Blog Post
Property Maintenance and Repairs
April 16, 2020
Preservation of Your Investment Property
Preserving and ideally increasing the value of your property is one of Results Realty main goals as your property management company. Tenant requests need to be responded to immediately, owners need to be notified of events that will be effect their monthly proceeds. Vendors need to be contacted and scheduled immediately for service, tenants notified of service times. Once this is all accomplished, follow up must be done on the work completed, billing and payments must be handled quickly to avoid any late payment fees etc from the service provider. Experienced managers accomplishes all of this quickly and seemingly with ease. Professional managers have systems in place to act quickly to communicate with all parties involved, they also have a large pool of licensed vendors who are familiar with the process ready to go. Results Realty also has our own in house staff for smaller jobs to save even more of your hard earned money.
When interviewing a property management company, you will want to ask these questions.
1. How do they track incoming service requests from tenants, what systems to they have in place. How do they ensure it is not a repeated request for service?
You will want a company that is able to track work orders effectively and retrieve prior work orders quickly to determine if it is repeat call that may be under warranty. Ideally work order requests should be able to be processed online for speed and accuracy.
2. What are the maintenance hours, what about after hours calls, emergencies and holiday work requests. Make sure management company has a 24/7 live person to answer maintenance. The last thing you want is a massive water leak stuck on voice mail waiting for someone to call the tenant back!
3. What system do they have in place to practice preventative maintenance?
Preventative maintenance is key to avoiding letting small issues become larger more expensive problems down the road. This involves things like a predefined maintenance and inspection schedule as well as promptly addressing known issues. This of course assumes owners are willing to make the necessary repairs when they come up. Slum lords may balk, but successful investors know that when you’re in for the long haul proper maintenance is key to maintain or increase property value and also helps tenant retention. "It is proven that most tenants are unhappy due to lack of maintenance and lack of management response to maintenance calls" Happy tenants- Happy landlord!
4. Do they have their own maintenance crew?
If the answer is yes, are they covered by workers compensation and are they licensed, bonded and insured? Additionally are they available 24/7/365 for emergencies?
5. What vendors/service people do they work with? Do they ensure these vendors are licensed, bonded and insured?
6. Do they have any conflicts of interest with their vendors?
Beware of relationships that are based on something other than good work and the best price. Ensure that vendors are getting paid on work performed in a timely manner. Vendors should not be waiting more than the standard 30 day net. If they are.. there could be a management cash flow problem, trouble in accounting or worse vendors are not getting paid at all, putting you at risk for future legal issues.
7. Do they provide itemized statements with receipts for the work performed?
This adds accountability and transparency to the billing process. You don't want to work with a management company that is unwilling to provide solid documentation of where your money is going.
8. Are tenants permitted to do their own repairs? Do they let tenants perform repairs?
Tenants perform inferior quality work, and their lack of insurance coverage, liability or workers compensation could leave you liable in the event of an accident or injury. Why take the risk of having them accidentally fall off a roof or ladder, electrocute themselves, or flood your home?
9. What recurring maintenance tasks (lawn mowing, etc.) do they expect the tenant to perform?
This is not considered a liability hazard although providing these services eliminates the issue of tenant neglect and can improve tenant satisfaction which helps with retention.
10. Investigate the companies process for getting a property re-rented before/after each tenant. How long does it take, what is the tenant responsible for and what are your obligations between tenants. You will want to have a management company that works quickly and has vendors ready to get the property back in shape for a new tenant quickly. The quicker the better!
Want to know more about Results Realty Services? Have questions about property management in general? Give us a call. 702-685-9999
Results Realty Management Team
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