Outdoor blinds on a Cairns rental.

The argument for blinds on a Cairns investment property is different to the argument down south, and it is a lot simpler. Cairns Aero averages close to 2,000mm of rain a year, and roughly 80 per cent of that lands between December and March. An uncovered or open-sided patio is effectively out of service for a third of the year, plus the evenings when the midges are up. Blinds do not add floor area on the title, but they move a slab from seasonal to year-round, and that is what a prospective tenant is comparing when they walk through two similar houses in the same street.

It is also one of the cheapest ways to do it. You are not touching the roof, the slab or the structure, so there is no builder, no engineer and, in most cases, no building approval. A three-drop clear PVC cafe blind fit-out on a standard alfresco runs $2,400 to $3,400 supplied and installed. Compare that to any other way of adding a room to a rental and the maths is not close.

Take a typical brick-and-tile investment property in Earlville with a 6 metre by 3 metre roofed alfresco, open on two sides, reasonably sheltered from the southeasterly. The owner wants it usable in the wet and wants the tenant to stop complaining about mosquitoes.

• Weather side, one drop, 6m x 2.4m clear PVC track blind: about 14.4 square metres at the manual track rate of $350 to $650 per square metre, so $5,000 to $9,400. Specced down to a quality rope-and-pulley cafe blind at $200 to $360 per square metre, the same drop is $2,900 to $5,200.
• Breeze side, one drop, 3m x 2.4m insect mesh: about 7.2 square metres, sitting at the lower end of the range because mesh is cheaper to make than clear PVC.
• Realistic total for the fit-out: $4,200 to $6,800 for a cafe blind approach, or $7,500 to $12,000 for a full track-blind patio enclosure with motorisation and a sensor.

Which end you land on is a genuine decision, not a sales pitch. On a sheltered Earlville courtyard the cafe blind is honest value. On an exposed coastal deck we would tell you the cheap option is a false economy, because a flapping rope blind fails and you buy it twice. The full breakdown is on the outdoor blinds cost guide.

Are outdoor blinds worth fitting to a Cairns rental property?

In Cairns they usually stack up better than they do down south, because the wet season takes an uncovered patio out of service for roughly four months of the year. Cairns Aero averages close to 2,000mm of rain a year and about 80 per cent of it lands between December and March. Enclosing a patio with blinds turns a slab that tenants cannot use in the wet into a room they can use year-round, which is what they compare when they are choosing between two similar houses at an inspection. A three-drop cafe blind fit-out at $2,400 to $3,400 is one of the cheaper ways to add usable space to a rental, because you are not touching the roof, the slab or the structure.

Can I claim outdoor blinds on a rental property at tax time?

Almost always yes in some form, but the form matters and it is your accountant's call, not ours. Broadly, retractable blinds and motors tend to be treated as depreciating assets, while a fixed awning or a structural enclosure is more likely to fall under capital works at 2.5 per cent a year. Since the 2017 changes, second-hand plant in a residential rental is generally not claimable, so a new install you pay for is treated differently to blinds that came with the house. Keep the written quote, the tax invoice and a photo of the finished job, and hand all three to your accountant rather than guessing the category yourself.

What is the most tenant-proof outdoor blind for a Cairns rental?

A spring-balanced track blind, and on an exposed site a motorised one with a wind sensor. The reason is simple: a tenant is not going to run outside and retract your blinds when a build-up storm hits at 4pm on a Tuesday. Rope-and-pulley cafe blinds depend on somebody tying them off correctly every time, and in a rental that discipline does not survive the first summer. A track blind holds its shape in the channel, a spring balance means there is no rope to get wrong, and a wind sensor retracts the blind automatically whether anyone is home or not.

Do outdoor blinds help a Cairns holiday rental get booked?

They help most in the shoulder and wet seasons, which is exactly where holiday lets in the northern beaches lose money. A guest who books in February and finds the deck unusable for three days leaves it in the review. Insect mesh matters as much as the rain here: an evening deck near the mangroves or a creek line is unpleasant without it, and that also ends up in reviews. The honest version is that blinds will not fill a dead week on their own, but they do remove one of the most common complaints in wet-season guest feedback.

Do I need body corporate approval to fit outdoor blinds to a Cairns unit?

If the blind fixes to common property, which the exterior wall or the underside of a balcony slab usually is, then yes, you need body corporate approval before we fit anything. That normally means submitting the product, the colour and the fixing method for a committee decision, and many schemes have a standing colour and style already approved. Start that process early, because approval can take longer than the blinds take to make. We are happy to give you the spec sheet and fixing detail to submit, but the application is the owner's to lodge.