Should you let your owners/tenants handle repairs?
(photo: cheezburger.com)
Should you let your owners/tenants handle repairs?
http://www.biggerpockets.com/renewsblog/2014/05/29/landlord-manual-labor-poll/
This is an age-old question in Property Management-land, of course- and it typically comes in one of these scenarios:
1) You're managing a single family home, townhome or condo for an owner who tells you he's "really handy" and has "handled things like that before", or
2) You have a tenant living in a single family home, townhome or condo you manage who tells you he's "really handy" and has "handled things like that before"
I'll answer the question from my perspective at the end of this, but I really found some other folks' answers to the question a bit interesting. The site this came from, Bigger Pockets, is a great source of information- and it's clear Joe Landlord is a good bit better educated than they once were thanks to the world of information out there for them to absorb to go along with the ol' on-the-job learnin' we all do as well.
One guy answered that it was good for a landlord to handle repairs if they were broke. Another put it a bit more mildly and said that they should handle them unless they had deep pockets. A good number hit on the knowledge side of things as well- understanding that a tenant-occupied property isn't a toy of some sort and that "practicing" will surely make things worse.
I have owners who wish to handle their own repairs versus me sending a professional to take care of the issue at hand. That's not good for a few reasons- including but not limited to the following: owners may/may not be competent enough to handle the job, quality of the owners' work might be sub-par and/or hazardous to the tenant (see photo above) or owner may procrastinate in handling the job for some reason or another and expose both you and himself to claims from the tenant.
Tenants often ask whether they can handle repairs or "make-ready" work in advance of a move-in in return for reduced rent- and often ask to handle things like painting by themselves. Risk and liability rear their heads here as well. Sure, things could turn out well if a tenant handles something prior to move-in and things go perfectly- but what if he gets his Scaffold Magic goin' on (see below) and snaps his neck?
(photo: cheezburger.com)
As you may have guessed by now, my answer to the question would be a pretty solid "no". Landlordin' is for landlords, managing properties is for property managers and makin' repairs is for those professionals that work their particular trade every day. Using them isn't always cheap (and as some alluded to in their answers here, there are some rascally property managers out there as in any business)- but more often than not, the end result is less risk and more sleep for all.
Should you let your owners/tenants handle repairs?
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