Preventative maintenance is the key to maintaining your assets. This can include capital projects, trimming trees away from the home, regular filter changes, sealing basements, and updating smoke detectors.
If you don’t regularly maintain your Columbus rental property, it will cost you more in the long-term. By maintaining it, you ensure that the home is safe, its appearance is optimal, and you’re maximizing your cash flow on the investment property.
Rental Property Maintenance and Tenants
Communication is very important between the owner and tenant. If any need arises for emergency or routine property maintenance, the tenant should report these problems to the owner; however, it can’t be assumed that the tenant will catch and report all issues to the owner. It’s the owner’s responsibility to ensure that the property is regularly checked for any preventative maintenance needs.
Conducting Routine Property Inspections
The only real way to determine preventative maintenance needs is through regular inspections. By not conducting regular inspections, the owner of the property is risking major damage that could cost thousands of dollars if left unchecked. At Solutions for Real Estate, we do annual inspections 120 days prior to lease expirations on every asset we manage.
The facilities manager goes through a detailed inspection to determine whether any preventative maintenance is required. If caught early enough, it can prevent the property from needing any major repairs or remodels. These inspections also detect and resolve tenant damage, occupancy standards, the presence of pets or pests, and housekeeping issues. It’s important to inspect the home for lease violations as well as preventative maintenance needs. Then, the tenant may be fully or partially responsible for any damage that they or their pets have caused.
Create an Inspection Procedure
A good inspection will include several pictures and a summary of findings and recommendations. This will allow the property owner to determine what problems may exist, what areas may need better upkeep, and how to go about fixing those problems.
Solutions for Real Estate uses an inspection app that allows us to provide a 20-page detailed report with pictures. It also includes a summary section. This provides a professional and organized presentation and can be used for the owner, the tenant, and the contractors. It breaks everything we find down into a visual report, so it can be easily understood by the owner and explained to the tenant. It will also allow any contractors that may work on these problems to know exactly what needs to be done to improve the property.
This inspection is sent to the owner, who will then submit necessary service requests, determine any renewal rates, and discuss conditions or potential future expenses. This inspection also allows our staff to discuss needs or lease violations with the existing tenant. In extreme cases, we will non-renew a tenant to prevent any further damage. This is why we conduct the inspection 120 days prior to the lease expiration. Although this will require finding a new tenant, it will prevent further damage in the future and ensure that the property is being taken care of properly.
We’d love to talk more about how to maintain and protect your property. Contact us at Solutions for Real Estate if you have any questions or need any preventative maintenance help.
