A property needs to be maintained, proactively. Whether it is your own home or a rental property you own, maintenance is the key to enhanced longevity, to restore the splendour of the property and more importantly to ensure it is desirable. Else, you would experience depreciation instead of value appreciation. A rental property that is in dire state will not impress prospective tenants.
There are two ways you can approach maintenance. As a landlord, you can take up the responsibility. You may also get your tenants to be responsible for maintenance. The former is a better approach. Let us explain why.
- Tenants are not owners. They may feel at home in your rental property but they are conscious that the property is owned by you. They may be there for a year or a few years. Regardless of that, they would not have to care about the long-term appreciation or condition of the property. You cannot expect the tenant to take care of your property the way you would do. Holding them accountable or getting them to maintain the property and attend to repairs, even if they agree, is just a wrong way of approach the whole maintenance issue.
- As a landlord, you should know what is wrong with your property and what is right. Just as you would know the reasons why your property value must be subjected to appreciation, you also need to know what’s ailing your property. When you oversee repairs and maintenance, you will know exactly what is wrong from time to time. You can get the problems fixed. You can determine the quality of the solutions you would opt for. Let us say a faucet is leaking and it is beyond repair. If you get your tenant to fix it or give your property manager a free hand, then the faucet chosen may be of inferior quality. You may opt for a better-quality faucet which will not only last longer but will have an impact on the value of your property.
- You have to bring in the next tenant, you will be held responsible if the building codes are violated, any insurance issues and you would bear the brunt or whatever else that you can think of as the fallout of lack of maintenance, poor maintenance or failed upkeep, only the landlord will have to endure the financial losses and potential legal problems.
