Property maintenance is the key to maximizing your investments and keeping renters happy.
The average person spends about 30% of their income on their rent. As a property owner, your investment should make you money, but it's also important that your tenants get a quality place to live in for their money.
In this post, we're going to give you 5 crucial landlord tips for how to properly maintain your properties. It may not surprise you to hear that a well-maintained property helps you keep good tenants and keeps money in your pocket, so read on and learn what you have to do.
1. Screen Tenants
What has the biggest potential of damaging your rental properties is actually the people living in them. If you want to make sure your properties aren't hemorrhaging money in repairs, you need to properly screen your tenants.
Doing criminal background and eviction checks on every new tenant will ensure that you don't have any delinquent tenants damaging your property.
2. Be Clear About Responsibilities
When you get a new tenant into a rental, be clear about who is responsible for what maintenance. Tenants almost always take care of things like putting out the trash, changing lightbulbs, and other minor maintenance issues.
A landlord, on the other hand, would typically take care of the workings of the home or apartment, like electrical, plumbing, and electrical work. Landlords also need to deal with the wear and tear of owning a rental property.
3. Perform Repairs As-Needed
Be diligent in making small repairs when a tenant requests them. Lackadaisical landlords are one of the most common reasons why tenants leave rentals. If you have good tenants, then you should be a good landlord and always make sure to respond to their maintenance requests in a timely manner.
4. Preventative Maintenance Schedule
There are several things that you can do on a weekly, monthly, and quarterly basis to keep the property in good shape. For instance, you can periodically check for water damage in the house. Water damage can lead to mold, which can lead to a litany of health issues for anyone living in the home.
Call an exterminator to check on the property every few months. If you end up with pests on your property, you can bet that your renters will not be happy.
Change the furnace and air conditioner filters as well. When you neglect this, dust and debris flow freely through the home, which can make your tenants ill or cause allergy attacks.
5. Low Maintenance Landscaping
If you want to save yourself time and money, keep the landscaping as low maintenance as possible. It's not uncommon to provide a lawn mower to tenants and have them perform this task.
You can allow your tenants to garden on your property, but be clear that you aren't going to invest in any extra landscaping or gardening.
Hire a Property Manager
These are a few great property maintenance tips to ensure you're doing right by your tenants and your property. The thing is, however, that many landlords don't have the time to maintain their properties on a regular basis.
If this describes your scenario, it might be time to hire a property manager. A quality property manager, like Avalon Realty and Oaktree Management, can perform all of the property maintenance tasks while screening tenants, advertising properties, and collecting rent.
Check out the Owners/Investors section on our site to learn more about our services and pricing, and to get a free rental analysis on your property.
Bonnie is the visionary that has driven the company and culture of Avalon since 1993. Her passion is improving procedures and practices; incorporating technology and value added services for both our clients and tenants.