Preventive maintenance is crucial for keeping your rental properties in good shape for many years to come. Performing regular maintenance ensures issues get fixed before they become large problems and will reduce the occurrence of serious preventable damage.

For example, a leaky roof that doesn’t get repaired right away can lead to water damage that ruins the drywall and insulation, creates mold, and can cause a roof collapse. Preventive maintenance will fix the leak while it’s still minor.

Although it’s necessary, maintenance can be a daunting task, but the following tips will make it easier.

Hire a property manager

Professional real estate investors owe much of their success to the fact that they use property managers to handle all of their maintenance and repair needs. It’s not just about saving time, but a professional team, like Fort Worth property management company Green Residential, will have all the right local contacts for professional and reliable contractors. Many property management companies will contract exclusively with certain maintenance companies in order to get the best deals in exchange for the high volume of work they’re given.

When you hire a property manager, you will get top-notch maintenance that addresses all of your needs year-round to ensure your property is kept in the best possible condition.

Create a series of checklists

Maintenance is easiest when you can reference a list of tasks rather than trying to use your memory. However, you can’t just use one list because your needs will vary throughout the year.

The best approach is to create multiple task lists based on the season. For example, make separate spring, fall, winter, and summer checklists and split up yearly tasks in the following way:

• Spring maintenance. Spring is ideal for checking gutters and downspouts for clogs, leaks, and rust.
• Fall maintenance. Since fall comes right before winter, it’s the perfect time to test your windows and doors for drafts, clean dryer vents and HVAC systems, and test the heating system to make sure it’s functional for winter.
• Winter maintenance. During winter, sometimes problems show up that weren’t very pronounced before. This is a good time to revisit rooftops, chimneys, and look for signs of leaks and water damage. It’s also a good time to cut back large tree branches and take out unwanted trees since there won’t be as many leaves to manage.
• Summer maintenance. Summertime is perfect for repairing a roof, rebuilding a chimney, doing road work, and anything else outdoors. You can also add testing smoke and carbon monoxide alarms and changing air conditioning filters to your summer task list.

Checklists are one of the easiest ways to ensure everything gets done, but you have to create the list yourself based on your needs.

Build your professional network

No matter how much you love DIY work, you can’t do everything yourself. It will help you greatly to build out a network of professionals who provide maintenance services at reasonable rates. This can include plumbers, electricians, landscapers, roofers, and other professionals you might hire for maintenance jobs.

You might need to test some companies out first, but once you find the good ones, keep them in your address book so you can call them for future jobs.

Empower your tenants to take care of the property

While it’s true that tenants are less likely to take care of a property they don’t own, that’s not always the case. When you get great tenants, they’ll naturally take good care of their home because they want to live in a nice place. However, even the best tenants need a little help sometimes.

In your lease, provide your tenant with a list of preventive maintenance tasks you’d like them to perform as part of the lease agreement. This might include cutting back tree limbs to keep branches off the roof, maintaining the lawn, cleaning drains regularly with a substance you approve, and reporting minor issues so you can tackle them.

Perform regular inspections

Never skip performing regular inspections because you can’t rely on your tenants to tell you about every single problem. They will let things slip, but you’ll have a chance to catch those ignored issues during an inspection.

Just be sure to follow all legal obligations you have as a landlord, give your tenants proper notice beforehand, and write your inspections into the lease so there is no ambiguity around when, why, and how these inspections will be performed.

Preventive maintenance will give you peace of mind

Although there are plenty of reasons to prioritize preventive maintenance, the most important benefit is peace of mind. The last thing you want to do is stress about what you might find when your current tenant vacates.