Properties such as your home need regular maintenance checks to find and fix problems before it gets out of hand and poses serious problems to the people living inside the property. Now, regularly doing a house maintenance check and repairs become even more important if you are a landlord since there’s a need to ensure that tenants are safe and do not encounter any troubles with any part of the house, especially in the electrical, plumbing, broken fixtures, etc.
To put it simply, landlords must quick to act to problems that require fixing. Whether they’ll do it personally or hire the service of an expert, fast action must be done. Hiring professionals to get home repairs done can be costly and could hurt your budget big time even though the majority of these repairs could be done by you. Always remember that landlords have responsibilities to their tenants which they need to fulfill – and that includes fixing all types of troubles that require home repairs. To know more about landlord responsibilities, check out this article written by Erin Eberle in The Balance below.
Landlord’s Responsibilities to Their Tenants
As a landlord, you have a responsibility to your tenants. While you expect them to pay rent each month, when they signed that lease, they have certain expectations of you as well. Here are some of the responsibilities a landlord has to their tenants.
Maintain a Safe Environment
A tenant expects their home to be safe. As a landlord, you are responsible for providing your tenants with a secure place to reside.
Your tenants should feel safe inside of their apartment. It means you should ensure all doors and windows are properly secured and have appropriate working locks. All front doors should, at the very least, have a deadbolt lock.
You should also make sure no one else has a key to the tenant’s apartment. You should always change the locks once a prior tenant moves out and before a new one moves in. If you are going to give keys to realtors to show your vacancies, make sure to use a generic lock and then replace the lock prior to your tenant moving in.
Quiet Environment
A tenant expects their home to be quiet. Again, when screening tenants, you should look for those you believe will be respectful of others. You should also have a strict quiet hours policy in your property that all tenants must consent to – for example no loud noises, music, or otherwise, after 10 pm.
Clean Environment
A tenant expects their home to be clean. While you are not responsible for washing a tenant’s dishes or picking their clothes up off the floor, as a landlord, you do have certain responsibilities to maintain the property as a whole.
You need to make sure trash is taken out, either by yourself or through an agreement with a tenant or superintendent. You need to make sure common areas are well cared for; that they are free from garbage, mopped or vacuumed on a set schedule, and have working light bulbs. You must maintain outdoor areas in the same manner; make sure the grass is cut, outdoor lights are functioning, and the yard is free from debris.
In a nutshell, tenants also have certain expectations from their landlords – and these expectations must be met at all costs; the same way tenants pay their rents on time and follow the rules and regulations landlords are enforcing in their properties. At all costs, landlords must fulfill all their responsibilities for the success and failure of the property rental business.
As mentioned at the start of this article, part of the landlords’ basic responsibility is to know basic to advance home repairs. Chris Deziel of Landlordology enumerated the home repair tasks every landlord should learn how to do for them to provide a quick fix to common household problems. Check the article below and start learning all of them.
Home Repair Tasks Every Landlord Should Learn How To Do
A lot can go wrong with a rental unit, but a landlord with the skills, knowledge, and tools to handle basic repair tasks can save lots of money.
If you aren’t interested in doing maintenance and repair work yourself, because you prefer a hands-off approach, that’s great. But you’ll need an extensive contact list of home repair pros. If you want to do this work yourself, you’ve reduced your dependency on third-party schedules and can potentially save significant amounts of money.
Note: Even if you’re in a position to do repairs yourself, you shouldn’t expect to handle all of them. Certain repair tasks, such as those related to heating and cooling systems, require professional certification, while others, such as changing a shower valve, call for specialized skills. That still leaves a fairly long list of basic repair tasks you can do yourself. Here are eight of the most common ones.
Basic plumbing
Faucet leaks waste water and stain sinks and tubs, and they’re usually easy to fix. In most cases, it’s simply a matter of disassembling the faucet and replacing a worn gasket or washer. For this simple job, expect to pay a plumber at least $125 for a service call. You can usually find instructions for completing the job on the manufacturer’s website. After you’ve done this task once or twice, you’ll be an expert.
Toilet and drain clogs have a way of happening at inconvenient times when plumbers aren’t available. To avoid leaving your tenants in the lurch, learn how to snake a drain, disassemble a P-trap, and properly plunge a toilet. And yes, there is a proper way to do it.
Know how to shut off the water
Plumbing leaks can cause major headaches. While you may not be able to fix every one by yourself, you should know the locations of the water shut-offs so you can turn off the water to prevent further damage until a plumber comes.Electrical switch and outlet repair
Dimming or flickering lights and short circuits are systemic problems that require professional attention, but when a switch or outlet doesn’t work properly, you can often restore power to that device by tightening a loose connection or replacing the device. This is a 10- to 20-minute job. Just make sure to turn off the breaker controlling the circuit before you remove the outlet or switch cover.
Appliance troubleshooting
Problems with refrigerators, washing machines, dryers, and other major appliances often boil down to a simple cause, such as a blown fuse, broken drive belt, or internal obstruction. While there’s no formula that works for every situation, many appliance repairs are easier than you expect. You’ll save the cost of the repair as well as that of the service call.
If you don’t have the user’s manual, chances are good that you’ll find a YouTube video to guide you through the process. The most difficult part of appliance repair is often moving the machine into a position that allows access to the damaged component. You may need help for this.
As mentioned, landlords with home repair skills can save lots of money as well as allowing them to do quick actions to small property problems. Besides, there are lots of ways to learn these skills such as watching videos on YouTube, or asking friends to teach you home repair tasks, etc. Knowing these basic repair jobs could be one of the biggest factors that lead to you becoming a successful landlord.
If these home repair tasks are too difficult for you to learn for whatever reason as a landlord, there are several DIY home repair tips every landlord can learn and do. Sarah Yang and Sienna Livermore of House Beautiful listed some of the most common home repairs every person can do-it-yourself. Check them out below.
Common Home Repairs You Can Actually Do Yourself
Whenever anything goes wrong in your house, you might be inclined to call in reinforcement, but that’s not always necessary. There are plenty of common home repairs you can actually handle yourself, you just have to know where to start. From unclogging your sink to installing a smoke detector, we’ve got everything you need to DIY your house repairs.
Clogged Sink + Leaky Faucet
Forget calling a plumber—you can totally fix minor sink problems on your own. Even better? You probably have the tools needed—such as a plunger, wrench, and screwdriver—at home already.Scratched & Creaky Floorboards
No matter how lightly you tread, there will be unexpected wear and tear on your floorboards. But you don’t need to call an expert to fix it for you.Holes or Cracks in Plaster
It isn’t all doom and gloom. Instead of painting over the cracks, fill them properly. It definitely requires more time and elbow grease now, but it’ll save you a ton of work later.
Fixing clogged sink, leaky faucet and fixing wall holes are some of the easiest home repair tasks that can be done almost by everyone, especially landlords who have the responsibility to their tenants. It is much better to know the basics first before even trying to learn the most complicated ones. Tenants prefer properties that are well-maintained and are in good condition – and are willing to pay a price for properties that are in the best condition.
Property rentals and becoming a landlord is a profitable real estate investment if done the right way and landlords do their responsibilities to their tenants and acting promptly on the troubles in the property. If you think you have what it takes to become a landlord and start investing in real estate property rentals, Dependable Homebuyers can help you find good deals on homes for sale in Baltimore, Nashville, San Antonio, and Washington D.C areas.
To know more, visit our website https://www.dependablehomebuyers.com/ and we are more than willing to help you on your journey of becoming a successful landlord.
Dependable Homebuyers
1402 Belt St, Baltimore, MD 21230
(443) 266-6247