The rental value of your property can go up just by following the market (or down if that is the market direction), but if you have the time, you can have more control over this. Improving your property can do two things.

1. Make it more desireable to potential buyers, increasing its potential sale value
2. Make it more desireable to potential renters, increasing its potential rent value. There are two components here. The base amount of rent you can ask for (what they feel it is worth) and what you can charge extra for if they want access to other features to your property (if it is multi-unit and they want to use it for themselves).

We will focus on the second item in this article. The first is covered more in the article Increasing the Value of Your Property

Here is an example. My wife an I purchased an up/down duplex for our first home. We live in the top half and rent the bottom half. One of the biggest things we are missing is a garage. We live in a city with cold, harsh winters where garages are the norm. Should we build one? If we did we would probably notice the two points I mentioned above like as follows:

1. Garages give the house more value. When we went to sell this would be reflected in the sale price. It would also allow us to have our how reassessed if we wanted to increase our borrowing ability from the bank.
2. The garage is now a feature of the property. We can demand more rent from our basement suite because we will let them use the garage. We could put an ad in the paper and rent the garage to the local "mechanic". A lot of people rent garages for a variety of reasons (hobbies, storage, classic car, motorbikes, etc.)

The other question that comes up is, "Is it worth it?" This is another one you would have to analyze. How much is it going to cost me and what is my expected return? Say a nice double garage that is insulated will cost $20,000 (I don't know I'm just throwing a number out there). If you can tie this into your existing mortgage then the cost will be spread out over, say, 20 years at 6.5% interest. This would translate to about $148/month on top of your mortgage payment. So can you charge more than this in rent for the garage? That is a question we would have to figure out. Check out rent prices. At an apartment I used to live at, we paid $50 per parking spot. That would mean $100 for our garage, but it has the added bonus of storage space and they can put their own lock on the door. I would think that clearing $148 would be reasonable. Unfortunately, at our house there are some other circumstances preventing it.

The garage is just one illustration and a fairly dramatic one. Here are some other ones that are good for increasing rent:

Multi-suite situations
If there is a feature of the property that a tenant would want private access to, then it can be an asset. Tenants also like their privacy and the worst situation to have is tenants annoying one another. There are ways to alleviate this.

• Adding washers and dryers so there is no shared laundry (in multi-suite situations).
• Add a dog-run to the backyard and charge monthly rate for using it if they have pets.
• Provide wireless internet and charge a fee to each tenant (remember that the sum should be more than what you pay, you are providing them with a hassle free service).
• If it is a single furnace and only one thermostat to control it, the other suites could have baseboard heaters for a little extra control. I have seen houses with two furnaces too, that would be a dream.
• Seperate hot water tanks or put in a huge one so no one uses up all the water on the other people.
• Seperate access to the suites (not a shared one). They each have their own door, track their own dirt onto their own mat, and have their own porth to clean. You get the idea.

Standalone House or Multi-Suites

• A fully fenced off yard is a dream for parents with small children (if you are in that market).
• Having a nice deck
• A garage
• A shed
• Nice landscaping in the yard. Just a few trees and shrubs is fine. Things that don't take much maintenance.

I'm not saying all these things will equate to money, but if you have the time and resources they don't hurt to add (especially if you are living there and will reap the benefits too). If you treat your tenants right, it will pay off in the long run. The place will demand a higher rent, in turn attracting a higher "class" crowd if I might say. You attract people who appreciate it a bit more. Try tackling one project a year. It gives you a bit of a tax write-off, your tenants will feel you are an "involved" landlord, and your property will become more attractive.

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