Maintenance of Your Property

The first thing that you need to do is create a fixed schedule of your property maintenance and the amount of time required to complete weekly, monthly and yearly repairs. What you need to do is schedule a time when the lawns will be mown. To hire someone to take care of the lawns for you is not out of the question! Our action plan on Friday will be to mow the lawns, trim the hedges and edge around the whole perimiter.

If you are new to real estate rental properties you will have to buy the equipment required to perform all of the esssential maintenance. This might not have been something that you had included in your budget. Here is another great tip: Collect your rent first, so that you will have working capital to make your purchases.

I would recommend a commercial mower to save time and cover a larger area. The type of mower that I would suggest is a three gang mower. (It has three decks attached together and will cover a very large area.) You also need to have a smaller mower to trim around the foundation and shrubs that are hard to reach. This should cover taking care of the lawns except for small trimming tools.

Involved in general repairs of the property would be cleanliness of the apartments, six unit multi-plex and stand-alone one family residences. Before you make the purchase a property inspection needs to be done for any repairs that need to be performed. First the inspector will take a look at the lighting, fixtures, sidewalks, stairs,doors, windows and screens.

Before you take possession of the property it is wise to get as many of the problems areas repaired before the previous landlord vacates the property. You definitely want to find out whether this is really a piece of real estate you want to purchase. Plus you want to make sure you will be able to make an income or being paying on it forever.

There are a lot of things involved in property maintenance and the amount depends on the square footage and the type of property. Whether it is an apartment, single dwelling home or a six unit multi-plex there are always repairs that need to be completed. This could also be another project that you might want to outsource to a team to get it liveable quickly so that you will have a positive cash flow.

How many hats do you want to wear? In the beginning it will probably be more cost efficient for you to maintain the properties that you own. Plus you will gain the skills and the experience required so that you will be able to manage the property and personnel. Delegate the schedule make sure the personnel knows the work to be performed and what your expectations are for the staff.

Having the Interior and Exterior painting done by onsite personnel would be the way to get things done efficiently and quickly too. Drawing on the walls, holes put in drywall are repairs that must be completed before the next occupancy moves into the place. These accidents happen and have to be fixed. This repair will be made and deducted from the damage deposit in the escrow account from the tenants that are on their way out.

This law does protect the property owners. This is a major improvement and was created for the landlords so that tenants had to pay for damaging property. Some tenants wonder why the damage deposit is so expensive and the reason is to make sure it covers the costs of the repairs. Tenants need to be held accountable for damaged property.

The piping can turn in to a total catastrophe over night. It is very lucky they do home inspections on real estate documenting the condition of the plumbing. When do you normally need a plumber? Well, for me it is on the weekend, Saturdays it cost double time and Sundays they do not hesitate to charge triple time. The last property I purchased the tenant called me and said my drain is backing up!

Here comes the good part and there is a foot of water in the basement and it smells like crap. What should we do? Well, it is our responsibility as the property owners to get a plumber or one of our onsite maintenance people their immediately. So as property owners we all need to realize that we have to take the good with the bad.

The electrical service in most homes is not a problem. The only time that electricity becomes an issue is when the previous owner hires a back yard electrical repairman. Trying to save money is not always a good idea especially when the grounding is not correct or the circuit breakers are the wrong size. The only thing that has saved property owners and renters alike are laws.

Requirements for having a licensed electricians do all electrical repairs is just protecting real estate owners from shoddy workmanship by un-licensed people working on your wiring. Everyone wants to save a buck but this is not one of the corners to cut to save money in your budget.

Does anyone remember the day you were using an electrical appliance and wondered why you got an electrical shock? This is because of poor workmanship and the circuits in your home not being grounded properly. This is another reason they created GFI, which is device that will open the electrical circuit in the case of a short circuit.

Property owners are covered by insurance in case of fire, tornado, electrical storm or other action that is not controlled by the owner or occupant of the property. The responsibilities of the property owner is to give tenants emergency phone numbers so that tenants can call the people needed like the fire department, police or other officials in case of emergency!

This is just a small article about different issues that happen when you become a property owner! If you like it please come back and read everything I write about at EzineArticles.

Growing With You Always
Written By: D.L.TRUJILLO LLC