Professional or DIY Decisions

As a Service Plumber i have seen many things from the DIY crowd. Most of it (to be perfectly honest) looked bad. 

Now I'm not here to badmouth the DIY crowd or even blow sunshine about how much better the professional is. I am here to appeal to you as an investor. 

I took this picture myself this last weekend while on an out of town trip. 

So while this is not in a house (and i have seen just as bad, if not worse in a home), it does represent a good point. DONT BE CHEAP!!

Nothing will represent that you dont care and you just want money like a bad (or typical) DIY job. Now many of you out there are pretty good and some maybe even great, but the bulk are not. Of course you can DIY in your own home all you want, but when it comes to your rentals you would be best served to have a professional do whatever it is that needs to be done.

I mean lets be honest. when you walk in a restaurant you remember three things primarily:

1. The Service

2. The Bathrooms

3. The Food

No matter how good the food was, if the service sucked, or the bathrooms were disgusting, you would probably not go back. You cant expect anything less for your renters. 

If your a great person and you stay on top of the maintenance requests of your tenants, but your DIY fixes suck. tenants will not stick around for any longer then necessary.

Now some of you may be thinking "Mike that is ridiculous. Tenants dont care so long as it gets fixed." Not true. Not even a little. 

I meet tenants all the time who breathe a huge sigh of relief when i walk through the door because it means the owner will not be fixing anything today. Not just a few tenants. Many tenants.

A professional job can save you money in the long run and helps you outsource so that you dont have to take time out of your schedule to do something you dont want to be doing in the first place. Using professionals also gives you a layer of protection if something doesn't work right after the fix. Meaning its on them to fix it, not you. Using professionals gives your tenants the peace of mind that the owner cares enough to take care of it and take care of it right.

If you feel you just cannot afford to use a professional to get the job done then you need to reassess your investment.

Sure the picture above works, but it didnt really solve the problem, nor did it communicate to any customers of that small restaurant that they were concerned with quality maintenance, which of course begs the mind of the customer "what else did they skimp on?

So the moral of the story?

There are to ways to do things. The right way and the easy way.

Pick the right way.