Owning rental property in San Diego requires a strong and responsive maintenance plan that’s focused on three things:
- Protecting the value and condition of your investment.
- Avoiding expensive emergencies or deferred maintenance.
- Ensuring tenants are satisfied and supported.
Maintaining your property to the highest standards will help you attract and retain well-qualified tenants, and it will also you have a healthy, profitable investment over the long term. To maintain your property effectively, you’ll need proactive and preventative strategies, smart property management, and a fantastic team of vendors, contractors, and service providers.
Let’s talk about how we ensure excellence in property upkeep at Ann Tasias & Associates, where maintaining and improving your San Diego investment property is a priority for our team.
Prioritize Preventative and Seasonal Maintenance
Prevention is always better than racing to fix an emergency problem, and when you focus on preventative maintenance strategies, there are fewer emergencies that require an immediate response. When it comes to maintaining your San Diego rental property proactively, we recommend the following:
- Adopt a Seasonal Maintenance Schedule
Align property maintenance with San Diego’s seasons. No, we don’t have dramatic seasonal changes, and there won’t be any snow to let us know it’s winter. But you can still be well-prepared for the occasional rain during winter months, and taking protective measures against UV damage during sunny periods is good for your property.
- Invest in Quality Materials
When repairing or upgrading your property, choose materials that can withstand different weather conditions such as heat, moisture, and temperatures that drop. Stainless steel, for instance, is more resistant to rust and can be a wise choice for outdoor fixtures.
San Diego has a generally mild and pleasant climate. However, there’s also a coastal element that has to be taken into consideration when you’re keeping your property in excellent condition. The salty air can cause more wear and tear and even corrode metal fixtures and fittings, and that year round sunshine that we love so much can also cause some accelerated sun damage. Consistent inspections are preventative services are necessary to ensure your property and its systems and functions are not deteriorating too rapidly.
Pay attention to weatherproofing. You’ll want to be sure your property is resistant to sun and salt so you can save yourself from costly repairs later. By conducting regular inspections, you can catch potential issues early, preventing larger problems and demonstrating to tenants that you care about their living conditions. And when you make responsive repairs, you’re showing tenants that you’re quick to manage their maintenance issues. This can improve retention rates and protect your property from long-term damage.
Vendor and Contractor Partnerships
The professionals who respond to minor and major maintenance needs will have a huge impact on keeping your investment in excellent condition. A reliable and preferred network of vendors is crucial to your success.
Make sure you’re screening your vendors carefully. You want to be sure they’re licensed and insured, and they should also have a proven reputation for quality work and reliability. It’s more difficult to find good vendors today because they’re busy. The work they do is also more expensive. Which means your relationships with them are more important than ever.
Cultivating positive relationships with your go-to team of plumbers, electricians, HVAC techs, roofers, and general handymen will keep them dedicated to maintaining your property, and you’ll likely get faster responses when emergencies arise.
Educate and Partner with Tenants
Maintaining your property effectively requires not only good vendor partnerships, but tenant participation as well. Your tenants are living in the property; they’re using the appliances and the electricity and the water every day. They’re your first line of defense against maintenance issues. Empower them by providing as much information as possible on how they can contribute to maintaining the property.
Share your expectations when they sign the lease so they’ll understand if you want them to change the air filters, keep up with the lawn care, or clean out the dryer lint. When they move in, you can create instruction sheets or videos that tell them how to reset the garbage disposal, where to find the water shut-off valve, and on which days the trash is collected.
It’s also important to facilitate easy maintenance reporting. Reinforce to your tenants that you want to know immediately when something breaks – even if it’s minor. Use online tools to streamline maintenance requests, making it simple and quick for tenants to report issues in writing. When you have this kind of documentation around your maintenance issues, it’s much easier to plan and budget for the future.
Always follow up once a vendor has insisted and maintenance has been completed. You want to know that your tenant is satisfied with how the problem was resolved.
Leverage Technology for Better Maintenance in San Diego Rental Properties
As San Diego property managers, we use technology to streamline maintenance requests, gather information from inspections, and communicate with owners, tenants, and vendors. There’s a lot of smart home technology that can help you monitor your property and automate maintenance tasks. For example, smart sensors can detect leaks and temperature changes. This alerts you to potential problems in real time, allowing you act fast and mitigate potential disasters that will be more expensive and complicated to fix. You can also integrate some tech solutions into your maintenance plan that can help you organize and prioritize maintenance schedules, keeping you on top of the most essential tasks.
Maintaining your rental property effectively requires a solid approach to emergency, routine, and preventative maintenance. There are also ongoing improvements and upgrades that will be needed, because not only do you want to maintain your property, but you also want to keep it modern and consistent with the market. This is the best way to attract and retain good tenants and to keep your rental values rising.
Let’s talk about how to protect the condition of your San Diego investment property, increase its value, and keep your residents satisfied and renewing their lease agreements. Maintenance drives all of those goals.
Contact us at Ann Tasias & Associates for any of your maintenance questions and for all of your San Diego property management needs. We manage investment homes in San Diego County and the I15 corridor including Poway, Rancho Bernardo, Scripps Ranch, Rancho Penasquitos, and Mira Mesa.
