How much do you spent to renovate a tenant apartment?

for me, it varies from about $1,000 (for a clean non-smoker non pet-owner tenant) to about $5,000 (including 2 appliances).

Depends. The place I'm in now got a fresh coat of paint and she paid for the carpets to get cleaned.. everything else is the same. However I did ask her for a new toilet seat. Some don't spend shit.

I know there are some slumlords out there but landlords need to spend some money to get quality tenants;and not too many tenants here like carpet. They all want wood floor in the bedroom and living room and ceramic tiles (no vinyl tiles) in the kitchen and bathroom.

You asked for a new toilet seat?

Those are like $10-15, I just replaced mine myself. Waiting for someone else to do it takes too long.

I spend as little as possible.
Typically it is a carpet cleaning and new paint which often runs about 300.00 max depending on how much needs to be painted. I sometimes will skip the paint if someone only lived there for under 4 months.
All of my places are non smoking and no indoor pets and no cats at all. Also zero water furniture or fish tanks. I also have a rental agreement from hell with costs for everything down to replacement of a light switch or missing batteries in the smoke detector. The damage walk through sheet is a little more than a page long typed.
I do not charge tenants for carpet cleaning if it is typical wear and tear and they lived there for over six months. If it was a shorter time and or there is any stain, ect then well they get their security docked.

Though I did once put in over 6k into a renovation that was not planned between tenants. However I was able to keep their full security as well as get a judgement against them for 5k that I was able to collect in full. They just happened to of smoked in the house and also damaged the carpet and some other items. Since it was a non smoking place, the judge was fine with me redoing everything painted, the carpets, and so forth. Then since my walk through form included all prices already, the tenant had no case argument in court for the costs.
Nice thing is I rarely have any turn over. Most people stay at least a few years and only move cause they need to leave city for a new job or what not. One of my places has had the same family now for 5 years. On that one I periodically dump money into it. Specially when the city, or PGE, or other companies have rebates going on. New appliances, new windows, attic fans, those special light bulbs, weatherizing, and other things. Typically most of the cost is covered by the rebate programs.

You must live in a Pro-landlord State. Where I live, the tenant have more rights the the landlord.

I'm paying $600/mo for this place why should I have to pay $20 for a toilet seat. In for a penny, in for a pound.

California is pretty pro-tenant I believe. I had to kick out a roommate once and it was the nightmare from hell.

I'm paying $1850.

I'm not disagreeing with you, per se. I just know that regardless of your complaint, the landlord is most likely not going to buy you the toilet seat you want. And I don't know about you, but my ass is oh so tender, I'll spring the $20 to get exactly what I want! ;-)

Since you are in Montreal, I can tell you from experiences that my friends have (one of them owns a number of mid-size (50-100 unit) buildings in different markets.

Their goal is to be slightly better than their market (the building around them) and to charge more than the others. But it isn't just in the apartments themselves, but also in things like the entrance ways, hallways, parking areas, etc. If you bring the overall standard of the building up above the others, you can charge more. As a bonus, the Regie will allow you to pass many of those expenses on as rent increases in the next year, which again helps you make your property work.

If you can charge more, you can continue to maintain and improve the property, and have the money to improve the apartment.

If you have people asking for wood floors, ceramic, etc but want to pay low dollars for it, don't do it. Go check comparable units around your area, check to see what they are charging, what condition the units are in, etc, and be better than that. Don't overshoot your market, or you will never get return.

Also, remember that if you make major improvements to a few units, it is likely that your longer term tennants will start to bother you to do the same, and many of those costs cannot be passed on to them as easily. Careful not to over improve and put yourself in a hole.

Also, if you paid $75,000 per door (price per unit) and the market is $80,000, try never to spend half of that difference in improvements, otherwise all your equity is lost, at least in the short run. Always keep your investments at or below the margin.

Good luck.

Since we're on our first tenant of our first apartment, I can't speak much on the subject. But I can say that the place was a dump when we picked it up and by the time the guy moved in, it was a beautiful sight to behold. We probably only spent about $400 but every penny was invested very wisely. New fixtures, outlets, switches, toilet seat, showerhead, even the shower rod and curtain were replaced. I even installed new bathroom amenities, the usual stuff like a toilet paper holder and a robe hanger. And I'll do the same for every building we pick up.

But yeah its about the principle however three days later I got a new toilet seat. It old one was fine I'm just a germophobe, lol.

What about easy fix you can do yourself quickly, do call the landlord and wait for him to come and fix it?

As sly said I am in California which is very pro tenant. So you must know the laws inside and out and of course have very strong contracts. With the right rental agreements and signed walk through sheets it allows for nearly anything that is not illegal, that also will always land in your favor in court. I also do video taped walkthroughs with each new tenant, as well as video visits every few months.

One can just never allow the tenant to get the upper hand as you said the laws are in their favor. Big example is that my rents are due on the 2nd to last day of each month, payable in cash or money order only, late fee on the last day of the month, eviction proceedings start on the 1st of the month. I have NO grace period. Rents must also be received by that day and not just postmarked or whatever.

I made the mistake long ago about being nice and being understanding. I was always looking the other way with small damages. Had a no problem if your a few days late with rent. Was typically a very nice landlord. All that ever did for me was make me loose money, have people walk all over me, and end up with me redoing rentals way to often cause they did not respect my property.

Though some of that is really off topic. Most of my rentals is in the price range of those that work pay check to pay check with minimal savings. They are not "poor" nor are they moving up much on the financial ladder. Guess you would call them normal working American families. This demographic has proved to be the most stable for me and they really do not demand that much as far as "improvements or upgrades" go. Since turn over and vacancies are one of your biggest money looses in rentals, only beaten by a bad tenant and or lots of uncollected damage.

The rental Board in Quebec will only allow to increase the rent by 4.2% of the cost of the work done on the property. For example, if you spend $10,000 to renovate the building and you have 10 tenants, you can only increase each tenant's monthly rent by $3.50. While a bank will charge you 6%+ interest on that $10,000 loan you borrowed to do the work on the building. Thus, you'll never be able to recover this amount from the tenants

Well the people around you are weird. Normal people do not like wooden floors in their bedroom. You hear everything.

Wooden floors are standard and alot of the newer or renovated buildings have some kind of insulation bettewn the ceiling and the floor that reduce noises.

Of course, thats why I pay rent instead of a mortgage. However we've amended the lease that says if a small tasks comes up and I fix it to subtract from rent. Thats new though, haven't used it yet.

I somehow don't think it's possible where I live to inspect a tenant apartment every few months but I wish we could do it

And if it's the landlord that do it, should he have the right to increase the rent?