Listing a Westside House or Turning It Into a Rental — Which Windows Actually Need Covering?

If you are listing, the windows that need covering are the bedrooms, the bathrooms, and anything visible from the street — the view wall usually photographs better bare. If you are renting the place out, the decision flips: buy for durability, cordless operation, corrosion-resistant hardware, and the ability to replace one unit five years from now without redoing the whole house.

What a buyer's eye actually catches in a Malibu or Santa Monica listing photo

We get called in the four to six weeks before a listing goes live more often than at any other point in a homeowner's timeline, and the complaints from the agent are almost always the same three things.

Bare windows in a bedroom read as unfinished. A living room with a wall of glass in Point Dume or above The Strand looks intentional bare — the water is the selling feature. A primary bedroom with a naked window and a curtain rod bracket still screwed into the drywall reads as a house that was left mid-project.

Broken or mismatched blinds are worse than nothing. One bent slat, one shade hanging two inches lower than its neighbor, one yellowed vinyl vertical on the slider. In a photo shot with a wide lens, a misaligned row of window coverings is the first thing your eye lands on, because everything else in a staged room is square.

The street elevation gives away inconsistency. This matters more on close-set lots — Venice, the flats of Santa Monica, the walk streets in Manhattan Beach — where the front of the house is photographed from the sidewalk. If the front bedrooms have white shutters and the front office has a beige roller shade half-down, a buyer notices before they can say why.

None of this is aesthetic fussiness. It is the same signal a buyer reads from cabinet hardware and outlet covers: whether the last owner finished things.

Which openings to cover before photos, and which to leave alone

You do not need to treat every window to list well. A reasonable pre-listing scope on a Westside house looks like this:

• Every bedroom. Buyers mentally move in, and they think about sleeping. A bedroom with no light control is a bedroom with a problem to solve.
• Every bathroom with glass a neighbor can see. On a Venice lot line or a Brentwood side yard, that is most of them.
• Street-facing rooms, matched to each other. Consistency from the curb, even if the back of the house is a mix.
• Anything currently broken, yellowed, or sagging. Removal counts as a fix. A clean opening beats a failing shade in a photo.

What we would argue against covering: the ocean-facing or canyon-facing glass that is the reason the house is priced where it is. In Malibu Colony, Santa Monica Canyon, or a Palos Verdes Estates bluff lot, an interior treatment on the view wall only helps the listing if it can stack or roll almost entirely out of the frame. If you do want the flexibility for the eventual owner, a solar screen shade that disappears into a pocket or a slim cassette is the product that gets you glare control on showing days without appearing in the photo. We wrote about how those behave on hot west glass in cooling a west-facing ocean-view room.

One practical note on timing: custom window coverings are made to order, and a few weeks between measure and install is normal. If you want them in the photos, start before the stagers do.

Where the money comes back, and where it does not

We are not going to hand you a return-on-investment percentage, because nobody honestly has one. Window coverings are not a line item an appraiser breaks out, and any company quoting you a recovery figure is quoting you a sales tool.

What we can tell you is how buyers and agents in this market treat different products.

Plantation shutters are read as part of the house. They are mounted in a frame inside the opening, they convey with the property, and buyers here generally file them under "upgrade already done" the same way they file a tankless water heater. That perception is real and it is consistent. Whether it shows up in the sale price on a given house is a different question and depends on the comps, not on us. Shutters are priced by the square foot, with a 12 square foot minimum billable per opening, which means a handful of small bathroom windows costs more per window than the number suggests.

Custom drapery is the least recoverable category. It is also the most expensive per window, and it is taste-specific. Fabric, pleat style, and color are personal in a way a white shutter louver is not. If a room genuinely needs softness for photos, that is a staging decision, not an improvement decision.

Shades sit in the middle. Neutral, well-fitted, in a cassette that matches across a room, they photograph clean and they are useful to whoever buys the house. Motorization is added per shade, and on a two-story great room or high clerestory glass in Bel Air or Trousdale Estates it is defensible, because a buyer looking at 14-foot glass is already thinking about how they would reach it. On a standard bedroom window, it is money you spend for yourself, not for the sale.

Wood and faux wood blinds are the practical fix when the goal is "not broken, not bare, not expensive." Near open water, faux wood holds up better than real wood and the paint does not chalk as fast.

Every home is different, so we give a free written quote from your window sizes or photos. Request yours here.

Rentals: spec for the fifth tenant, not the first showing

A rental in Marina del Rey, Redondo Beach, or a Topanga guest unit is a different math problem. You are not buying a first impression, you are buying ten years of turnovers.

Cordless, always. Fewer parts to break, no cord for a tenant to knot or cut, no liability conversation. Cordless lift is standard on most stock product now and available across custom lines.

Buy the same product in the same color throughout. When one unit fails, you replace one unit, and it matches. Mixing three product families across a two-bedroom means every repair is a custom order.

Assume salt air is working on the hardware. Within a few blocks of the beach, cheap plated steel brackets, clips, and chain connectors corrode. Ask specifically what the brackets and lift mechanism are made of, not just the fabric name. This is the single most common failure we see on coastal replacements, and it shows up in the complaints people leave about window coverings generally.

Skip motorization unless the glass is unreachable. Batteries, remotes, and pairing are three more things a tenant can report as broken.

Blackout in bedrooms, light-filtering everywhere else. It is the most requested feature in a rental and the cheapest one to satisfy up front.

How to get a number you can plan around

Pre-listing budgets are tight and dated, so get the scope priced before you commit to a photo date. Book an in-home visit and someone comes out, measures every window in the house, brings real samples so you can see white shutter tones against your trim in your own light, and leaves you with a firm quote — install included. The in-home consultation is free. If sending sizes and photos is easier, we will quote remotely, and if you already have a bid in hand, run it through the free Quote Check tool before you sign. Our hours are Monday through Friday, 8am to 6pm, with Saturday by appointment.

If you are weighing two or three bids, comparing them line by line matters more on a pre-listing job than anywhere else, because the tempting move is to take the cheapest number and the cheapest number is often missing the install.

Frequently asked questions

Do plantation shutters stay with the house when it sells?

Almost always. Shutters are mounted in a frame fixed inside the window opening, so they are generally treated as part of the real property and convey with the house. If you want to take them, say so in writing in the listing and the contract — but be aware they are cut to your openings and rarely fit anywhere else.

Will new window treatments increase my sale price?

We will not give you a percentage, because no honest number exists. Window coverings are not an appraised line item. What they do reliably is remove objections: bare bedrooms, broken slats, and mismatched street-facing windows all read as deferred maintenance in listing photos, and that is what you are fixing.

Should I cover the ocean-view wall before listing photos?

Usually not with anything bulky. The view is the product. If you want glare control for daytime showings, a solar screen shade in a slim cassette rolls up nearly out of the frame. Stacked drapery panels or shutter panels on a view wall take up glass in the photo.

What is the most durable window treatment for a coastal rental?

Cordless faux wood blinds or a simple roller shade with corrosion-resistant brackets and hardware. Near the water, the failure point is almost never the fabric — it is plated steel brackets, clips, and chain connectors corroding in salt air. Ask what the mechanism is made of, and buy one product in one color throughout so single units can be replaced.

How far before my listing date should I order?

Custom window coverings are made to order, and several weeks between measure and install is normal. If you want them in the photos, start the measure four to six weeks before your shoot, ahead of staging.