How to Deal with Emergency Maintenance Issues
Being a rental property owner, maintenance issues happen from now and then. Some of them can wait until you are available but others may mean a call at midnight or early morning that require immediate attention. It is frustrating but it is part of the deal with investment properties.
Through working with many property management companies and handling many tenant issues myself, my experience and lesson learnt are that to have a group of go-to partners or vendors ready in your contact list. It comes handy whenever there is an emergency maintenance issue and it will feel less stressful knowing you have a plan and have a team.
It is achievable for both self-management investors or those with a property management (PM) partner. It all comes down to your situation and what you want to achieve. It is a trade-off between money, time, and energy,
For accident investors who stumble into this business or people with only one or two properties to manage, from the vendor’s perspective, you are just one individual lead similar to what they acquire on yelp or google. They will deal with you when they have the resource and you won’t get those priority treatments or receive better pricing. In this case, it is better to leverage the network from a property management company. You will spend a little bit more for PM fee but a lot of costs and efforts could be saved from finding a cost-efficient vendor every time.
One thing to note is that if the PM company is using its own repair and maintenance, make sure you get two quotes - one from other vendors to make sure they are charging you properly. Some PM companies get most of their revenue from repair and maintenance instead of monthly PM fees. Thus make use you are not over-paying. Especially for investors out of state, you need to get familiar with the local pricing,
Typical emergency maintenance issues are normally related to plumbing or the HVAC system not working in extreme weather. For proactive investors, do a regular check on those and brief your go-to vendor on potential concerns.
Plumbing issues would be like a water leak or a sewer backup.
An HVAC failure would be, the air conditioning's not working and it's 100 degrees outside or the heater's not working and it's freezing outside and snow is piling up.
To sum up, in order to be prepared for any emergency maintenance request, having a set of partners and vendors in your contact list or through your PM firm is beneficial to both your pocket and mental health. It is a stressful situation in a stressful business. Depends on your specific situation, get prepared and have a plan.
In particular, if you are like me who prefers true passive income, I’d spend some money and hire the PM companies to work for me. You can be the manager to keep them on their toes. Let the professionals deal with the issues at hand. You will have a happy tenant and nice return to your bank account and mental health,
