Why Do Regular Routine Inspections?

TRANSCRIPT

I often talk about four core fundamentals of property management.

Routine inspections are the second core fundamental and essential part of looking after a rental property.

So what are the advantages?

Maintenance issues and early detection can save you money, but, of course, get onto before it causes much more damage.

For example, quite often, water leaks can be significant. When doing routine inspections, checking under sinks, checking bathrooms under the basin, around the waste pipe, the elbow, etc., make sure there are no leaks because they can be gradual but, over time, can cause major problems.

Also, check the hot water cylinders; they are not leaking.

It could be things like the leaves, grass, and debris in the gutters, which need to be cleaned to prevent them from overflowing. Water can also enter bargeboards, soffits and cause damage.

Number two is to maintain and add value. Again, when you’re doing inspections. For example you can see if the exterior windows that might need painting, and then you can plan and budget for that.

It might not need to be done tomorrow, but by planning that, you can add value to your property. You might see a garden that needs easy care, like putting stone or bark down, and you’re adding value to your property with minimal cost.

Minimising damage is number three. You can minimise damage by doing inspections quite often. When new tenants move in, they have an office chair with wheels.

You’ve got good carpet, particularly the thicker carpet, and the roller wheels on the office chair will run backwards and forward on that carpet, stretching and pulling it, permanently damaging it. When you’re doing an inspection, you can see something that could be an issue and could cause damage before it does.

Some insurance companies stipulate that someone must do inspections every three months. So it’s important to adhere to that.

Tenant safety is another one. When your tenants move in, you must check that the property is safe from health and safety measure.

But something could happen. A wooden step coming up to a deck might need a board replaced, or the decking or a decking rail might need replacing. Someone could go through and cause harm to themselves. So get on to those things.

Number six is tenant responsibilities. So you’re making sure they’re looking after the property, keeping the house and grounds reasonably clean and tidy, and also making sure that whatever’s on the tenancy agreement, the number of people that occupy the property is correct.

All those types of things make sure there are no breaches of any sort.  But tenant selection, if you’ve done that well, we talk about tenant selection in other videos; that won’t be an issue.

Maintaining tenant satisfaction.

Again, if there’s a tenant repair request, get onto it because that’s important. You can address that with them right then and there. What’s the issue? Talk about it. See if it’s a fair and reasonable request, and then decide what you will do.

And, of course, the opportunity to communicate with your tenant could be something going on in their life. They could be losing their job. They could be worried that two or three weeks from now, they may not be able to pay the rent.

So, conversing with them can be very helpful, and they will appreciate it. It will also help you because you will know what’s happening and can establish a plan.  So That’s important as well. Remember, tenants are customers.

And the last one is property compliance. It could be smoke alarms, ensuring they’re all present on the property. Meeting and checking Healthy Homes: you need to be meeting that when a tenant moves in, but just checking that it still meets those standards by, for example, guttering is loose or a downpipe has fallen off.

Well, that needs to meet the standard.

So, you must comply with health and safety, healthy homes, and smoke alarms.