Why I Tell Landlords to Buy the Cheap, Simple Appliance Every Time

When a landlord or property manager calls me for advice, they usually expect me to upsell them. I do the opposite. In a rental, the goal isn't the best appliance, it's the appliance that causes you the fewest phone calls. After 15 years of service work, those are almost never the same machine.

Here's the logic: every feature is a future failure point, and in a rental you're not even the one enjoying the feature. A touchscreen, an ice-and-water door, a steam cycle, that's all stuff that breaks, that a tenant reports, and that you pay a tech to look at. Simple wins.

Washer: get an agitator top-loader

Skip the fancy front-load with the touchscreen. A basic top-load washer with a real agitator and mechanical-ish controls is nearly bulletproof, cheap to buy, and a tenant can't confuse it. Bonus: top-loaders don't grow the mold-and-odor problems that front-loaders get when nobody wipes the gasket, which, in a rental, is never.

GE 4.3-cu ft Agitator Top-Load Washer

Belt-driven, huge capacity, dead simple, the rental workhorse.

Check price at Lowe's

Fridge: top-freezer, no door dispenser

This is the big one. Refrigerator ice makers are the single most common failure I see, Consumer Reports found 31% of fridges with ice makers have a problem by year five. In a rental, an in-door ice-and-water dispenser is just a leak and a service call waiting to happen. Buy a plain top-freezer. GE and LG have been building the same reliable top-mounts for decades.

Frigidaire 18.3-cu ft Top-Freezer (Garage-Ready)

Simple, stainless, no dispenser to leak. Fits tight kitchens.

Check price at Lowe's

Range: basic electric, coil or smooth-top

A no-frills electric range is one of the most reliable things you can put in a unit. No convection board, no air-fry electronics, no gas connection to worry about. Frigidaire and GE make sub-$700 ranges that just work.

Frigidaire 30-in Freestanding Electric Range

Glass top, five burners, nothing to overthink.

Check price at Lowe's

Spend the savings where it prevents damage

Here's where I'd actually open the wallet. The cheap appliance saves you hundreds, put a fraction of it into the parts that stop a $4,000 water-damage claim. Braided steel washer hoses instead of the rubber ones that burst. A semi-rigid dryer duct instead of the foil that traps lint and starts fires. These are $15 to $55 items that have saved more of my clients' units than any premium appliance ever did.

From my repair calls, on video

The same advice, straight from the service van:

Best washer and dryer for rentals, watch on TikTok

My top budget picks, watch on TikTok

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