These four keys should help guide you in your pursuit of buying and owning residential investment property in Myrtle Beach. By setting smart buying parameters, you will increase your odds of enjoying better investment income.
Emotional Attachment
An investment property should not have an emotional attachment to it. Renting the home, that you grew up in for instance, is not a good idea because you are too attached to its out-of-date features that you hold dear in your memories! A rental unit is an investment designed to make you money, not preserve your childhood memories. Keep your childhood home and live in it or use it as a second home, but do not rent it. It’s won’t be a fun place for either of you! Sell your inherited family home and buy another property ideally suited for its appeal to the rental market and enjoy your intended financial rewards!
Bedrooms
Your target audience for a rental property is a two-to-four-bedroom unit. One or five- bedroom units take longer to rent and tend to turn over more often. The sweet spot in leasing residential property is a three bedroom, two or two and one-half bath, with a bonus room, double car garage and fenced back yard. Stick within these parameters to ensure rental home is always in high demand when it becomes vacant and pays you top rental income.
Landscaping
Low-key landscape maintenance is critical when selecting a prospective rental property. Few tenants enjoy yard maintenance so yards that require little time maintaining adds value to their lifestyle experience. Grass is usually an attractive basic feature when there are limited amounts and in appropriate areas for use. You can make a home more appealing for a tenant with lower maintenance ground surfaces such as mulch or low maintenance shrubs. Talk to your property manager or a landscape professional about a low maintenance landscape conversion before you buy a property and make sure your ideas are compatible with the community POA requirements.
Floor Plans
Avoid unique, odd or unusual home designs or floor plans. Someone surely must have had a dream in mind when they built a unique style home. But unique probably won’t suit many tenants who just want to live a normal rental experience. Attempting to convert the home into something more normal is usually more trouble than it is worth. Just stay in the boring mainstream of housing with NORMAL spaces and functionality to appeal to 95% of your target market. Play the odds and enjoy the rewards!
Finally, call us about the homes you are considering BEFORE you initiate a contract or while you are in your due diligence period. We will be happy to offer you our observations, recommendations and provide you with a rental value range to help you in your assessment process. Invest wisely and enjoy solid tenancy retention, income, equity growth and less stress. That’s our formula to making a successful investment!
