Lesson # 4 from first year of self-managing our 20 rental units

[Heath Jones]

Lesson #4 - Ask tenants to get full picture of ‘hidden’ deferred maintenance

One we thing we were surprised by when we first took over managing our apartment buildings was how little they were managed by the company before us. With my and wife and I both being extremely CDO (i.e., that’s OCD in alphabetical order, in case you were wondering), I was at our property several times a week picking up trash outside, waving and saying how to our tenants that would pass by and asking them if they needed anything.

There were a lot, I mean A LOT, of minor repairs that the previous owners had told them weren’t deemed critical. This including things like a missing interior door, a window that would not open, and other small things like that. Granted, I agree these types of items may not be critical to the safety and structural integrity of the property, but still. We couldn’t believe these were not taken care of.

Now it may be a flawed-thought for making money, but we are of the mindset that if we were living in an apartment with a minor issue we wanted to be fixed... we would expect it to be fixed. Of course if it is the tenant’s fault, then they should cover the cost, but it should still get fixed.

When looking at the deferred maintenance before purchasing, we had calculated a lot of the big ticket items (like insulation in attic, power washing repointing brick cracks, etc.) and we had even included things we could see like missing doors. However, you will not get the full picture of things that your tenants need until you talk to them. You cannot expect that a property manager will do this.

If you are thinking of self-managing your own apartment buildings, you either have to come to terms with hiring a PM and not knowing the entire picture when comes to your property or spend the time to know each unit in and out. We feel that if we are the sole-owners, we want to do the latter.

What are your thoughts?