You Have Decided to Rent Out Your Apartment. What Do You Need to Do?
We offer advice to those renting out an apartment for the first time. There's nothing complicated about it, but there are still some things you need to think about.
Prepare the apartment
Actually, it doesn't matter whether you're renting out an apartment for the first time or doing it for the nth time – it should be thoroughly cleaned and any excess items removed before taking pictures. The apartment should be as anonymous as possible, since the new resident will want to make it their own home.
If possible, also do some minor repairs: paint over worn spots on the walls, fix squeaky hinges and leaky faucets. It might be worthwhile to replace worn wallpaper in some rooms.
Make sure that all appliances you plan to leave in the apartment are in working order.
Take pictures or video of your rental apartment
Once the apartment is in good condition, you can take pictures of it. The better the pictures, the more interested parties you'll attract. We've written more extensively about how to take pictures of your real estate in this post.
Video is an increasingly popular medium and we recommend that you use it when advertising your rental apartment. You can make a quite decent video with a smartphone, so you don't need professional help.
Set the rental price
If we had a good formula for you here, we would have already written it down. Since there are many factors involved, it's very difficult to come up with such a formula.
If you use a real estate agent's services when renting out your apartment, they can certainly help you determine the rental price. If not, look at rental prices for similar apartments on Kinnisvara24 or another portal. Compare apartments in the same area, with the same floor space, roughly on the same floor, and in similar condition.
If you receive a lot of offers, it's sensible to lower your price a bit so your apartment stands out.
Also keep in mind that potential tenants will definitely want to see utility bills for both summer and winter periods. If your apartment has, for example, high electricity bills, you should take that into account when determining the rental price.
Post an advertisement
It's simple – you can do it here.
Show the rental apartment to interested parties
We know that it's a common practice to invite multiple interested parties at the same time, but this isn't actually fair to anyone. People come to see their potential future home and would like to do so in a calm, not nervous atmosphere, which can arise if many people are present at the same time.
Tell everything honestly about the apartment, show the utility bills, and tell them who your neighbors are.
Now you can agree on rental terms.
Check the tenant's background
Yes, they might seem like the nicest person in the world to you, but if you look at their Facebook wall, you might discover that they tend to throw quite wild parties. Or you can find out through a quick Google search that they are a chronic debtor.
We would also like to believe that all people are beautiful and good, but unfortunately some simply aren't. Checking the background protects you from a lot of headaches. Check your potential tenant's Facebook wall and debt collection website, and of course Google them. You might actually get confirmation of what a nice person your future tenant is.
Sign a lease agreement
You definitely can't do without a contract. Verbal agreements are still only verbal and everyone feels more secure when things are in black and white. You can download a sample lease agreement from the Good Citizen website, for example: https://heakodanik.ee/sites/default/files/files/Yyrileping.doc
