's the that's the question I agree with you 100% and again when I'm looking to buy a property where are the hookups is something
that I look for my very first walkr where's the hookups and a lot of times in the houses that are 1950s you know they're very old and they didn't have dryers back then they will have the washing machine in the kitchen and the dryer is sometimes in the little carport outside or it's not there at all and they never had a dryer or it's in a random Place one thing that I don't like are washers and dryers in the kitchen and I've seen that a lot you'll be have your countertop and right next to it
is your washing machine and I've seen people putting their cutting boards like adding it's like an extra countertop so when I buy a property I really do try and say is there a way to move the washer and dryer out of the kitchen move it to its own separate laundry area even if it's nearby or even at least have them together because imagine having the washing machine on one side of the kitchen and the dryer outside or the dryer on the other side of the kitchen having to carry Wet laundry that's dripping from one place
to the next especially when it's cold having to take cold wet laundry outside to the dryer we have always with every property put the washer and dryer together and moved it to a different location even if it does cost a little bit of money to do that I feel like that's worth it the tenants appreciate that and I'm going to have tenant that stay longer because of that convenience yeah 100% agree all right so these have been great tips Casey I think this would be helpful is there anything we missed or is anything else you
would tell people the landlords to think about with their whole Appliance philosophy as a landlord I would say when you are considering putting appliances in your property don't overdo it and that is the biggest mistake I see investors make is spending too much money on their appliances going for the full stainless steel package going for mid-range you really want to look at the competition and that's going to tell you what to do in your market so look at the other properties that are for rent in your area see what types of appliances they have in
their properties in relation to the type of rent they're getting and the type of kitchen that they have if they have you know a really cheap nasty old kitchen and really cheap nasty old appliances and your kitchen is nice don't put in the cheap nasty appliances put in something that matches the rest of the kitchen something that again meets the expectations of the tenants like you said earlier and really what you do is going to depend upon your competition and whether you want your tenants to choose your property or the competing ones great advice yeah
I feel like landlords at least in the last three or four years have gotten a little bit lazy like I know when I first started as a landlord in 2003 four and five it was a lot of competition like we a lot of lot of my tenants were graduating up to buying houses it was not easy to find good tenants and so we had to really like think about what you're saying of competing and making sure you're including things that are a little bit extra last few years it's been really easy to rent a property
and I feel like landlord it's going to come back around you know landlords have to understand that it's not always going to be a really easy Market to find tenants and as it gets harder you get appliances could be a big deal it could be one of those kind of people on the fence they choose your property versus another one 100 per. it's been so helpful Casey I want to give you a chance to to tell people about you about what you have going on I follow you on social media on Instagram your YouTube channel
is really awesome so tell people where they can hang out with you connect with you and what you have going on 100% well I help new Real Estate Investors with their first rental property and I put content out daily on that on my Instagram Brick by Brick wealth and I am becoming a huge fan of YouTube so you can find new weekly videos it's all about how to do things the right way as a real estate investor on my YouTube channel Brick by Brick wealth and I was actually inspired by a video you did on
your Channel about appliances so we talked about some different things in your video that you have in your video that we didn't talk about today so I'll put a link to that here at the end where people can check out your YouTube channel I'll put a link to all your your Instagram your website and everything else as well uh Casey thanks for being here it's been awesome to have you back on the show ditto thank you so much Chad right thank you in this episode we talked all about appliances for your rentals but as a
landlord that's only one of many maintenance expenses I have to worry about so in the next episode I interview another expert landlord about how to bulletproof your rental property and pick the best materials from flooring and paint to mechanical systems it's called how one landlord keeps his rentals low maintenance and if you're watching on YouTube you can click on the thumbnail above me here or you can click on the link in the podcast or the YouTube description below I'll see you in the next episode
