Denver Property Management – Insights on deferred maintenance
At HighPoint Property Management, we turn down a lot of business. One of the most common ways to get turned down is having a rental property with deferred maintenance issues. If you are a landlord who has a rental property that you haven’t seen in years because you read a book once that said something about “passive income”, chances are we won’t be doing business together. At least not right away.
Colorado’s Warranty of Habitability Law
Let’s start with the basics. As a Colorado landlord, you have certain responsibilities when it comes to deferred maintenance issues. Deferred maintenance problems are a common source of landlord-tenant conflict. As a landlord, you need to ensure that your rental property is fit for living when a tenant moves in. For instance, you are responsible for making sure your rental property has running water and reasonable amounts of hot water, heat, lights, lockable exterior doors and windows, walls, roofs, floors, stairways, and railings that are in good repair, gas and plumbing in good working order and a connection to a working sewage system. All of these examples could be the result of deferred maintenance – clearly a sign of an absentee landlord. If the landlord can’t meet these basic standards, we can’t help the landlord with property management.
Higher standards in property management
Colorado’s Warranty of Habitability Law sets a common sense standard baseline relating to deferred maintenance. At HighPoint, we take it a step further with regard to deferred maintenance. For instance, as a landlord, if you are thinking to yourself that duct tape will hold that cracked furnace together for one more year, or the tenant can go a few more years without air conditioning that you promised them, or maybe the HOA community association manager won’t notice your dead tree this year either, then we probably will send you down the road to the discount property manager that’s obsessed with the “number of doors managed” or trying to hold on to the false metric of “fasted growing company”. At HighPoint, we believe in quality property management not quantity property management.
Savvy landlords don’t fall for the deferred maintenance trap
Deferred maintenance on your rental property will kill your future cash flow. Just like deferred maintenance on your car will have dreadful long term results. For instance, you decide you don’t need that $38 oil change because you’d rather use that money for something else and your car seems to work okay now. One year later you find yourself your face in your hands, sobbing like a two year old because your mechanic just informed you of the price of a new engine. Don’t be a landlord that falls for the deferred maintenance trap. It never works out.
HighPoint Property Management has the best clients in Denver
Proactive maintenance on your rental property is paramount. It’s one of the keys to successful real estate investing for the long haul. Astute real estate investors understand they have to maintain their property to win with cash flow in the long run. Astute real estate investors partner with HighPoint Property Management because they understand the value of a professional property management team who understands the pitfalls of deferred maintenance and how proactive maintenance leads to long term positive cash flow and happy tenants.
To learn more about Denver property management and how HighPoint Property Management makes life easier for owners and tenants, visit highpointpm.com.