The Landlord Lens - Interior Maintenance Tips with Tim Emery

Episode Date: March 12, 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 interior maintenance for landlords and property managers.Join Tim as he takes you through a comprehensive walkthrough of essential maintenance tasks to keep your rental properties in top shape and your tenants happy. From routine inspections to troubleshooting common issues, Tim provides practical advice that can save you time, money, and headaches in the long run.Learn more about Tim Emery & Invest Success: https://invest-success.com

I'm Krista and this is Tim Emery. We're here to help you be a better landlord. Friend of the show, Tim Emery, local real estate investor and extraordinary network builder. So happy to have you here again. Thank you. So what really boggled my mind, beyond your expertise in all of the different realms of real estate, you have so much knowledge about bulletproofing rentals, specifically taking on tasks so that a rental can really live long term. right? What kind of mindset should landlords have when they approach their rentals to make sure that it lasts for a while?

Well, you know, landlording and owning rental properties is really the best way to get rich slowly. And I usually say get rich slowly and people think 50, 40, 50 years. And the reality is it's probably about 10 years, 5 to 10 years. If you do it right, if you have a long-term vision of your rentals, you're going to be, fine. If you're doing this for a short-term cash or short-term gain, it's not going to be there. Mindsit should be keep your tenants happy. Keep, do things, make sure they get things done, communicate with them so they know what's going on in their properties. The biggest problem for renters is when something gets thrown at them that they're not ready for.

Because on an everyday basis, they're not thinking about their house. They paid their rent on, hopefully the first of the month, and that's all they want to think about. They don't want to think about anything else. So really having that mindset of having happy tenants is really important. Happy tenants leads to a good long-term business. That's something that we really believe in as well. Can you tell me about some tasks that you would recommend people undertake to reduce friction with their renters and bulletproof their business? Yeah, it really goes back to communication. If something's going to happen, if something needs to be done, you need to communicate with. your tenants. So if you're going to go do an inspection or if you're going to, if you've

got a handyman coming in or somebody to check on the fire extinguishers or something like that, notify them and make sure they understand and hear your coming and confirm with them. You know, in this day and age of text and email, just sending a text or email doesn't work if you don't hear back from them. Because then you show up and they say, oh, I didn't know anything, I didn't get the text. Well, sorry, here's the text. We texted you and we said we were coming. But that really helps the landlord-tenant relationship.

I think that's a really good point. Just confirming receipt, right? I know that some landlords advise putting that kind of language in their lease saying, hey, I would expect a response if I reach out to you. Is that a tactic you've seen done before? So I'm not a lawyer. Sure. So I can't exactly tell you what you should have in your lease.

But yeah, it's good advisable. When we were running a property management company, we had an intro letter that told people what to expect during their stay with us. And that's really important. Critical. Okay. So that communication piece, transparency, letting them know what's going to happen is crucial. Yes.

Are there any maintenance tasks that you would advise landlords take on in the interior of the rental to protect it both for tenants and from tenants? Yeah, there are a lot of things that you can do. One of my favorite tips is for bathrooms, if you have a bathroom fan, connect the light switch to the bathroom fan so it always has to go on. Tenets don't love this, but this helps recirculate the air. And if they're not used to opening up their bathroom door after they've taken a shower or something like that, it really does help. having, you know, in the lease that they have to have the smoke detectors and carbon monoxide detectors working at all times. Really important. Putting some type of flooring in that is resistant to water

and can last longer. An LVP engineered wood is really good for these properties. And that way, it's less damaging in the long run. And that's really, kind of those three things are great. Another thing is having a granite countertops. You don't have to use fancy, expensive granite, but granite's really hard to destroy. The old linoleum and formica countertops that we all used to have and we grew up with are really easy to destroy. So granite's great. And to tell you truth, when people nowadays walk into a house with a granite countertop and stainless steel appliances, they fall in love with that property. And it's really an upgrade.

And it's not much more expensive than the other stuff that we were using in the past. Wow. Those are really great tips, especially that granite piece because, you know, I've often associated it with lavish wealth. And so I can imagine if a renter is coming into a new spot, they see this countertop, they see the appliances, the nice flooring, whatever you put down. Of course, they're going to fall in love. they're going to envision themselves there.

I know that flooring tends to be a very, there are a lot of opinions about what the right type of flooring is for a rental. I heard you say, I'm going to get the acronym wrong. Is it LVP? Yeah. Beautiful. Tell us a little bit more about why that is one of your top picks. The good LVP that is water resistance, what doesn't warp as much,

water can sit on it for a little bit longer, and it tends to be more durable. Now, nothing's going to really last very long if you've got, you know, six kids and two dogs running around on it. It's just something you're going to have to deal with. But it's, that type of material does seem to last longer. Also, something funny with these tips, a lot of them tie back to moisture and to really not wanting a lot of moisture in the space. If you are concerned about moisture and mold, we do have an episode about that that you can check out down below. do you have any mold fighting tips, anything that you've seen in the business? I am not a mold expert.

In fact, I don't even profess to know what mold is because it's a mold like substance because I have not been taking a class or anything on the facts of finding mold. But when water and moisture are present, mold will grow. We had a tenant one day that they had a big window in their bathroom. They never opened the window. They also never opened their door. So they called us one day and said, we've got this black stuff growing in our bathroom.

And of course we got there, and there was some black stuff growing in their bathroom. And we asked them if they had ever opened the window and or open the bathroom door, and they said no. So we taught them how to open the door, open the window and open the door and spray mold killer on it or mold like substance killer. And it got better. But you got to get rid of those water sources. So if you have a leak behind your sink, leaks in the shower, stuff like that, you need to take care of that problem.

Here in Colorado, we don't have a lot of mold because our air is so dry. Other parts of the country, though, I'm sure you guys got better tips and tricks on that. Fair enough. I like what you said about educating them and really pursuing it from that angle. It's a theme in our conversations that just really making sure that people know what's expected to them, and that renters understand, this is why I need to do this thing and how it's going to help me and live here long term comfortably. Do you have any tips for facilitating those kinds of conversations? Is it just sitting down and talking to them?

Do you put it in your lease? I know you're not a lawyer. But where do you best outline these expectations? Probably truly at the beginning, we had a packet that would give them tips and tricks on how to take care of their house. If they don't listen to that, again, communication. So when we're there at the property with the tenants, explaining things to them again. And then following up with an email and notes. Keeping notes on your tenants is really important.

Probably one of the best tips I can get is recording every conversation you have with your tenants. And not necessarily recording on a phone line or anything like that, but documenting in a note section and TurboTent has that note section what you talked about. I was a stickler when I was the CEO, the property management company, that we kept notes of every conversation we had. That way, if I'm not there or if somebody else in there, I can go back and look at those notes. As a property manager, that's important. As a small landlord, it's really important to have that documentation so that you can go in and talk to the tenants in a nice, calm way and not have it.

He said, she said, fight about something. And it's really important because those fights are what causes tension, and that's what causes people to argue and not have great living situations. Very well said. Is there anything else that we should touch on when it comes to interior tasks landlords can take on to bulletproof their rentals? Having yearly inspections, teaching tenants how to change furnace filters. It doesn't always happen, but doing your best to teach them. The bi-yearly inspections are really important to know. and then you do really have to allow the tenant to live their lives.

And it's hard for us as landlords and people to look at the tenant's life that isn't like yours. So if you're very neat and keep all your, you know, dishes in the dishwasher and put them way right away, you have to realize that your tenants are not going to live like you. And when you change your mindset to say, okay, the tenants can live like they can live, It's okay because once they move out, they're going to hopefully vacuum and clean everything up. You're going to have your own situation there. So really, the mindset of letting the tenant live is really important. Now, that's always to a point and to a fault.

You know, if you have a hoarder or somebody who's really messy that attracts bugs and everything else, then you have to deal with that situation. But for the most part, I'd say 95% of the tenants are really good tenants and just want to be left alone. I love that. This was just one little nugget of wisdom from Tim Emery. If you want to learn more, Invest Success does regular seminars and has different meetups if you're in the local Denver area.

Please check them out. We will have all the information down below. If you have any interior maintenance tasks that you take on or think other landlords should take on, please let us know in the comments. And don't forget to subscribe. TurboTenant is the all-in-one platform for landlords to manage their rental properties. From vacancy to tenancy, we have you covered with industry-leading tools and expert advice.

Landlord better from anywhere for free at turbotenant.com.