inspections. once a tenant moves in how often?

[Kirk R.]

any info on inspecting a property once tenant moves in. 

how often do you inspect? what kind of notice.   what do u do when place isnt being kept way u want it? insight appreciated. 

[Michele Fischer]

Sometimes inspections get away from us, especially if a unit is in distress sucking up all our time.  They are always a pain to schedule, an they often cost money as we find work that needs to be done.  But I'm a big fan of them.  We try to do 3 months after someone moves in, then every 6 months to a year after that depending on how comfortable we feel.  We have a checklist we go down, room by room, looking mostly for water leaks and working smoke detectors.  We have a housekeeping addendum, since it is low income; if someone was a slob and it was impacting the structure, we would hold them to the addendum and have more frequent inspections.  Current damage is done, but explaining that if they moved out now they would lose their deposit and owe us money can sometimes turn the tide and/or prevent future damage, or we can decide to end the month-to-month.  My state requires 48 hour notice to enter.  We normally send out a letter explaining what we want to do and offering 3 dates and times in the next week to choose from, as a scheduling starting point.