Property maintenance efficiency is the act of ensuring a building is in optimum working condition. This might involve property inspections, preventive maintenance, pest control, emergency preparedness, and waste management. As a property manager, you’re probably thinking, “How can I provide my clients with all these services without eating into my profit margins?” If this is you, don’t worry; we’ve got you covered. Read on to find out how you can boost tenant and owner satisfaction with efficient property maintenance while making a profit.
7 Key elements of property maintenance efficiency
Thinking about improving the efficiency of your property management work processes? Great! Here are a few elements to keep an eye out for:
- Safety inspections
- Preventive maintenance
- Emergency preparedness
- Pest control
- Snow and ice removal
- Waste management
- Record keeping
1. Safety inspections
Tenants or owners will hire you to inspect a house if it meets all safety requirements. During this early phase, you should have a list of criteria that a house must meet. This could look something like:
- Electrical box, light switches, power outlets
- Plumbing fixtures, water heating
- Floors, walls, ceilings
- Railings, steps, stairs
Checking that all these areas are in proper working condition sets the foundation for your property maintenance. Tenants, owners or potential buyers won’t be phoning you all the time about leaking roofs and broken plumbing.
2. Preventive maintenance
For every new property your client acquires, you’ll have to conduct preventive maintenance so that small problems don’t turn into big ones. An effective way to track when a property needs a checkup is to use property management software. Good software should update you when it’s time to do preventive maintenance. You also want to create a checklist of items to look out for. This checklist could include:
- Roof maintenance
- HVAC maintenance
- Plumbing maintenance
- Electrical maintenance
- Flooring maintenance
- Wall maintenance
3. Emergency preparedness
But there’s only so much preventive maintenance you can do. Sometimes, things are outside your control. What if a tenant’s geyser bursts at 1AM in the morning. Or what if the heater has a gas leak? Do you have the necessary tools and communication systems to respond immediately? We suggest creating an emergency preparedness plan and informing your tenants about it.
4. Pest control
It’s also important to work alongside exterminators because they will use a variety of odorless chemicals to remove pests from the homes you manage. This ensures that infestations don’t get out of hand.
5. Snow and ice removal
If you live in a colder part of the world, you could even offer snow and ice removal. Although this isn’t an industry standard, it’s a good way to stand out as a property manager, especially if you’re new to the industry.
6. Waste management
If you’re managing commercial properties and your tenant is a restaurant, for example, you’ll have to work with waste management companies to transport food waste and other garbage.
7. Record keeping
There’s a good chance property owners won’t be doing much record-keeping, especially if they own a large portfolio of rental spaces.
So as a property manager, you want to keep a record of everything related to the properties you manage. This includes:
- Invoices
- Receipts for any maintenance work
- Tax records
- Copies of property ownership deeds
- Move-in and move-out inspection paperwork
With these records, you can prove the purchase of equipment and materials while avoiding legal issues with tenants and owners.
Common property management challenges
However, not everything will be smooth sailing, and you’re likely to run into several problems on your property management journey. Here are a few issues we see most businesses face:
- Limited budget
- Time constraints
- Staffing issues
- Tenant communication
Limited budget
How can you employ the best professionals and provide top service while maintaining healthy profit margins? An excellent way to do this is to build relationships with contractors and offer them consistent work in return for a reduction in rates. Everyone walks away happy because your contractors receive more work, and you won’t have to sacrifice profit margins or service quality.
Time constraints
With all the admin work and maintenance requests, it can be difficult to keep up and make time for your personal life.
Fortunately, you can save hours per day when you utilize property management software. It manages everything under one digital roof, giving you complete control over your business.
Staffing issues
Finding quality staff you can rely on may seem impossible in the early hiring stages. You’ll have to sift through hundreds of applications, but with patience and some recruitment best practices, you should be able to find reliable employees.
Tenant communication
We noticed that tenant communication isn’t the top priority of most property managers. However, proper communication is key to a healthy and long-lasting tenant-manager relationship.
If you find that you don’t have the time, consider property management software, as it allows you to automate and personalize communication at the same time.
SiteCapture – the solution to all your challenges
With SiteCapture, you can manage all your properties within one application. This gives you a bird’s eye view of your entire business. If there are issues, you can identify them quickly and monitor them until they are solved.
If you want to share photos with contractors and other team members, simply head over to the SiteCapture mobile app, snap a few pictures, and you’re good to go. Your entire team will be able to access it, allowing you to solve maintenance problems as soon as possible.
When you’re working with new tenants or owners and need to complete property inspections, use SiteCapture’s customizable templates to save hours of precious time and eliminating the need to create new inspection reports from scratch.
Improve property maintenance efficiency with SiteCapture
As a property manager, emphasizing property maintenance efficiency is a must because it keeps tenants and owners happy while establishing your name as an industry leader. So if you’re thinking about improving property maintenance efficiency, try SiteCapture.
SiteCapture is tailored around the needs of property managers, streamlining everything from initial inspections to customized maintenance requests. This allows you to provide the best possible service to your tenants and owners while maintaining profit margins. Sign up for a free SiteCapture trial today!
