A rental property is like a car. If you don’t properly maintain it, it will probably let you down. If you’re wondering how to protect and maintain your rental property, we recommend the following three things.
Listen to Your Tenant to Protect and Maintain Your Property
Your tenants are in your property 24 hours a day and 7 days a week. They will be your best resources for needed maintenance. If the air conditioning stops working, they will tell you. If they notice a damp patch on the roof after a thunderstorm, you want to know about it.
Inspect Your Property and Check the Tenant
Tenants can damage rental property by their actions. They might be walking on the carpet with muddy feet. Tenant damage can also occur due to inaction. This might include not maintaining the yard or neglecting to report maintenance that’s needed. We do an occupied inspection about 90 days after the tenant moves in. This is to see how they are complying with the lease. Usually, everything is fine and we won’t inspect again for 6 months, or 90 days before the end of their lease. However, if we do find issues, we take remedial action and schedule another follow-up inspection to ensure the tenants are back in compliance.
Conduct an Annual Property Review
The annual property review is performed by a licensed home inspector. It goes beyond typical tenant compliance issues. Our inspectors are qualified to inspect and make judgments about the major systems of the property. They will look at the roof, structural issues, and exterior paint. They’ll also look at electric, plumbing, air conditioning, and major appliances. They will report back to us if they find any tenant safety issues that need correcting.
It’s important to protect and maintain your rental property. It’s a valuable asset that can depreciate if you aren’t attentive to its condition. We recommend these three things. If you have any questions about today’s blog, please contact us at Hoffman Realty, and we’d be happy to tell you more.