How To Care for Your Rental Property – 2022 Guide
Searching for information on how to care for your rental property? If so, you’ve come to the right place!
Rental property is a smart investment that continues to offer excellent ROI, but few owners really know how to take care of their investment properties.
In this article we will offer you our 2022 guide for caring for rental properties in Portland Oregon, Beaverton, or anywhere else you may be investing on in rental properties nationwide.
How To Care for Your Rental Property
When it comes to owning rental properties, first impressions always matter because of the simple fact that if a prospective tenant thinks your property looks scary, they will continue looking for rentals elsewhere.
Some of the things that you should do to take care of the exterior of your rental property include:
- Install drought tolerant landscaping – This will eliminate the need for regular watering and ensure that your property has plants that look good all year long.
- Maintain the paint – Even though you may have had your property painted recently, you should maintain that paint job by power washing your Portland rental property at least once a year and touching up the paint where it’s needed.
- Inspect the roof – It’s important to inspect the roof on your rental property at least once a year, especially in the spring the PDX area can get a lot of rain and snow. These inspections will keep your property watertight and dry all year long.
Inspect Doors and Windows
The doors and windows are the primary entry points to your Portland rental property, and they can also be used for ventilation as well so they should be inspected regularly.
- Check the seals around doors and windows to confirm that warm or cold air isn’t escaping the property.
- Replace broken doorknobs and handles.
- Lubricate door and window hinges.
- Remove trees and brush away from windows.
Doors and windows should also be cleaned annually and repainted (if needed) because the look of your doors and windows does affect value and shows how you care for your rental property.
For windows that are on higher up, it’s best to hire a window cleaning company to professionally clean and maintain them.
Don’t Neglect the Flooring
Since flooring often gets beat up the hardest at a Portland rental property, you should have carpets cleaned annually and replaced if needed.
Also, if it’s been a while since the carpeting in your rental property has been replaced, you should add hard surfaces to the high traffic areas of your property. Adding more hard surfaces to areas like the entry way, kitchen and bathroom will cut down on dirt and lower your flooring cost each year.
Eliminate The Pests
Part of being a good landlord in Portland Oregon is making sure that your rental properties are pest free because when a tenant must deal with pests, this hinders their ‘quiet enjoyment’ of the property.
Even though we don’t deal with cockroaches in Oregon, our state does deal with a variety of other pests that can make life miserable for tenants, therefore you should have your property sprayed for pests every quarter and check those hard-to-reach areas in the Roof for pests as well.
Heating And Cooling
The HVAC at your Portland Rental Property should be tuned up at least twice a year to ensure that it’s functioning at optimal capacity and your tenants should be instructed to change the HVAC filters on a monthly basis during the summer months.
It’s also important to instruct your tenants to keep all debris and trash away from the outdoor HVAC unit because that will affect its performance.
Smoke And Carbon Monoxide Detectors
When it comes to smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, the batteries should be replaced every 90 days to ensure that they are functioning normally and able to do their job of alerting your tenants should smoke or carbon monoxide.
Sadly, more fire deaths occur every year due to the batteries not being changed. Thankfully, you can save lives simply by following through with the simple maintenance tip of changing the batteries in those units.
Don’t Forget the Water Heater!
Your rental property water heater is a workhorse that’s responsible for providing your tenants with hot water on demand.
To avoid problems with your water heater, it’s best to have it inspected annually. This includes removing the pan and inspecting the water heater thoroughly because it’s easy for sediment to build up and cause the water heater to not function like it once did.
Take Care of Maintenance Requests As Soon As Possible
When your tenants alert you of maintenance requests at their rental property, it’s best to handle those requests as soon as possible because your goal should be to show your tenants that they can depend on you to take care of issues when they occur.
Remember to notify your tenants when you need to enter the property because you must follow Oregon Landlord Tenant laws and give them 24 hours’ notice before you enter the property to make repairs.
Hire A Property Manager
Last of all, but most important, when you’re ready to outsource the maintenance of your rental property, you can either create vendor matrix of trusted vendors or hire a property manager.
A property manager like Rent Portland Homes – Professionals will handle all aspects of maintenance so that you won’t have to deal with any of the maintenance at your property yourself.
Besides maintenance, we will also handle your rent collection needs, tenant screening, placement, accounting and more!
Our team will help you to enjoy the passive income that will come from your rental property so that you can turn it back into an investment that produces passive cash flow.
Our team has over 20 years’ experience managing rental properties in the PDX market, and we look forward to earning your business!
Contact Rent Portland Homes – Professionals
To learn more about how to care for your rental property, or to contact us about the property management services that we can offer you, contact us today by calling (503) 447-7735 or click here to connect with us online to start your property management quote.
