Tiles or Floating Floorboards? New Kitchen or Paint Cupboards?

Tiles every day of the week! If you have a leak you will be replacing the floating floor every time, costing you time and money. Not to mention scratches.

As for the kitchen, for $3000 you may as well do it. First thing people see is the kitchen and bathroom.  Just don't go put marble or granite bench tops!

If you are renovating the whole place I'd go new kitchen.

We usually do new kitchens. Only one place we didn't. We did carpet and paint. The kitchen was OK so we painted the doors and replaced the handles then put vinyl floor planks. Came up well but we don't expect it to last 5 years. Then we'll replace it.

Hi dreamingbig,

we currently did minor reno to an ex housing commission house in a housing commission area, we plan to do more but due to advice from our accountant all work is done after tenants have begun leasing the house (other wise it isn't tax deductible)

to begin with we put tenants in on the 1st and arranged with them for a painter to enter the day after,

we also spoke with the evaluator and asked about flooring, the floor doesnt really change the value of the house dramatically you will basically get what you paid for back if your lucky, the best thing with flooring to do is choose a low maintenance floor  like tiles they cost more but  you never have to polish them and as someone above said if water leaks they wont swell and damage as easy.. plus they look nice if you ever want to sell, wooden and carpet floors can get stains and scratches all over them causing future buyers to shy away a bit

as for the kitchen, we got the painter to repaint all the doors and clean up the handles, we plan to replace the kitchen soon but just dont want to blow over budget..

to be honest we

painted the house,

repaired the fan in the bathroom (its lid kept falling off)

cleaned the carpets (suprising they were in good condition but stunk)

painted the kitchen face

and installed a solar hot water system which was the most costly (coming to around $4,300 after rebates)

placed about $50 of pretty flowers in the yard…

total cost was approx 6K but the real estate said if the work was done before we signed on tenants we could have asked for an extra 30 a week and would have got it (not that we care the rent is already positive return), and the evaluator has increased its valuation by 25K

we still plan on putting in a new kitchen and bathroom not for extra value but more for the ease of renting it out and maintaining the condition

Definitely tiles for durability.  We've also put good quality vinyl in and that looks good and wears well.  Check out the pics on the main photo on this site – whilst that floor looks like timber it's actually vinyl: http://turnersbeachapartments.yolasite.com/

If the kitchen is a bit scruffy I would definitely replace it as you want your property to attract the best tenants.  

As mentioned by ScottnoMates I agree that it's also worth putting a new vanity in for the sake of a few hundred dollars if the old one is tired.

our rental is down the south coast of NSW, its a pain trying to find positive return rentals now as we seemed to have had a bit of a boom  when i say boom i mean some of the housing commission areas have over doubled in price, as a local i know these prices are not worth it but it seems a lot of investors don't… or out of town first home buyers… (so much for Australians having financial difficulties) either way it has pushed our market way over…

anyway if i can work out how to put photos up ill put some before and after photos to show how little we did but how much it improved the house

as for self tiling from what I've seen and been told, don't attempt it if you have bad knees and back.. also remember to prep properly cause if you don't the tiles will probably fall off. 

my partners uncle had a professional tiler (a mate of his) come in and tile for mates rates, in his kitchen got those nice clear glass ones along the wall… yeah,  3 weeks later *smash* about half of them fell off and cause it was off the books work the company didn't cover it through insurance so my uncle inlaw had to use his house insurance or fork out more money himself to repair it

some times its better off to pay that extra if you can afford it, and know the company who do the job will be at blame if something goes wrong than risk it yourself, though ive never self tiled so i cant say if this is good advice or not lol

I've recently tiled the floors of my IP. (kitchen, hallway, bathroom and laundry). Stupid me purchased porcelain tiles which are bloody hard to lay and get all square. Everyone comments on a great job, however i wouldn't do it again. Sore back and knees for a week. 

If you get the planning right it shouldn't be too hard.

For me i rather to install a tiles instead of other materials. Because you can easily swept the dust into the tiles. I have installed a granite also that is is very tough compare to other tiles. http://www.azteccontainer.com

Hahaha I did tiling at my ppor so I could get good at it for when I did my IPs. It was a learning experience alright now Im good at it and my ip have great tiling and there is one row of uneven tiles in my laundry that taunts me every time I see them. Point of post practice on someone else’s property if you cab