how often should a property mng company perform inspections?

Question

As an owner that lives in another state, I want my property to be in a good condition and PM looking out for that. How often should the property be inspected for appliances, locks,a/c filters,furnace,water heater,smoke detector,electrical, plumbing and lease violations? It seems to me that it is a good thing when PM is doing this at least twice a year, right? 
I was reading a post on Google by an owner, and he claimed that he almost never received the full amount of rent because PM constantly found something wrong with the property and contacted contractors even on a simple request of a tenant on how to operate a devise, which is a waste of money for owners. How to prevent this? Maybe to have PM contact me for an approval of anything over 100$?
What's your experience with regular inspections?

Ray S. · Answer

Hi Edita, we have managed properties in Houston for ourselves for 20+ years and for others for about the same amount of Time.  We have never made inspections for the sake of inspecting.  Once I went to one of our houses and found the tenant had 20 cats or so.  We then had to figure out should we let her stay, deal with the turnover and fix the damage of the 20 cats.  We decided to let her stay.  She stayed another five years and then we had to repair cat damage.  It turns out we were better off letting her stay.

On the other hand we always let the neighbors know who we are and usually somebody tells us when we have problems.  We also tend to use the Jack Miller approach to rentals.  We expect a higher level of responsibility  and care since we dont have the economy of scale apartments have.  We do pretty good and have very low turnover.

Bruce M. · Answer

Edita Davtyan I usually ask for once a year on an inspection but if I have any issues with tenants, I may ask for it more frequently.  Equally, if I have really good tenants, I may not ask for one at all.  $100 is kind of low for an approval on repairs.  You will be approving everything.

We have a disadvantage by not being local.  Like you, I am out of state.  I have been at this game a long time now, and frankly I just accept there will be what I call some "leakage."  Leakage just means to me that I am not there and because of that, I have to accept things may not always get done the way I want or expect, or at the right cost.  If the toilet leaks, how do I really know it does not need a new float and the entire thing needs replacing?  I don't.  I just accept this now.  I don't mean to scare you off, but as an out of area landlord, we have to accept some of this.  The key is to get the right property manager and let them know your expectations.  Some want inspection fees but it is worth it so you know what is going on with your properties.

Chris Clothier · Answer

Edita Davtyan - Its a tricky question that you will get a ton of different answers to and in the end, the real answer is as many times as you, the client, asks them to.  There may be an additional charge for it, but they should be able to always perform something like this for you and get you a written report within a matter of days.

Andrew Jones · Answer

On the topic of "How often should a PM do property inspections". I was just thinking the same thing earlier today. I haven't been inside my units since August so I emailed my property manager before seeing this post and told him I would like to do an inspection with him of all my units next week (I only have a few units). He abliged and will post all notices necessary.

If you think its been to long since you had an inspection done your probably right.  I think all cases are different so its tough to say how many times a year inspections should be done, but I believe atleast once a year. I don't own properties out of state, but in your case since you live far away from your properties just ask your PM to take pictures or better yet video of each property and send it to you.

Ray S. · Answer

I dont think I can do him Justice.  He died a couple years ago but he was a major influence in how we run our business.   Basically he bought the kind of properties that allowed him to have the kind of tenants he could work with(blue collar).  He then put the burden of taking care of the house on the Tenants.  I remember in his lease it started out something like "Pleaes read this carefully, this is not a normal leas...."  It then went on to spell out how they were not going to take care of you, that you were going to have to take care of yourself.   I have seen where if this concept is not started from the beginning you end up dealing with the most minor issues.  All of this hurts the bottom line.  We as much as possible adopted his policies on these kind of things.  For example the deductible,  he was very militant about this.  If you position it right you can not only pull this off, you can even beleive in it also.

Edita D. · Answer

@Bruce: thank you for your thoughts.

@Ray S.: what is a Jack Miller approach to rentals?

how often should a property mng company perform inspections?

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