How To Properly Maintain Your Rental Property?

Rental owners are usually charged with several responsibilities. Aside from ensuring that their home is rented out at the right price, collecting rent, and conducting tenant screening, these individuals are also responsible for maintaining their rental property, so it is attractive to potential buyers and habitable for existing tenants.

Let’s face it, maintaining a rental property in Los Angeles can be a pain in the neck. In fact, in a survey carried out by SmartMove, rental management was considered the third biggest “headache” for rental owners after loss in rental income and stubborn tenants. That is not surprising!

Rental maintenance requires regular inspection that demands a lot of effort, time, and, of course, money. However, rental owners can avoid the headache of maintaining their rental property if they adhere to some simple home maintenance rules. We have highlighted some of them below.

Benefits of Maintaining your Rental Property

Much effort, time, and money go into maintaining a standard rental property in Los Angeles. Sometimes, when you take a closer look at these investments, you may begin to wonder, “is it worth it?”

Here are three common benefits of maintaining your rental property.

#1 Tenant Safety

When selecting a property, people consider several factors, one of such factors—if not the most important—is safety. Most tenants wouldn’t live in a property that risks their health and safety regardless of how cheap it is.

Would you prefer to live in a home that is filled with molds and mildews or one that is free from these fungi? You’ll surely go for the latter, and so will your potential tenants.

When you prioritize property maintenance, you end up making your rental home habitable, attractive, and valuable. However, when you do otherwise, you’ll eventually chase people away from your home or put yourself at the mercy of lawsuits that may arise from accidents due to your negligence.

#2 Encourage Tenant Care

Tenants, like every human, are observant. When they see that a landlord cares about the maintenance of his property, it makes it easy for them to care about the property as well. If you fail to do the needful as a landlord, you don’t expect your tenants to do otherwise.

For instance, if you are fond of always ensuring that your landscape is neat and attractive at all times, your tenants take a cue from your actions and ensure that they play their part in ensuring that your landscape is tidy.

When you show responsibility and responsiveness to the tenants in your home, they will always reciprocate. However, when you make it clear that you don’t care about the maintenance of your property but only the rent money, you’ll attract clients with such values.

#3 Reduce the Incident of Major Repairs

Conducting regular inspections, repairs, and maintenance will save you money in the long run. For example, imagine what happens when you fail to discover that leaky overhead pipe?

With time, you expect the damage to exacerbate and wreak serious havoc on your property. However, with regular inspection, you can discover the fault early and fix it to avoid severe damage.

This is particularly vital for properties under airbnb management in Melbourne. It is because climate and wear and tear significantly impact the property’s condition over time.

Now that you know the benefits of maintaining your rental property, what next? Next, we’ll be offering you effective tips on how to maintain your rental property. Let’s begin with the first tip.

5 Ways to Maintain your Rental Property Properly

#1 Create a Definite Property Maintenance Routine

Do you have a workout or a diet routine? If so, creating a property maintenance routine shouldn’t be hard; all you have to do is abide by the workout routine concept.

A property maintenance routine is a plan on how you wish to keep your property in tiptop condition. This plan can include inspection of the property, servicing, and repairs. Staying on top of these tasks can be intimidating and challenging at the same time. However, you can keep everything in good condition by breaking down the whole maintenance exercise into manageable tasks. And how do you do that? Easy-peasy!

You can break down cleaning tasks into segments where you focus on cleaning each room, their windows, appliances, fixtures, etc. Your cleaning can be weekly, monthly, semi-annually, or annually depending on your property needs.

If shouldering these tasks seems burdensome, or maybe you lack time to carry out these time-consuming tasks, you can consider contacting a Los Angeles Property Management Company for assistance. This company has the staff, experience, and equipment required to keep your property in optimal shape.

#2 Qualify your Tenants

There are many potential renters out there who are keen on wreaking havoc on your property, knowingly or unknowingly. The best way to avoid such distasteful tenants is conducting screenings before accepting tenants.

Tenant screenings are often carried out to separate the chaff from the grain. If you fail to conduct this screening, you may end up with tenants that don’t care about the maintenance of your property. Of course, you can decide to evict them, but you know how long and difficult the process can be, especially if the tenant is quite stubborn.

#3 Use Quality Supplies

Many landlords go the extra mile to search for reliable property repair and maintenance contractors, only to ruin their efforts by giving the technicians inferior materials. For example, a landlord might give plumber low-quality faucets to replace a damaged one. Of course, you know what follows.

To avoid wasting money on the same issue repeatedly, try to purchase quality materials for your repairs. The costs of some of these materials may affect your pockets. However, knowing that you have a quality faucet replacing a faulty one would give you peace of mind and ensure that you don’t end up spending money on similar repairs again.

#4 Act Fast

The earlier you fix a fault in your property (whether minor or major) the better for your property and your pocket. Failing to attend to an issue immediately will only make it worse.

Imagine postponing the repair of a leaky or saggy roof? The results of such ignorance will tell on your electricity bill and walls—the same as ignoring a leaky plumbing pipe. You may wake up one day to discover a mini pool in your home.

If you don’t want such a catastrophe to befall your home, make it a habit to act fast when you discover flaws in your property.

#5 Contract quality vendors

Many landlords are fond of contracting cheap and mediocre maintenance and repair contractors in the name of trying to cut costs. While such a move will save you money in the short run, it’ll certainly cost you more money in the long run.

For quality services, ensure you contract quality professionals like plumbers, carpenters, landscapers, electricians, roofing specialists, flooring experts, locksmiths, cleaners, etc.

Of course, some of these professionals may present expensive quotes for their services, but in the end, you’ll be guaranteed quality service that’ll help in the maintenance of your property.

Conclusion

Maintaining your property doesn’t have to be challenging, especially if you have tenants who share the same values as you. That said, ensure you make it a priority to screen potential tenants. You can also conduct a background check to understand their behavior in their past rental apartment. Doing so will ensure that you accept the right people into your home. And, of course, with the right people in your home, maintaining your property becomes easier.