Maintenance Cost Control

[Tom Edman]

Managing a 250+ unit portfolio in Minneapolis has shown me that maintenance cost control is one of the biggest drivers of long-term returns. Curious about other investors' strategies.

[Jeff Schemmel]

I'll preface this by saying I've managed 2-5 units that I own over a 5-year time frame.  I've had a full spectrum of issues and tenants.

I've come to understand the best thing I can do is maintain some level of trust between myself and tenants.  The most expensive issues I've had were directly associated with a tenant letting an ongoing issue persist for more than a week without notifying me.  This happened to be from a tenant I inherited with a purchase, someone I didn't screen or approve, who completely neglected contact with me.

Since then, in addition to normal preventative and cyclical maintenance items, I routinely will ask "what needs attention" or "is there anything you think I should look at while I'm here for "x""?  What this has done is show the tenants that I do care about their experience and my property at the same time, and it encourages them to speak up.  There's a fine line here, and I do make sure my lease has clear language around consequences if water leaks are left unattended, for example.  

That said, if you're the owner/manager/landlord who is very late to answer requests, takes forever to action repairs, and avoids agreeing to basic repairs, you cannot expect your tenants to adopt this approach or expect you to take care of your property.  I think this also necessitates a good understanding of what is normal wear and what is tenant abuse of a property.  That can be a hard line to walk.

I hear all the time, "I am so annoyed", or "I wish they would stop calling me", when I talk to landlords in the area.  I really think this is the opposite of what should happen, but it requires some level of a "service-oriented" mindset, and I fully recognize that many tenants don't make this easy and many owners are jaded by bad experiences.  I am just hopeful that if I've done well in marketing a unit in great condition for the expectation, that I am justified in this approach and that over the long term, my costs will be lower by taking and expecting a pro-active approach to maintenance.