How to Make Maintaining Your Investment Properties Easier
9 December, 2009
(6) Comment
Who mows the grass and shovels the snow at your investment properties? Maybe you do. Eventually you may want to ask one of your tenants to take care of the work. Here are some tips on how to make this a winning situation for you and your tenant:
- Find a tenant that takes pride in where they live. Someone that is often just making their rent payment is a good candidate. They will appreciate the extra money.
- Do NOT reduce their rent. Keep the rent at the standard amount and instead, pay them by check for the work they do. This allows you to stop paying them if they stop doing the work. If you discount the rent and they stop doing the work, you would need to have them sign an updated lease for the non-discounted amount which may be impossible to do (resulting in you getting less rent than expected and needing to find a new caretaker-or do it yourself). The only exception is for single family houses where yard maintenance (grass & snow) are part of the original rent amount.
- I have seen some landlords pay as much as $100 per month for simply mowing the grass and shoveling, both of which take less than 2 hours per month. I normally pay the caretaker $25-30 per month all year. Again, I do not pay anything at single family houses.
- You should provide all tools (shovel & mower), gas, and salt for the tenants. This is only fair considering what you are paying them.
- Never give your caretaker a set of keys to the apartments unless they perform maintenance duties and/or leasing as you can open yourself up to liability if they steal or break something or assault someone. If your caretaker has access to apartment keys, you should make sure you have run full employment-type screening on them (including background checks). Consider having them bonded for additional liability protection.
- You may need to provide your tenant a 1099-MISC form as this caretaker work could be considered income. Check with your accountant.
Finding a caretaker can lower your time requirements at your properties. Done correctly it can be a great situation for you, your tenant, and your building.
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Hi,
I own a few rental properties around Lakeville, I was wondering what your view is on not watering the grass on rental properties. I found I can same money, like this past summer when it was really hot & dry for a long periods, however it did get very dry and looked dead (saved me from mowing though!)…your thoughts on not watering grass and do you do it yourself?
thanks,
-Jeff
You are right on. I never water any of my investment property lawns during the summer. In fact, many of my buildings don’t even have outside spickets.
My building in Crystal is like yours, I don’t think I cut the grass there for the entire month of July. Just goes brown.
Alternatively, when I get ready to sell the property, I plan to have that lawn and landscaping looking like my own personal house!!
Scott,
I too do not water any of the lawns. Really can be frustrating however when tenants agree per the lease to take care of the lawn and snow and then do a horrible job. I have found as a landlord you need to get used to the fact that you can’t expect people to take care of the lawn, etc with the same level of detail that you as the owner may.
I would not want to pay a tenant to mow the lawn or do maintenance. Creating an employee relationship creates liability and your insurance carrier probably would not be happy. Let you tenant injure theirself while performing a service for the property and you have a nice little law suit.
I have also found it hard to expect the tenants to take care of the lawn and shovel snow. I also agree with Mitch; employee relationships with tenants is risky business.
Interesting post. You can often tell from the curb which landlords maintain their investment properties and which do not. As both an investor and a real estate agent, I am actually concerned more about the “deferred maintenance” of all the little items than the major ones. The dozens of minor repairs can be more concerning than the major repairs as it makes me question what else is wrong with this property that I can’t see.
Tina