Landlords, what’s your maintenance strategy? Learn More Here!

Landlords, what’s your maintenance strategy?

jeremy raglin Portland Rental News and Tips January 28, 2022 | 0

Maintenance is one of the keys to success with owning successful rental properties in Portland, or elsewhere in the United States because if you keep your properties in great shape, they will continue to produce ROI for years to come.

Sadly, many landlords fail at maintenance because they lack one thing, a maintenance strategy.

Thankfully, landlords can easily stay on top of maintenance at their rental properties by implementing the following tips into their maintenance.

Develop A Vendor Matrix

One of the most important things that landlords must do when it comes to maintenance is to develop a vendor matrix.

This is important because landlords should never be left searching for property contractors when their rentals need repairs, especially if those repairs need to be made ASAP.

When developing a vendor matrix, landlords should take into account a contractor’s rates, availability, and most importantly if they can be called 24-7 to resolve maintenance issues.

Landlords should also pay close attention to a contractor’s experience because anyone can be a handyman but few people are qualified to make real repairs to a property.

Communicate With Tenants

Besides developing a vendor matrix, landlords must also communicate with their tenants as well when repairs need to be made.

Repairs are going to happen and many times the repairs need to be made due to nobody’s fault but the age of the property so landlords and tenants should work together so that the landlord can get the repairs made promptly.

Respond Promptly

Although repairs aren’t always convenient, the reality is that landlords must respond promptly to their tenants to get those repairs resolved, especially if they affect the habitability of the property.

Tenants should be given multiple ways to connect with the landlord so that if the furnace stops working during the middle of winter, or the mainline breaks, they know how to reach the landlord immediately to alert them of the problem.

More Suggestions For Developing A Maintenance Strategy

Decide who carries out maintenance tasks

First, decide who is going to do your Oregon property maintenance. If you are a startup landlord with some DIY skills and one or two rental units, you could do some jobs yourself and save some money. However, it’s usually best to get professionals. They can save you time, be on call 24/7, and do quality work.

It’s worth taking time to develop a reliable network of trusted maintenance contractors.

Schedule regular maintenance inspections

Maintaining rental properties should be about preventative maintenance, not about continually making repairs. Typically, at the end of a tenancy, you should thoroughly inspect the rental unit. Also, you could arrange a maintenance inspection when a tenant renews the lease. You could include in the rental agreement that property inspections take place upon the lease renewal.

Regular property inspections help you deal with any small issues before they become larger ones.

Keep up with appliances

Property maintenance should also include servicing appliances, HVAC units, water heaters, and elevators. To keep track of maintenance tasks, you need a list of systems that need regular servicing. Then, work out a schedule for maintenance servicing. For example, does the unit need servicing monthly or annually? Is it seasonal equipment that needs service in the fall and then in spring?

Why Landlords Need To Schedule Maintenance

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Property maintenance is the plan and activities involved with maintaining your rental properties. There are routine property maintenance jobs, such as ensuring fire detectors are in working order, pool services (if appropriate), ensuring lighting is practical, and so on. Additionally, there are larger, less frequent maintenance projects like the roof, parking lot or walkway paving, etc.

The main reason maintenance is so critical is to avoid unexpected maintenance issues that could occur if the upkeep is ignored. You can’t overstate the importance of home maintenance services. 1 report pinpointed the epidemic of SARS from Hong Kong to bad construction maintenance. Other potential and more prevalent hazards include injuries from falling construction materials, fires, or poorly kept walkways. No property manager or owner would like to face claims of negligence in court, cope with skyrocketing insurance premiums, or expertise poor press and negative testimonials. To avoid serious difficulties, property managers have to think about maintenance among the most important parts of their job.

Besides reducing the possibility of property injuries on your own, your employees, along with your tenants, want to have a fantastic property construction maintenance system in place for plenty of other reasons too. Consider just a couple of examples:

Increased home value: A preserved property will hold value or increase in value. The lack of repairs will detract from the home’s market value and rental rates.

Satisfied tenants: Poor upkeep of buildings, land, and appliances can generate dissatisfied tenants and might break the terms of your lease.

Reduced prices: An efficient property management program can save money by minimizing risks, extending the life span of appliances and equipment, fulfilling tenants, and decreasing manual work.

Less work: Property managers have plenty of work to perform. Using a construction maintenance program set up, you can cut back the time you spend calling tenants and tenants, tracking work orders, manually entering data in other software, paying invoices, and dealing with emergencies.

It’s no secret that you have to keep your house maintained to maximize its own value. Subsequently, this can provide your company an opportunity to maximize rental prices and also be more selective about tenants. When you meet tenants needs, then you also get to appreciate lower turnover and reduce the probability of fees that you have broken the end of the lease agreement through neglect.

Your prudent investment in a good property maintenance program will help improve your profits, preserve your good reputation, save some time, and reduce hassles. You’ve got every reason to invest in property care providers.

The Way to Provide Superior Property Maintenance Services

At the Maximum level, your property maintenance services must include:

A record of routine upkeep, that you perform on a monthly, seasonal, or annual basis; like this Winter Checklist. A very simple example could include having the HVAC system serviced twice a year or making sure the roof was cleared of debris before it snows. Scheduled maintenance can extend the helpful lifetime of valuable assets and decrease the chance of expensive, urgent repairs. As a property manager, you or your workers may also notice maintenance problems, such as ice on paths, that you will need to address instantly. You require a means to communicate, manage, and monitor maintenance problems to keep your property safe and renters satisfied.

Great property maintenance will supply you and your company with a lot of benefits. By providing both renters and owners the advantages of outstanding upkeep, property managers can even personally benefit by increasing their own productivity and value for their employers and connection with renters.

Still, achieving these advantages requires an ability to communicate with tenants and vendors, handle work orders, budget for work and supplies, and stay on top of programs. To get a handle on how much effort successful property management requires, it’s crucial that you drill down from the high-level overview above into the main activities which must get managed to assure appropriate property maintenance.

Schedule Routine Maintenance

Property maintenance supervisors should schedule certain tasks. Some examples could include routine maintenance like cleaning leaves off the roof at the fall or altering HVAC filters every few months. To keep the property, keep expensive systems running, ensure nothing falls through the cracks, and reduce risks, somebody has to manage work orders to be certain these periodic tasks have been completed on schedule.

Without maintenance tracking software, the property manager must spend some time following up and sometimes, communicating with tenants and owners. Fortunately, the same apps that may handle requests from tenants may also have calendar features that allow property managers to program jobs using a calendar.

This type of property maintenance scheduling applications will make sure important deadlines don’t fall through the cracks. They can even automatically send messages to interested parties.

Track and Handle Expenses

Of course, property managers also must be certain contractors get paid and expenses get tracked. Without integrated software programs, the house manager may have to handle each of these tasks manually. This kind of manual effort constantly wastes time and allows for errors.

Good property maintenance software should also integrate with accounting applications and other applications. There is no reason to have to manually take information from the property management app and then enter it by hand in additional applications.

If you’re an experienced property manager, you know how much work goes into handling property needs. Once you drill down into all the tasks involved with property management, you will also see that supplying property maintenance service is only 1 task out of many.

You understand why you need to invest in excellent maintenance. An investment in the appropriate tools can help you save money, decrease burden, and generate higher profits.