As a landlord, one of your primary responsibilities is ensuring that you provide tenants with a safe, quality space in which to live. In return, they reward you with a monthly income through rent, and if they are particularly good tenants, they’ll do this with a minimum of trouble to you, and a long, healthy tenant/landlord relationship.
Most of the time, a landlord will look on the responsibility for property maintenance in a strictly indoor capacity, ensuring that things like the furnace, or the plumbing are in good working order. But that responsibility can also extend to the exterior of the home. If you’re not the type of landlord that wants a gorgeous, but expensive garden outside, but still wants to present a pleasing exterior, here are a few things you can do to achieve that with minimal fuss.
Artificial Grass
Artificial grass has been gaining ground–and a reputation for being eco-friendly because it doesn’t need water, fertilizer, or to be mowed. Artificial grass is one of the cheapest, long-term solutions to having a presentable lawn that requires the absolute lowest standard of maintenance. It can be a little more expensive with the initial installation, and you definitely don’t want to consider this for massive, sprawling fields. In addition the newest generation of artificial grass often looks good enough to fool us into thinking it’s real.
But, if you have a reasonably sized or smaller yard that you would like to look nice, neat, with ZERO maintenance after being set up, this is it. Aside from external forces such as what dogs, tenants or children may do, this is the ultimate low maintenance solution to having a nice lawn that needs no attention whatsoever.
Hardscape the Property
Hardscaping is the practice of laying out harder materials in the yard space. This includes patios, decks, fire pits, rock gardens, and other installations that don’t use plants. With the right allotment of space and design, a hardscaped yard can look incredibly attractive.
In the backyard, this can also be quite practical, as decks and fire pits have obvious utility for tenants. Because you’re taking up more space with harder materials like stone, wood or concrete, this also minimizes the amount of maintenance you have to put into the environment.
Ground Cover
For people that want something a bit different, ground cover is another option. Unlike grass, artificial grass, or hardscape options, ground cover takes materials like pine straw, that prevents weeds, but provides a pleasing, natural-looking, low maintenance alternative to grass surfaces.
Plant Perennials
This requires a little bit more maintenance, but is still comparatively low maintenance and mostly takes care of itself. A perennial is simply a very hardy plant that lives for many years and blooms every single year on its own.
This means that once you plant it, as long as it gets sun and water, it will mostly take care of itself and create some attractive plant life that looks good in your yard. Make sure you pick perennials that are appropriate for the region you’re living in. If you can get over the initial hump of giving these plants plenty of water to take root in the beginning, you’ll often find that normal amounts of rainfall during the year may be enough to keep these plants going and still look attractive on your property.
Once you have a pleasing exterior, you’re one more step to creating an appealing residence that renters will enjoy and pay good money to live in.
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