The state of your rental property affects your overall business operations, so you must be consistent with the home’s upkeep to boost tenant satisfaction. Maintenance is one of the landlord's key responsibilities, but there are benefits to this chore when done proactively that can boost your investment’s success.
Benefits of Rental Property Maintenance
Preventing Costly Repairs
Routine maintenance can also serve as preventative maintenance. By keeping your investment property in good condition or catching issues early through regular inspections, you won't have to worry about higher maintenance costs on top of operating expenses. If you need to respond to repair requests, they will likely be minor or brought on by normal wear and tear.
Increasing Property Value
When you conduct your regular maintenance tasks, your property will retain its good condition and keep its value. It could even increase since you'll attract more tenants if your property has an excellent curb appeal and reputation. When you eventually decide to sell your rental property, being well-maintained means you can get a higher price for it on the market.
Lower Tenant Turnover
Good property management, especially in maintenance, will allow you to retain tenants more easily. Renters will appreciate that you are taking care of your rental not just because you're the property owner, but also because you want to provide a habitable space for your tenants. You can rest assured that everything working correctly will keep tenants happy, which can improve your rental income.
Improved Tenant Satisfaction
Tenants are more likely to follow lease agreement rules when they're happy with their rental unit. You can achieve this by ensuring that water heaters work in sub-zero temperatures, fixing their broken appliances when you offer fully furnished rentals, or generally just conducting routine maintenance and responding to maintenance requests.
Prioritizing Tenant Safety
Routine and preventative maintenance allows you to avoid risky situations such as faulty electrical systems, mold growth, pest infestations, and accidents due to poor structural integrity. To be a successful landlord, you need to identify potential maintenance issues and solve them before they become disasters.
Legal Compliance
Routine inspections and rental property maintenance let you determine whether your rental is following building codes. In Georgia, for instance, smoke and carbon monoxide detectors are required to be installed in every bedroom, outside each sleeping area, and on every level of the home. You can even hire a professional property manager to ensure that you comply with all state and local laws.
Increased Energy Efficiency
Routine maintenance tasks for the rental property can lower your annual maintenance costs. You can achieve this by performing preventive maintenance with mechanical systems like cleaning the air filters of the HVAC system to prevent poor air quality and higher bills, which also goes for water heaters.
What is the Difference Between Preventative Maintenance and Reactive Maintenance?
Preventative maintenance means that you are taking proactive measures to avoid future problems in your rental property like changing air filters and batteries in smoke detectors. Reactive maintenance is when you address the issue after it happens. Preventative property maintenance lets you reduce the latter.
Property Maintenance Habits to Avoid
Neglecting Preventative Property Maintenance
While there is no official guide to rental property maintenance, landlords or property managers should stay on top of it at least every three months, apart from maintenance responsibilities that require more frequent attention like yard upkeep. This can ensure that your property remains a valuable asset and can attract real estate investors when you need it.
Not Knowing Which Maintenance Responsibilities are Covered by the Landlord
The landlord or property managers typically cover significant damage like structural issues, as well as small repairs for water leaks and malfunctioning mechanical systems. The tenant, on the other hand, is tasked with keeping the property clean and preventing property damage outside of normal wear and tear.
Failing to Find the Right Contractors
To help you find the right professionals for your property upkeep, you can ask for recommendations from fellow landlords or do research online such as checking reviews. If you hire a property manager, property management companies usually have access to vendors at a lower cost, which means you won't have to go searching for the right deal in a sea of options.
Not Keeping Records of Maintenance Expenses
A critical duty outside of the maintenance itself is having accurate records of your maintenance expenditures. It’s absolutely necessary when you calculate deductions for tax season, or charge tenants for repairs and need to provide an itemized list of all the costs and deductions you made from the security deposit. You might encounter issues when you have to return the deposit once the tenant leaves and you have no records to prove that the charges are justified.
Forgetting to Perform Routine Tasks
Failure to perform routine maintenance might cause tension between you and your tenants since it’s your responsibility as a landlord. Letting issues snowball might lead to them violating lease terms in return. Your property's condition will deteriorate and lose its value in the long run, and you might find more costly problems on your hands for ignoring them in the early stages.
Bad Communication with Tenants
Clearly communicate what you need your tenants to do as part of their responsibilities, and make sure that all these are stated in the lease agreement. Provide a notice prior to the maintenance tasks you have to do so tenants can prepare for them. If a tenant is violating your rules, respond with appropriate and legal consequences.
Let a Property Manager Handle It For You
A property manager's job is to make a landlord's life easier, and that's what PMI Georgia intends to do. Other than marketing, tenant screening, rent collection, accounting, and eviction, we can also handle all the maintenance tasks that a rental business requires.
To make sure that all tenant concerns are addressed, we have a 24/7 maintenance support line and a tenant portal for receiving requests. With our network of licensed, bonded, and insured tradesmen and suppliers, you'll get reasonable rates without having to compromise the quality of the work. Call us now and learn more about how we can improve your rental business!
