Is Tile Really Worth It?
I'm a college student here at the Univ of Florida and I recently purchased my second investment house which I rent out to 3 other students. Seeing as a lot of beer drinking and spilling will go on I decided to install tile (about 1000 sq. ft.) in the 4 bed house. Now I know in this situation it cost a lot of time but not that much in materials (.89 cents a sq. ft for the tile). I was able to install it pretty much by myself with a little help from my dad. When I do my next house would it be a good idea to put tile in, meaning is it cost effective, from everyone's experience. Would it be better to just put some new carpet in if I'm just selling the prop off and not having to worry about damage from tenants.
Any advice from past experience.
Thanks,
Jason
For rentals anyway, I like the vinyl tile you can get at home depot, pretty cheap and easy to install and I believe lifetime warranty (nothing to crack)
[addsig]
Tile is durable, it is not clean proof. You can get some expensive sealers, as much as $100 per gallon, but much of it has to do with you as the owner of the Investment property.
If you are going to "allow" a situation to exist in which the property can be damaged because of foolish drunkeness and partying then you are in the wrong business or at best have the wrong tenants.
Grout cracks because of improper installation or substrate problems.
Vinyl has its own problems and quite frankly is not worth the
price it cost if you can do your own tile work.
If you do install tile then make sure the floor system is sufficent to carry the load as well as the span of the floor joist. Use good quality materials and you will be fine.
NC_Yank
Yep, I want to echo and add to Yank's post - properly installed tile will hold up better than anything -
however - there is a huge difference between doing a decent job installing tile in a small bathroom compared to tiling an entire house!
If you aren't doing the tiling exactly as is should be done, it might look good for awhile, but you are actually creating a huge amount of work down the road and a perpetual head ache that will never go away if you do it wrong. Just imagine having to deal with cracked grout in certain locations over and over again, imagine even worse if it is in a location such as a kitchen a bathroom, a foyer where it gets wet and the water seaps through the faulty grout and starts casuing even worse issues with the subfloor!
TILE IS AWESOME FOR BULLET PROOFING A FLOOR- IF IT IS INSTALLED PROFESSIONALLY, DOING IT ANY LESS AND YOU ARE GOING TO BE BETTER OFF SELLING THE HOUSE LATER THEN KEEPING IT.
The fact that you like .89 cent tile is a big red flag to me that you are not also skimping in the installation process. .89 cent tile has no place in a rental, it really has no place anywhere.
Man, you guys have all the answers!
I use tile in all my rentals....however, not necessarily to "bullet proof" them. In my experience renters consider tile an upgrade to the finishes they are accustomed to seeing in rentals. I think incorporating a certain number of cost effective bells and whistles at your rental properties will give you a leg up on the competition and allow you to be more selective when choosing tenants. Tiling small spaces like baths and entries accomplishes this without breaking the bank or requiring a significant time commtiment on my part to do the work myself.