The Best way to Protect your Property is to Maintain it!

To ensure that your rental property stays in tip top condition you need to maintain it. Maintenance doesn't have to be a big problem, if you keep on the little stuff. You maintain your rental pretty much how you keep on top of your own residence. 

By keeping on top of the little stuff, you will have a better shot at enjoying long term tenants. There is never any guarantee that by looking after a property you will have long term tenants. But you can be sure that if you don't look after your property, then you will have NO shot at having satisfied long term tenants. It pretty much guarantees that you will either have a high turn over, or long vacancies.  So what should you focus on?:

• Preventive measures and ongoing maintenance
• Repairs
• Upgrades

Preventive Measures and Ongoing Maintenance

To successfully prevent any issues, you need to know the property inside and out. You need to know what the quirks are of the property. Did you buy a property with internal drains rather than external? Then you need to make sure that either you have some kind of overflow system or you keep onto of those gutters.

Have you made sure that the internal windowsills are not cracked and splitting -through condensation in winter? If not what do you think will happen to the woodwork?

What about the paint on the outside of the house, is it starting to break down and letting in water?

Have you inspected the plumping (any dripping taps?), the electrical system?

When was the last time you cleaned the filters in heat pumps and water filtration systems?

Are the trees on the property causing problems for neighbours or power lines?

All these things are important to ensure that the value of the house stays in shape and tenants (and neighbors) are happy.

Repairs

So have you had a call that there is a broken window, a blocked toilet, or the waste disposal is jammed? Get it sorted out PRONTO! Fixing issues quickly ensures that you will have a healthily relationship with your tenants and that the issue won't get worse. Leaving issues to fester, just makes the repair more expensive to fix later.

Upgrades 

It seems like an expense that you don't need, but these can be the difference to ensuring a long term client and getting a higher rental return. Of course they don't need to happen every week, just when there is a reason to keep a tenant happy (can you get them to sign on for another 2 years with an upgrade? Is it worth it?) At the very least by adding a new feature you help to maximize your rental returns. 

• Do you need to replace the carpet
• Repaint
• Install features like a Heat Pump 

If you are not proactive with your rental, the property will start to deteriorate - faster than you would like! It is pretty much a certainty that you will lose quality tenants and your rental returns will fall away. That's not what you got into this business for! So either you must be a very handy with tools, pay someone to do it, or use a property manager to ensure all this work is done.

So what is you least favorite activity about maintaining a property? Is it the upgrades or the constant maintenance?