Disaster plan?

Question

Do most people keep a disaster plan ready to go for any type of natural disasters? Earthquakes, Hurricanes, Tornados... ETC?? How to notify your residents and plan of actions of what to do?

Matthew Paul · Answer

I have less than 8 rentals , if we have a potential disaster on the way like a hurricane , I am packing up my RV and going inland . As far as the tenants , they are on their own .

Bryan N. · Answer

@Matthew Paul Is correct.

I'm not a babysitter.  At some point even if your a renter you need to man up and take care of your life/family.   I could care less what the tenants do.  My family is the priority in this situation.  I will fix their home.  I will not bring them bags of ice or whatever else because power is out.  Even if you email please do this or that to protect the house, odds are they won't.

Matthew Paul · Answer

Speaking of disasters , they are calling for 3 ft of snow in New York , and most of the North east

Marcia Maynard · Answer

We have a disaster plan and are revising it after a recent speaker at our local rental association meeting enlightened us on not only the need for such, but on the need to revisit it from time to time. It would behoove all of us and our tenants to read the American Red Cross Emergency Preparedness information available on line and in written form. Here is a link.

http://www.redcross.org/prepare

There are other local agencies that may provide good information as well, especially that which is specific to your area. In our locale, our greatest natural disaster threats are rainstorm, windstorm, earthquake, and volcano. But fire is the number one disaster that displaces families, causes property damage and causes death in the U.S., so certainly do what you can to mitigate that risk too. Seek out knowledge and do what you can to prepare for the worse and hope for the best.

Steve Rozenberg · Answer

I guess everyone has a different way they look at their business and their clients. I'm not saying that you have to go and rescue people but I do feel that if you had some standard procedures in place you could maybe protect your investment a lot better by let's say a named storm coming into your area and you advise them how to protect the property in the end that actually would protect your investment. I understand you will get insurance money back but you could also lose a lot of rent. Here in Houston I have a friend that owns an apartment complex and he almost went bankrupt because the apartment complex got completely totaled in the storm and he did eventually get his money but not for two years and during those two years he had to carry the note of the apartment complex without any fines because the apartment was empty.

I think it's just a matter of being prepared and having some form of system in place that should something happen you have an action plan

Troy Fisher · Answer

Bwahaha! I'm out, catch you kids later! I love it.

But 
 in all seriousness, there may be value in the some of the aforementioned preventive maintenance emails and warnings (sounds like a conversation to have with my pms). Beyond that my plan is to carry the right insurance to cover my investments.

But I am right behind Matthew on this one.

Steve Rozenberg · Answer

Yes, we do have a preparedness plan / manual. Meaning if it gets below freezing we have canned template emails. If there is a named storm headed to the city we have a template email. So we do have a lot but always try to become better for the things we never plan for.

With managing over 400 Homes there would be no way to call every tenant or go to each property so whatever you do has to be scalable in my opinion

Al Williamson · Answer

@Steve Rozenberg excellent topic that highlights my complete lack of preparedness. If something happened around my rentals (a bobcat siting or missing kid), I first hear about it on NextDoor - our neighborhood social network. From there I would SMS all my people with an update.

At a minimum, now that I'm thinking about it, I should put a page of suggestions on earthquake preparedness in the tenant binder and distribute and hand out a page to current residents.

What about you? What's your plan?

Disaster plan?

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