Many apartment buildings are not living up to their income potential, making it difficult to sell at the highest price. The next time you’re thinking of selling your apartment building, consider the few things listed below to ensure that you can increase the value of your apartment property.

1. Increase rental rates once a year to increase the value of the property.
2. If mastered metered, install separate electric and gas meters per apartment to minimize operating costs.
3. Acquire buildings within the same geographical region to consolidate like services to achieve efficiency, such as utilizing the same maintenance crew or gardener.
4. Inspect interior of property every four months to detect plumbing leaks.
5. Install water saving shower heads and low-flow toilets in all units.
6. Renegotiate the rental rate of laundry machines to lower flat rate without sharing any portion of the laundry revenue.
7. Painting the exterior of the property to enhance value of the property.
8. Implement a Ratio Utility Bill Back System (RUBS) to calculate a resident’s utility bill based on occupancy, apartment square footage, number of beds, or a combination of factors. This is an easy way for landlords to pass on the water bill to their tenants to lower costs.
9. Visit sites such as Craigslist and apartments.com to keep up with rents and improve your rents accordingly.

By taking action now to correct all the above suggestions, you can potentially increase the value of your apartment building by tens of thousands of dollars. If you’re interested in finding out more tips to increase the value of your property, check out 12 Creative Ways to Add Major Value to Apartment Buildings and 8 Ways to Increase the Value of Your First Multifamily Investment Property. Also, if you want specific advice on how to buy or sell apartment buildings, give us a call 818.915.9118 or send us an email!