Part of your responsibility as a landlord is to keep your property habitable and ensure it meets the standards that were agreed upon when your tenant signed their lease.
These responsibilities mean that paying for maintenance and repair is inevitable. Unfortunately, these payments can add up over time and even eat into your overall profits. Here are some tips and strategies landlords can use to reduce maintenance and repair costs to help you save more so you can make more.
Conduct regular inspections
The only way to ensure your property is in good condition is to conduct move-in, regular, and move-out inspections. Also, let’s face it, tenants are going to break things, and they may not always be upfront about it. Scheduling consistent inspections can help you pinpoint what needs fixing and maintaining before they become problematic.
Check important systems and appliances
Don’t just give everything a once over when you inspect your property. Take your time to ensure your property’s assets, such as the gutters, the HVAC system, carbon monoxide detectors, and fire alarms, are in working order. If your fire alarms and smoke detectors aren’t working and a small fire breaks out, it can quickly turn into a much bigger fire if it goes unnoticed. Not only could a fire put your tenant’s life in danger, but you could pay more for damage repair.
Respond to requests as soon as possible
Learning how to prioritize maintenance requests isn’t easy, but it is important and may be the difference between taking care of a leaky pipe or replacing a flooded bathroom floor. The faster you can gauge the severity and needs of a maintenance or repair request, the faster you can handle the problem. Ultimately, saving money is about using strategies that will prevent you from having to spend more money down the line.
Build a network
Most seasoned landlords have a contact list of vetted and trusted repair personnel that they can rely on to get the job done. The more you build close professional relationships, the more likely you are to receive discounts for services. Most of the time, businesses are willing to give landlords a discount in exchange for a steady supply of clients.
The best way for landlords to reduce maintenance and repair costs is to practice preventative maintenance. This practice will reduce your expenses in the long term while keeping your property in top shape.
