How Savvy Landlords Find Maintenance Professionals

It’s the middle of the night and your phone rings. You wake up in a panic, wondering what tragedy has happened. Then you hear a distraught tenant on the other end of the line saying that the toilet is clogged, or the AC has stopped working.

This is a minor issue if you only have one or two properties. But when you are a landlord of multiple units, these maintenance issues can start to take up your time. Any time spent on maintenance will take time away from the more enjoyable aspects of being a landlord.

Regardless of the number of units you have, your time is valuable. For this reason, savvy landlords hire maintenance professionals. However, you need to find contractors or tradespeople who will do an excellent job at a reasonable price. After all, you need the maintenance issue resolved the first time around, not after multiple visits.

Specific jobs require a professional contractor—certified contractors must deal with significant plumbing incidents, gas leaks, or electrical faults. On the other hand, there are numerous jobs that you may not have the skills to repair but don’t require a professional contractor.

Common Maintenance Issues

For example, some common maintenance issues in rental units include:

No heating
No hot water
Electrical fuse replacements
Leaking faucets
Clogged drains
Broken garbage disposals
HVAC maintenance (malfunctions and filter replacements)
Minor wall repairs/drywall
Painting
Changing locks

Depending on what’s happened, some maintenance issues are emergency repairs and need immediate attention. However, other repairs are not as urgent, and you can schedule them within a week. Either way, it’s unlikely that you will have time to carry them all out yourself.

The problem is that your tenant reasonably expects you to resolve all maintenance issues within an appropriate time.

The time you take to fix maintenance issues affects your reputation as a trusted landlord. There two reasons for this.

First, this is essential for your relationship with your tenants and your reputation as an excellent landlord. Second, if you don’t take care of the smaller issues when they arise, they will eventually turn into more significant problems that will cost more money. Additionally, your tenants aren’t going to be happy, and you don’t want the reputation of a “slumlord.” Hence the importance of hiring the right maintenance professionals.

Why Should You Hire a Professional?

Aside from keeping your properties in top condition and your tenants happy, there are pitfalls to not having a network of maintenance professionals. When something crops up, and you don’t have someone to do the job, you will need to start looking for a contractor.

Suppose you don’t have any relationships with contractors. In that case, you risk hiring someone who may do a lousy job or overcharge you. The other risk is that there isn’t a contractor available to carry out your repairs, and the problems last for an unnecessarily long time.

By taking the time to hire the right maintenance professional, you will save yourself time and money—not to mention establish a great relationship with someone who is incredibly handy.

Finding the One

How do you find the right professional to work with?

Let’s have a look at five things to bear in mind when hiring maintenance professionals.

What are their skills? — When looking for a maintenance professional, it’s really a case of someone who is a “Jack of all trades, master of none.” They should have the skills to complete a wide range of repairs, not just be able to do one or two things exceptionally well.
Have they worked with multiple units? — Someone who is responsible for 10, 20, or even 50 properties must have the skills of the trade. However, they also need to be excellent at time management and prioritization.
Do they live nearby? — Make sure that your maintenance technician lives close enough to your properties to be able to respond to urgent issues quickly. If necessary, you may need two or more repair people if you’ve got rental units spread out throughout the city.
Are they able to work alone? — Besides being able to manage their own schedule, it is better that you look for a maintenance professional who has experience working independently. The contractor should be self-motivated and use their initiative to carry out their responsibilities without relying on you all the time.
Can you trust them? — This isn’t something that you can always judge in the interview stage—which is one reason to give them a trial period first. But you should gain an understanding of their ethics as well as their customer service skills. After all, they will be dealing with your tenants—therefore, they’ll be the face of your rental company. Not only this, but you will also have to hand over the master key for each of your units.

How to Hire a Maintenance Professional

Hiring a maintenance professional is like hiring any other skilled worker, and you can’t rush each stage. It makes more sense to get it right the first time than to have problems and start the process again.

1. Research

There are two traditional routes that you can go down to find maintenance professionals. Your local classified ads and newspapers may have professionals looking for employment. Still, you are likely to have more success looking online. You can also post ads on employment websites such as Craigslist. If you post job vacancies, be sure to respond to all of the candidates that meet your requirements to increase your chances of finding the best professional.

Another great way to find potential maintenance professionals is to ask people in your property management network. There is an excellent chance that they will know of skilled workers in the industry you can contact. Also, there is a little more security when you get recommendations from someone you know.

2. Initial Interviews

Hopefully you will have a long list of potential candidates. So rather than meeting with all of them, arrange a short phone or video meeting to get a better idea of who they are. This will give you a chance to find out about their experience and qualifications and explain the job in more detail.

3. Final Interviews

Once you have three or four ideal candidates, you can arrange a face-to-face meeting. In this second interview, you will have more time to get to know the person better and learn more about their communication skills and work ethic.

4. References

Checking their references is essential to confirm that what the candidate has told you is accurate. Of course, references may not always be entirely true. But confirming them gives further insights into your potential maintenance professional.

5. Trial Period

A trial period doesn’t have to be a bad thing, and it is more than likely that you will strike up a great working relationship in this period. However, it is sensible to have a shorter set time to make sure you are both happy before committing to a more extended contract.

Keeping properties maintained to a high standard is one of the best ways to build your reputation as an excellent landlord. Property maintenance requires getting the right people to do the right jobs. After you establish your network of trusted maintenance professionals, ensure that you communicate with them clearly about any necessary maintenance work.

Many savvy landlords use property management apps to manage maintenance requests. Tenants can flag maintenance issues through the app and send you videos or pictures of the problem. You can then contact your maintenance professional via the app to assign the work, monitor the progress, and even make payments when the work is complete.

What do you look for when hiring a maintenance professional?

Tell us how you “found a guy” in the comments.

Note By BiggerPockets: These are opinions written by the author and do not necessarily represent the opinions of BiggerPockets.