Installing and Maintaining Gutters

[Kyle Myers]

BP landlord experts I need your advice,

I'm in the process of closing on a turnkey and they've been awesome ensuring everything on the inspection is fixed before we close.  However, the inspector mentioned that he "recommended" installing gutters on the back of the house, and this is the only thing the turnkey company didn't agree with.  Their rationale is that older (built in 1962) houses were designed without gutters so there isn't the big need for them.  Further, the added cost of maintaining them and the risk of making your tenant get on a ladder to maintain them is not worth it.  My concern is erosion of the siding, the lawn, and possibly the foundation. Thoughts?

-Kyle

[Alex Craig]

I thought I would jump in here since I am the seller and respond to the "BS" comment as that make it sound like we are dodging responsibility or trying to cut corners during the rehab. Like most older homes built in the 50's and 60's, especially on this street, gutters are non-existent.  @Kyle Myers thank you for kind words on being easy to work with on the sell. We feel the same working with you too. Mainly want to respond to provide some other thoughts on why one would not want to install gutters on houses that do not currently have them. I think one needs to think about gutters from 2 perspectives, one as a owner occupant and the other as a landlord. 

Gutters in my opinion are certainly necessary on some homes, especially those whose natural lot does channel water away from the dwelling, especially if there are basements. This house does not have a basement.  If you google street view the house, one would notice their were not originally gutters on the house, thus we did not add. This would not be a standard add as a lot of homes in our markets do not have rain gutters, actually I would say 1/2 of the older builds do not.  A simple google earth drive down the street will uncover that.

I have 17 rental myself and if the homes have gutters, I will keep them if they are in good shape, but I have removed quite a few over the years as the house naturally drains fine and the amount of trees on the lot constantly fill up the gutters. Some tenants are great about keeping gutters cleared out, but some are not. While I will push 100% of the time for tenants to keep their yard clean and landscaped, pushing a tenant who does not want to get on a ladder is not a great idea as this certainly opens up one to a lawsuit if something were to happen. The most expensive codes on Workers Comps are those that get on roofs and ladders. Also, some are not physically capable of doing this. I have a blind tenant in one of my houses and that happened to be one of the ones we stripped gutters off of. I simply did not want to send someone to clean out gutters every 2 weeks or after a major rain storm.

@Ryan B. while paying someone $50 sounds like a good idea once a year, the reality is, in Little Rock there are ALOT of trees (this house especially) and the leaves are not 100% off the tree until January to February.  Leaves start to fall in late September, early October.  The rainy season tends to be October to February, thus leaving yourself the potential of those gutters to be jammed pack and doing ore harm then good.

@Kimberly H. I don't think I need to prove.  The older homes simply do not have them in our market. Google 5400 Keats, Little Rock, AR and you will notice most of the homes do not have gutters--this is very typical for older homes. Also notice the street shot of the house from 2007 shows the home without gutters Also, it is hard to tell, but from 2007 to 2014, the last owner did a lot of work, which included putting on a new roof and enclosing the carport.  Both were probably expensive rehabs for a home owner not privy to discounts investors get. At no point during 2007 to 2014 were gutters installed. 

My personal home, not gutters on the front, I have been there 8 years without a issue. Certainly have gutters in the back as the natural fall of the lot requires me to have these.

Anyways, like Kyle said, we are fixing everything the inspector identified--that is pretty typical with TK. If I am not mistaken, he did not even ask. We simply marked it up and sent it to him. Some landlords like things added to the house there were not planned or on the original construction/improvement of the home. All we did is layout reason why we do not add gutters to homes that never had them.