Maintenance and work orders for small multifamily

[Chris Dowty]

We currently have an 18 unit property under contract south of Indianapolis. The current owners use a handyman that is retired. Some pros: 1) He seems very familiar with the property and has handled maintenance and small work orders for the owners for a long time. 2) He is on call at all times. 3) Seems very engaged with the residents. The only con is his hourly rate ($30/hr). This seems high to me even considering the pros mentioned above. I'm curious how others have managed maintenance when dealing with such a small amount of units? What good/bad experiences have others had with a handyman as opposed to a tech?  Thanks for any input. 

[Levi T.]

Compared to a contractor at $75+ per hour, plus materials, that's a great deal. Question is if he is doing the right type of work that is reducing the amount of calls or just continuing patching things over.

Our MF run 15% request per unit average in the last Q. You should be looking at 5 or less request per month, all simple stuff, dripping sinks, clogged toilets, etc.

After a bit you should be able to see if the issue is on going, and you need to do some CapEx, or it's one of them tenants that like to put in a work request each time they pay rent. Both are easy to fix!