What To Look For In A Property Maintenance Company

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An old saying goes: “People who represent themselves in court have fools for clients.” Like jurisprudence, certain aspects of residential property maintenance are also best left to those who have a particular understanding of the nuances. Anyone who claims to do it all is probably leaving something undone. For this reason, smart landlords outsource. To help you find the right people to care for your investments, here’s what to look for in a property maintenance company.

Reputation

Once you’re convinced the range of services a company offers will cover your needs, do some digging into their background to get an idea of the nature of its reputation. Run an internet search for the company’s name. Odds are they’ll come up on business review sites like Yelp and Angie’s List. You should also check with the Better Business Bureau to see if the company is prone to attracting complaints.

Verifiable References

Any company bidding for the contract to maintain your property should be capable of providing references so you can talk to people who have worked with them previously. Some of the key details you need to explore are timeliness, adherence to budget and the professionalism of their appearance, conduct and services.

You also want to ascertain how well they integrate themselves into the fabric of the property. Do they fit with the character of the environment, or is their presence a disruption? Emergencies tend to ignore the clock — will you get amiable service 24/7/365? Good residential property management companies who also offer maintenance services like Onerent understand the importance of flexibility.

Do they provide regular status reports? Do you learn of maintenance needs right away? The maintenance team should inform you of developing problems long before your tenants notice them.

With due respect to all of the above, perhaps the single most important factor is the quality of the company’s work. Does the company  keep to a preventive maintenance schedule? Does it get repairs right the first time, or do workers have to make several trips — resulting in multiple inconveniences for your tenants?

Cost

How does the company’s management fee compare to other companies you’re considering? Is it higher or way lower? If it’s at either of those extremes, you’ll probably want to consider a different organization. Because costs are largely the same, most quotes should be within dollars of one another. Too low means the company will likely cut corners to live with the bid. Too high means it’s overcharging clients.

Insurance/Licenses/Bonding

Ask for proof of insurance. The contract should specify that adequate insurance coverage is to be maintained for the duration of the contract. The company should have liability insurance to cover any property damage they might inflict during the course of providing their services. It should also carry worker’s compensation insurance for its employees. If the company fails to provide coverage and someone is injured, you could be left liable.

Licensing requirements for your city and/or state should also be met and all required licenses should be current. Because licensing and training go hand-in-hand, if the company is licensed, its employees are also likely to be well trained.

In many cases, maintenance people will be in your tenants’ homes unsupervised. Insisting upon bonded personnel adds a layer of protection should tenants claim valuables go missing after a service call.

While these are among the primary factors when considering what to look for in a property maintenance company, a number of other factors will vary according to the specific needs of your property. Still though, if you cover these basics, you’ll be well on your way toward hiring a solid property maintenance company.

Hope you enjoyed this,

Chase

Four Steps to Take Care of Business Early This Year

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New Year, Old Business: Tying Up Loose Ends

In the time it has taken to run your business and get it going, you have learned that keeping it on track doesn’t stop Friday at 5 o’ clock, it’s a 24/7 process, unlike what some other people think.

Though 2016 has come to an end, you probably still have 2016 business to settle, and before the new year’s business gets too crazy busy, you will need to take time out to tie up last year’s loose ends.

 

Doing It Right: How to Get Your Business in Order

When you’re hit with new business in your inbox every morning, it’s understandable that you would think that should take priority, so you put other, smaller projects on the back burner. Doing things this way however can come back to bite you. If you aren’t consistent in your communication, document filings, or finance books, you’re more likely to make a costly mistake, one so big that it could put your business in jeopardy.

 

Here are four tips to follow to keep your business from falling behind, or worse, shutting down.

  1. Organize Your Paper and Electronic Files. According to a study conducted by the National Association of Professional Organizations, it takes the average employee over four hours a week to find the document they need to aid them in a meeting, project or other work. That is equal to half a work day. This can affect your work with your staff and clients, ultimately leading to terminated contracts and lost business.Keep organized paper files (filed by topic and color) in a file cabinet accessible to employees who need to reference the information regularly. For your company’s electronic files, set up a cloud storage account to save electronic documents and share easily with staff. This will cut down on confusing email chains and lost attachments.
  1. Meet with a Tax Advisor Before the Filing Deadline. Tax season is largely forgotten until it arrives again in the new year, sending you into a frenzy to tally your books, look over your receipts and double and triple-check that all of your employees’ addresses are current.Set up an annual appointment early in the year with a tax advisor to discuss your company’s finances and where you qualify for breaks. If you’re company is expanding, Small Business Trends suggests protecting your personal assets through a formal business structure.
  1. Send Personalized and Detailed Employee and Client Newsletters. Sending emails back and forth and having regularly scheduled meetings with clients and staff isn’t enough; things can get lost in translation.So that each employee and client knows their standing, such as with project deadlines, pricing agreements and pending action plans, write a newsletter detailing where you and the client or employee are at in each stage of the process. By keeping all parties involved up-to-date there is less chance of something falling in the cracks.
  1. Update the Company’s Insurance Account. State law requires that small businesses carry a certain amount of insurance. Speak with your small business insurance agent to make sure your policy meets your state’s requirements and protects your business if a client should sue, and employee get hurt or your equipment stolen or damaged. Updating your insurance account will also help you to see if the underwriting has changed, affecting the premium. If you think your current insurance company is price gauging you, visit comparison websites like CoverHound to find affordable business insurance quotes that will protect your company and keep money in the bank.To keep your business thriving, your employees and clients need to be happy. When you take care of business, you are giving them reason to trust you. There is no better business than one with a loyal staff and customer base.

Start off the beginning of the year with all options considered!

Chase

2017 New Year Resolutions

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Today is the last day of 2016!.

It’s time to communication the new year goals I am going to pursue in 2017.

Small City Fireworks

Small City Fireworks

1.) Ignore unwritten rules that can be ignored.  I’ve found that most of the unwritten rules we learned through key people and media channels do not really apply to me.  Instead I will be as I always am… respectful to others, considerate and helpful when it’s not to my detriment but I will also flow into whatever I think would be interesting or enhance my knowledge and understanding of life.  For me this is big, and to be honest I’ve already started this as a POF (proof of concept) for half of the 2016 year.  I want to expand on this and push more deeply onward this new year.

2.) I will broaden my reach out to new people and groups without as many predetermined filters.  These past years, I’ve been very impressed by the types and quality of people I have met that I would not normally associate with.  Normally, I’ve ignored people who I consider a better class than in which I was raised.  In the recent past, some friends told me that I come across as “stuck up”, when in reality I was just intimidated by those (both females and males) that I considered who were better than I was.  My fear was that I couldn’t relate and they would have a negative impression of me.  While the intensity of fear has decreased, I still feel uncomfortable with such interactions, but I won’t shy away from them as I had in the past.

3.) I would like to start a few new things that can help both me and others!  I mentioned this in my Year End Financial Results 2016 article.  I don’t know the entire scope of this yet, but I have the materials and knowledge (or desire to learn the tools) that I need to pursue opportunities that I didn’t have in the past.  The most rewarding for me would be to create something what would have the broadest reach and could create something that could benefit as many as possible.

So, these are my three goals for 2017, short but not simple…

Have a great new year!

Don

 

Christmas Tipping 2016

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Christmas Tipping

In prior years around Christmas, I normally tip waitresses (and even some waiters) extra money at the beginning of November through the end of December.  There were times when my tip was as large as my total bill.  Looking back I’m curious if the servers may have thought that I was paying my bill that way and not leaving a tip all…

Merry Christmas

The problem with leaving 5 to 10 dollar tips is that it’s not that impactful and probably gets absorbed by the servers without providing much benefit for the waitress or waiter, so this year as an experiment, I tried a different approach.  To be honest, it grew out of the desire to tip a Subway worker $50 because she reminded me so much of my daughter and I really enjoyed chatting with her.  Ironically, before I was able to tip her, she had quit working at the sub shop but I decided to continue with what I have planned anyway.

So instead of giving one girl (she was seventeen) $50, I gave my next two favorites employees at the sub shop each $20.  The seemed happy at the time and I explained how I’m kind of “passing it forward” from when I was a kid (which really did happen when I was a bag-boy at a grocery store).  I still kept the fifty dollars in my wallet though, just in case I might run into the girl who reminded me so much of my daughter.  But then at a different restaurant I frequent, one of the females (she’s at least in her 20s) was ripped off when she got a new cellphone and plan.  This touched me because she was a nice young woman and seemed to be taking it hard.  So after leaving I came back to that restaurant and told her my story about being tipped as a kid at Christmas and the I was “passing it forward” concept to her.  While it didn’t cover the amount she got ripped off by the unscrupulous cell phone company employee, it seemed to cheer her up a bit.

This year is odd in that in the past I’ve mainly given out extra money to waitresses, but this year I actually didn’t tip any extra money to waitresses other than the standard 20 to 25%.  The reason I didn’t is because mainly I’ve been on a special diet where I mostly eat at Subway instead of a sit-down restaurant.  This was an expensive year, so I’m glad that I was still able to do this at the level that I did it.

My giving goal n 2017 is to give out an even $100!

Hope you enjoyed this new Christmas tradition that I’ve been doing for the past 4 or 5 years!

Don