HIring a handyman?

Question

I have one rental property and want to 'manage' my fathers 3 rental properties as well since he has had nothing but problems due to him being too much of a nice guy and having gone through a quintuple heart bypass surgery and limiting him on how much he can do now. I would like to have a handyman to be able to fix and repair smaller maintenance issues. Ive never hired anyone before or know how much to pay someone for work like this. Any recommendations on how to approach this and how to choose the right one?

Ken P. · Answer

I was in this situation recently after our excellent former handyman passed away after a brief illness.  I belong to a local REiA, which I would highly recommend to you as a first step, and asked other investors at the REIA for handyman recommendations.  Unfortunately the responses didn't lead anywhere, due to the handymen being fully booked, too far away, or much too expensive.  Nevertheless, I would recommend starting by asking for recommendations from other investor members of your local REIA.

I ended up posting an ad on Craigslist, and received many responses.  During the phone interviews with the prospective handymen, I asked for their experience with rental property and collected reference contact information.  I called each of the references to confirm the details provided by the contacts, and asked whether the other landlords would recommend the prospect to me.  The gentleman that we chose I then began working with by assigning some simple work orders.  So far so good, and the tenants have been providing positive feedback on their interactions with him.