Prepare your home before renting it out
The pre-letting checklist: repair and photograph, record condition and inventory, price from evidence, and be ready before handover day.
A well-prepared home lets faster and argues less afterwards, because half of a smooth letting happens before the tenant exists. This guide is a checklist for first-time landlords: repairs and cleaning before the photos, the condition and inventory record, pricing the rent from evidence, and what to have ready for tenants before handover day. Every item comes with the reason it helps. Once the list is done, the next step is letting it with us.
Repair and clean before the photos
Listing photos are the face of your home. Pending repairs — a damp patch, a dead bulb, a loose handle — show up in pictures and make viewers guess that the owner does not care. Sweep, wash the windows, and stage each room so the real space shows; daylight does most of the work. If your condo is not fully furnished, the plain essentials — a wardrobe, a water heater, an air-conditioner that has just been serviced — let the listing answer tenants' first questions by itself.
The condition and inventory record
Before handover, record the home's condition and its inventory together, note the electricity and water meter readings as evidence, and photograph every room. This record is what protects both sides when the deposit comes back: ordinary wear is not chargeable damage, and any deduction needs evidence behind it. If you want the fuller picture of the records a landlord should keep through the tenancy, we have a separate guide for exactly that.
Setting the rent with comparable evidence
A rent set on feeling fails two ways: too high and the home sits, too low and you lose income for the whole contract. The better way is to look at similar homes in the same area — same type, similar condition — and remember that an advertised rent is not always the rent actually paid. Happy Home views your home, compares evidence from nearby properties and proposes an asking rent with reasons — always as a starting point, not a formal valuation.
What to have ready for tenants
A good handover is one where every question is already answered. Have ready: a clear copy of the contract, the first-payment list stated plainly — deposit, advance rent and any contract charges — the utility rates that will actually be charged, spare keys and access cards, appliance manuals, and a repair contact. One rule worth knowing for landlords who let as a business: deposit plus advance rent together cannot exceed three months' rent, and utilities must be charged at the provider's actual rates.
Prepared and ready? Bring your home to its tenants: list it for rent with Happy Home from the listing page, or read on about finding a long-term tenant who fits your place.