Furnishing an apartment for rent in Trebinje: what guests really look for

Furnishing an apartment for rent is the first big job for every owner in Trebinje, and it raises a question straight away: rent it out furnished or empty? Our answer is simple: furnished, whether you rent by the night or by the month. This article covers what guests and tenants in Trebinje really ask, what owners most often forget, where you can save, and how to get the apartment ready before the first guest.

Furnished or empty?

Furnished. That goes for guests who come for a few nights and for tenants who stay for months. A nightly guest arrives with just a suitcase, and monthly tenants in Trebinje also expect a place they can live in from day one: furniture, an equipped kitchen, bed linen and towels. One of the first questions tenants ask is exactly that: “Is the apartment furnished?”

The difference between a nightly and a monthly rental is smaller than many people think. The equipment is mostly the same. For a longer stay, two things become a must: a washing machine and a fully equipped kitchen where people can really cook, not just make coffee.

What guests ask before they book

The questions guests send to owners show best what an apartment needs. They most often ask:

• Is there Wi-Fi, and how fast is it?
• Is there parking?
• Is there air conditioning?
• How is it heated in winter: only by the air conditioning, or are there radiators too?
• Is there a balcony?
• Is there a smart TV, and does the TV have channels?
• Does everything in the apartment work, from the lights to the appliances, and is there any damage they should know about?

Summers in Trebinje are hot, so an apartment without air conditioning is hard to rent. The same goes for fast internet, a TV and an equipped kitchen: guests take them for granted today.

What monthly tenants ask

Tenants looking for a monthly rental look beyond the furniture. Besides parking, a balcony and internet, they want to know whether all the bed linen, towels and kitchenware are there, and what the bills come to: electricity, water, internet and TV, and whether there are any other bills. They also ask whether the building has a lift, where exactly it is, and whether the bathroom has a tub or a shower.

So it pays to have the answers ready before the first conversation. An owner who knows what the bills are in their own apartment comes across as serious, and reaches an agreement more easily.

Let the internet be the owner’s

In Trebinje it often happens that an owner asks the tenant to set up the internet themselves. Tenants don’t like that: an internet contract is usually signed for at least two years, and few people want that commitment in their own name for a flat they are renting. Our advice is clear: set up the internet yourself, in your name, and let the tenant pay the bills.

What owners most often forget

When an apartment is furnished for renting, attention usually goes to the furniture that shows in the photos. What a guest only notices on arrival is easy to skip. This is what’s most often missing:

• A good mattress. The bed is what a guest pays for a night for.
• Kitchen basics. Pots, a frying pan, sharp knives and a coffee maker.
• Spare bed linen and towels. More on this below, because it’s the gap we see most often.
• Blackout curtains. Summer mornings in Trebinje start early, and guests want to sleep.

Towels and bed linen: always double

We want to stress this one, because we notice that many owners don’t have enough. An apartment needs enough towels and bed linen for the largest number of guests it can take, and then double that.

If the apartment sleeps four, that means four large towels, four small towels and four face towels, plus one more identical set in reserve: eight large, eight small and eight face towels in all. The same goes for bed linen: two sets for every bed in the apartment.

Why double? Guests staying a few nights often want to change the sheets, or to use a towel once or twice and then take a clean one. When every guest has two or three clean towels, they see the apartment is ready for them. Some owners have just as many towels as there are guests, or put out old ones. Guests notice.

Where you can save

Furnishing doesn’t have to be expensive. There are things you can save on without shortchanging your guests:

• Decoration. A few simple touches are enough.
• Plates, glasses and cutlery. They don’t have to be expensive, just clean, unchipped and matching.
• Wardrobes and shelves. Simple, practical pieces do the job.

Put what you save there into the things a guest uses every day and that are most often forgotten: the mattress, towels and bed linen, the kitchen and the air conditioning.

The biggest mistake: old things from home

The mistake we see most often is an apartment furnished with old, worn things from the owner’s own home. A guest doesn’t see savings in that, but a place that wasn’t prepared for them. A rental apartment should look clean, fresh and up to date, in the photos and in person.

Check everything before the first guest

Guests want to know that everything in the apartment works and whether there is any damage. So before the first guest or tenant:

• test everything: the lights, the air conditioning, the appliances and the taps,
• fix or replace anything that doesn’t work before you list the apartment,
• photograph the condition of every room,
• for monthly tenants, write a list of everything in the apartment,
• if there is any damage, tell guests up front.

That way the guest knows exactly what kind of apartment they are coming to, and in what condition to leave it.

When to leave the furnishing to us

Not every owner has the time to furnish an apartment themselves. That’s why we offer property furnishing in Trebinje as an optional extra service. It is most often chosen by:

• owners who live abroad or outside Trebinje,
• owners who have no time,
• owners of an empty or new apartment,
• those who want the apartment ready as soon as possible,
• owners who already rent out their apartment and want to refresh it for the next season or get it ready for long-term letting.

How does it work? First we talk about what you want to achieve, and together we set a goal and a budget. Then our team buys everything that’s needed and sets it up together with you. We choose pieces that suit the apartment, its colours and its style. Sometimes it’s a few small changes that cost little, sometimes furnishing the whole apartment from scratch, and sometimes just a refresh of what you already have. We rely on our experience and on what our analytics show: what the apartments that rent best have in common.

If the apartment needs bigger works too, there is apartment renovation in Trebinje. All services are optional, and you’ll find them all on the services for owners page.

When the apartment is ready

Once the apartment is furnished, you can list it on Trebistan. Listing is free. For nightly rentals you pay 10% only on successful bookings, and for monthly rentals you pay the first month’s rent once, when a tenant who came through Trebistan moves in. You run your listing yourself in TrebiStay. For questions, write to info@trebistan.com or call us on +387 66 111 909.