punch lists for contractors

[Kenneth LaVoie]

Hi
I'm a fairly new landlord (almost two years) and am working on getting efficient. One thing I'm putting together is a punch list for the "last man done working" in a unit to make sure it's "rent ready." Being new, there just seems like so many LITTLE things that still need to be done when I THINK I'm all done. (window pane cracked, one door doesn't latch, one receptacle dosn't work, slow bath drain, etc.) -- I'm wondering if anyone has a good "punch list" culled form their experience?

Thanks much!

[J Scott]

I do this for every rehab, and for me, it's a personal walk-through of the house that I do myself, not a checklist for someone else (and I'm normally big on checklists and delegating, but not for this super-critical task)...

In fact, this is one of the few things that I don't trust to my contractors, my project managers or even my wife to do...you only get one chance to impress a buyer, an inspector and an appraiser, and if there are punchlist items that aren't fixed, you can easily blow a sale or take a hit on price.

Basically, I step into every room, look at every wall, carpet and ceiling, open and close every door and window, test every appliance, test every electrical fixture (I even use an electrical tester on all the outlets), test every plumbing fixture, test the HVAC, etc.

At first, I would walk around with an inspector checklist...but it's all second nature. Once you get good at it, you can generally do it in about 15 minutes...

Btw, as I go through the house, I put a piece of blue painters tape on every little issue I see so that I can send my handyman back to fix things. I don't let him remove the tape, so I can go back and verify that everything I marked was fixed.

Whenever an inspector finds something that I missed, I add it to my mental checklist for the future...