Maintenance and why it’s important for your rental property

Rental markets may be favouring landlords at the moment, but attracting and retaining the best tenant is still crucial, as is boosting value by keeping your asset in tip-top shape.
If market conditions change, or a long-term tenant suddenly decides to vacate, you don’t want to suddenly discover a whole lot of maintenance work that needs doing to get your property up to scratch for listing.
Every week that your asset remains vacant in a market like this, it will be costing you hundreds of valuable dollars.
You’re better off heading off problems at the pass, so you’re always ready to list.

Ask to see a manager.

If you have multiple properties, you will need help from qualified property managers, otherwise, you’ll surely fall behind with one or more properties. It’s basically impossible to look after them yourself if they are spread across different locations. Even if an investment property is close to where you live, everyone is time-poor these days so it’s best to engage a professional.

Blink Property’s team specializes in looking after the assets of investors with significant portfolios. They bring with them the knowledge of tenancy laws, regulations and other potential obstacles you may not know exist. They also have great ongoing relationships with the best tradies in their local areas and, if they have been in business for some time, it’s likely they will know which dodgy operators to avoid from experience.Your manager will also be able to explain the non-negotiables in your local market, such as a working ceiling fan or air conditioning, plumbing features, and even furnishings (if a furnished apartment).

Early intervention

Once your management professional is engaged, they can help you maintain a base quality level for upkeep. To do so, you need to be on top of planning.
Early detection of any potential issues can prevent major flare-ups and expensive mishaps happening down the track, while packaging multiple tasks and checks into single appointments with tradespeople can also mean avoiding costly individual callout fees when you suddenly remember jobs need to be done.

A Blink property manager will schedule all appropriate rental inspections and maintenance checks so that you don’t have to and will stay on top of work that needs doing so it doesn’t blow out in price down the track. You will also notice that the feedback from the routine inspections isn’t the same old ‘clean/not clean, good working order/needs replacement’ box-ticking style exercise. Rather, their recommendations will have financial impacts on the property in mind, not just in the short term, but working towards future value increases and sustained appeal to the tenant market.

They will look for opportunities to avoid major repairs later down the track by stopping problems at a much earlier, and cheaper, stage.
This could mean recommending you invest in a new hot water system with a five-year warranty, rather than paying someone a callout fee every time they come to patch up a leak in your current one.

Maximising efficiency

Those regular check-ups will also provide you with opportunities to group jobs together. If the plumber comes to assess what’s required for the new hot water system, you could also get them to take a look at something else in the laundry, and (if in Queensland) even re-issue a Waterwise certificate while they’re there. If all of that takes them an hour, then it’s saved you two extra hours’ worth of their (expensive) time and callout fees, because you may have found those other problems later and been forced to have them attended to individually.

If you happen to have a group of investment properties with the same manager, you might find they are able to score discounts if using the same tradies for each property, which they may then pass onto you.
Remember, most of the money you have to spend on your investment properties will be tax deductible, so there’s no reason to skimp on making sure it’s in its best shape all the time.

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