Hello friends!

I have been a landlord for only a short while but I think I have stumbled onto something that makes self managing more manageable. Pardon the pun.
So there I was working out the details of how I might go about managing my first rental property, when my furnace died. That was inconvenient but not unexpected, so I googled furnace companies and got “Reliance the furnace company” on the horn. They offered to fix the furnace but I opted to replace the whole mess instead, as the current 60 year old model sounded like a freight train residing in the basement (not relevant to the story). When they were finished they asked if I was interested in their plumbing protection plan. My mind went straight to managing the rental property. If there is one thing I must have heard more than any other as a reason to reconsider getting into rental properties, it was that I was surely to spend my life waking up in the middle of the night to go plunge my tenants plugged toilets. As little credit as I gave this (a truly un-noteworthy amount) I didn’t want to have to do that, yet I also was not ready to go the full property manager route. Well this seemed like the answer, and after a short seasoning period (quite short) I think it is. You are a busy bunch of people so I won’t bore you too much with the finer details of the agreement, but the nature is that for $15/month they will send a licensed plumber to diagnose, supply parts, and fix most plausible plumbing concerns. There is quite a long list of things that are and are not included but the nature of it is that they will diagnose any problem and they will supply parts and fix most things related to any kitchen or bathroom plumbing situation as well as much of the stuff buried in the walls, supply and drain. To me the best part was that I do not need to be involved at all as long as the tenants have the phone number they can call Reliance to come and look at anything at all and it will be viewed and assessed by a licensed plumber for no charge. If it is something that they can fix within the agreement, they will fix it right there and I never even have to know about it, until an email shows up saying that they did a repair. If it is something that they Think I would want to know about or which would not be covered then they will call and ask how to proceed. And yes they will even plunge a plugged toilet.

The service has been put to use three times now and I would highly recommend it. I’d like to know if anyone else in the community has found any tips or tricks like this (or unlike this)?

Thank you and keep being awesome!