Lawn maintenance???
I am trying to decide whether or not I should hire my owm landscaping service to take care of the lawn and try to cover some of the cost in the rent. Do most people rely on thier tennants and are they usually good about taking care of the property?
If you have tenants that you know and trust, maybe you could make a deal to reduce rent (less then what you would pay the lawn guy), in exchange for lawn duty. I've heard of a few landlords who do this.
It is all about the trust you have with your tenant, IMO.
I rent SFHs and have a clause in the lease that tenants are responsible for lawn care and landscape maintenance. In Texas, this means watering in the summer. I'm lucky that most of my properties have sprinkler systems, so it's set it and forget it for the tenants.
In the last two years, I've only had to call and remind someone about cutting/sprinkling the lawn once.
It seems to me difficult to cover the $30-$50 per month in lawn maintenance fees by buyring it inside of rent. Too much competition around here and tenants don't think of yardwork much when renting; certainly not in financial terms of how much $$$ and time it will cost them.
I normally put it in the lease that tenants are responsible for maintaining the lawn, garden, etc. Then, I set my expectations pretty low for what it means to "take care of it." While nobody has treated the lawn really well, even my least conscientious tenants mowed the grass when it got 9" high!
Lastly, I take charge of cleanup and lawn if it needs it for the 30 days prior to the end of a lease, though, when I'm showing the property to new tenants. $25 for 4-5 small flower pots and pulling all the weeds makes a place look much nicer. No reason to put that in a lease; nobody complains if you want to do "their" yard work for them.
I have the tenants do it as well. It stipulates it in the lease. Never thought of it from a liability perspective. I also try to keep my advertised price low. It draws more potential candidates and I can win them over with the quality of our units. In my experience lawn care isn't a driving factor on SFRs. It is on MFRs though. So I guess it depends on what you're leasing. On MFRs I usually give reduced rent and include it on one of the units.
