The Landlord Lens - Exterior Maintenance Tips with Tim Emery

Episode Date: March 19, 2024

In this episode of Be A Better Landlord, Krista is joined by guest Tim Emery, Co-Owner of Invest Success, who shares invaluable insights into exterior maintenance for landlords and property managers.Join Tim as he guides you through the key tasks for keeping your rental properties' exteriors in tip-top shape and your tenants happy. From regular inspections to fixing common problems, Tim offers practical tips that can save you time, money, and aggravation in the long run.Learn more about Tim Emery & Invest Success: https://invest-success.com

I'm Krista and this is Tim Emery and we're here to help you be a better landlord. Now Tim, we have had the pleasure of having you on the show before. It's been wonderful. Thank you. Happy to have you back. And today we're looking to talk about exterior maintenance tasks. Before we've touched on some interior tasks that landlords can take on to really bulletproof their rentals. And now we're at the outside of the property.

So my first question to you is, do you see that there's any mindset shift that landlords have comparing interior maintenance tasks with exterior maintenance tasks? When you're looking at the exterior, you're trying to protect your property and you're trying to protect the building that these people are in. So you really need to take a proactive response to stuff. And if you don't take that proactive response, your property's going to fail.

And you're in the quicker, and when you don't have things done outside, it deteriorates quicker because of the element, Because Mother Nature does its best to destroy all our stuff. So that's really important to take care of those elements. Spoken like someone who has a story about Mother Nature destroying their property. Can you tell us a little bit about that? You know, I've got hundreds of stories. Sorry.

But one of the main things that we've really got to think about is water. And even though, you know, we're coming to you from Denver, we don't get a lot of water, but we get snow and rain and we get enough. we get enough. But when you have water issues, they're usually from bad gutters or bad drainage. And if you have bad drainage next to your property, water will deteriorate things really quickly. I've worked for a structural repair engineering company, and that's what we found. And most of the time, when I find issues with properties, it's usually water damage. So making sure that your gutters are moving water away from your house, making sure there's no puddling, bringing in extra dirt so that the water runs away from the house. Really important things.

Moving trees and shrubs away from the base of your house is really important. Trimming trees, get those trees away from the house. Every inspector, if you go buy a new property, every inspector will tell you trees next to houses are bad. get those away. I know ivy, people love to grow ivy on their houses and they'd love to grow up the brick walls. It's so damaging to your property and it will ruin your property faster than anything. I know it looks great. And if you go back to England or something, they're all like that, but get that Ivy away.

But water is really most important thing to get away from your foundation. Wow. Yeah. I think that's such an interesting point. Can you tell me more about adding dirt and how that might help? I mean, logically, I get it, but I'd love a walkthrough. And basically, you know, building up a ramp away from your house. You know, water travels easily downhill and gravity pulls water downhill.

And if water can't get next to your house and is pushed away, then that's really important. So move the water away, bring dirt up next to the house, compact it some, and then have it pushed away. Love it. Okay. Those are excellent tips. I'm hearing keep those trees away. Don't try growing an ivy extravaganza on the side of your rental. What other tips or tricks would you recommend to people that they can take on to make sure that their rental lasts for as long as possible? So yeah. So if you have single family residents that have, you know, sprinkler systems, putting in sprinkler heads at the bottom of the line that are self-draining is really. a good way to do it. You got to make sure you blow out your sprinklers at the end of the year. So, and your tenants aren't going to do it. Tenants don't like to run water on their sprinkler systems because it costs them money also. Because most of the time, water is a tenant responsibility.

So if you have good grass or want good grass, maybe you want to pay for that water bill during the summer. Something like that. There are two theories on grass and rocks. There are a lot of landlords that like to put rocks in the front yard and just no grass. The problem is that you have weeds come up through the barriers and stuff like that, so that's the one issue. So you've got to go spray. Another issue that we had ran into was we would have broken windows a lot. So kids would pick up rocks and throw them at trees and throw them at houses and break windows.

So we mainly stayed with grass or mulch. And mulch is a great way to take care of a yard as well. But again, you do have to make sure you maintain it and take care of the weeds every year. Because otherwise, you will get notices from the city that say you've got a weed problem. You have to go take care of it. And if you don't, we're going to do it and we're going to charge you $75 an hour to do it, where you could do it for free for yourself or whatever your time is worth and or hire somebody to do it for you.

Beautiful. Yeah, definitely want to at least have the option to not just have the city kind of swoop in and take action. Yes. Okay. Now, here's a topic that I know we enjoy a lot here in Colorado, snow removal. How do you treat that when it comes to a rental? Again, I'm not a lawyer, but get it in your lease. Make sure the tenants understand the rules that your municipality has around that.

You know, every municipality is a little bit different, but make sure they shovel it. Then also one thing that hopefully all your tenants or all your owners know, you got to have your tenants have landlord or property insurance, renters insurance. Because that will help if something happens if somebody slips on the ice because they didn't do it. Now you also have to realize that some of your tenants may not be able to shovel. If you have an 80-year-old tenant, she can't shovel, so you have to figure out how to get that driveway shovel. and it's really important because the longer that the snow stays there, the worse it is. So figure that out with your tenants and your properties and with your owners to figure out how that snow removal works. If you have a large building or maybe a six unit or eight unit, you've got to hire somebody to do it.

Do not, do not hire one of your tenants to do that maintenance. all right it is a it is a slippery slope because the second they don't do it you're liable and they want expect rent to be discounted and they can tell you oh i shoveled it well they shoveled it the night before but they didn't shovel it after two more and just came on do not let your tenants do any of that type of maintenance really important i learned that the hard way six times over all right so don't be Do it. Great tip. Do not do it. Tim is very serious. Okay, I think those are excellent tips. Can you tell me a little bit about the impact that a good exterior has on the rental, but also your relationship with your tenant. Do you see any impacts there? Yeah, you know, the exterior really helps when the tenant's coming up to rent the house. And if the tenant is a good hire end tenant, They'll protect the house, and they understand that. It's all about why it's said.

If they're walking into a nice place, hopefully they're going to take care of it nicer. So make it look good. Make it look clean, clean up the yard, everything. Otherwise, the nicer tenant is not going to probably rent the house, and then you've got a tenant that may not be as good as the other tenant. So good looking properties and it's just like selling a house. The property, the curb appeal is so important in our rental property.

Plus, your neighbors will take care of it better. The local code enforcement people will let a slide. If it looks good, they won't even bother you. So really strive to make that front yard look really nice. Yeah, it sounds like the exterior has so much more of an impact on the potential relationship with a great tenant, the city at large, that it really should be at the forefront, especially when you're trying to fill that vacancy. Yes.

Are there any other maintenance tricks, hacks, tips that you'd like to share with the audience? For the exterior. For the exterior, yes. I mean, the main ones we start talking about, trim your trees, mulch is really good, making sure that front looks clean. getting not having trees or shrubs right up against the exterior and making sure that the gutters and the downspouts are moving water away from the house one thing that always happens is kids people knock down that extension gutter make sure those things get away from the house

it's really important that's a really great tip when it comes to the gutters what's the best way for a landlord to make sure that everything is moving like it should. Should they visit in the rain? A lot of times you can tell. It doesn't matter when you're there. You know, if I could get all my back when I was doing all those rental properties, if I could get everybody, if we could bury them and then move them away, that would be ideal. So everything's underground. So we're not worried about that. That would be one of the key benefits to doing it. Otherwise, when you're there and you see things, fix it, fix it then, carry a little, you know, a couple little tools in your toolbox so that you can fix those gutters and remind the tenants

that this needs to happen and advise them to have their kids not break these things and not step on these things. Yeah, absolutely. I think a little bit of education might go a long way here if you tell the tenant, hey, I need you to make sure this isn't broken. And here's why. It's actually for your benefit as well. I feel like they'll be more apt to do it. Yes. Wonderful. Tim, thank you so much for your time and expertise. Really, it's just been excellent having these different conversations with you.

If you'd like to find more of Tim's wisdom and cash in, check out Invest Success. We will have all of the information down below so you can check them out. They do seminars. They have local meetups here in Denver. And you can learn about everything from buy and holds to fix. and flips and anything that your heart desires. Comment down below your favorite and least favorite exterior maintenance task, and don't forget to subscribe. TurboTenant is the all-in-one platform for landlords to manage their rental properties.

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