One of the best ways to keep tenants happy and renting your property long term is to do repairs and maintenance in a timely manner.

Do you think repairs and maintenance take up too much of your time?
Well one lesson I learnt the hard way and that any landlord or Property manager should do before calling for a repairman is check what is needed yourself first.

Self-managing your portfolio can be a time-consuming task, particularly if you’re already leading a busy life. Which is why a online property management tool like RealRenta can really save you time and money.

I’ve been self-managing for over 10 years now, because I learnt that a property manager wouldn’t give my properties the attention that they deserved.

I’ve got plenty of stories to tell about my time managing my properties, but one in particular stands out as a valuable lesson.

My newly signed-up tenant’s shower wasn’t working and I knew that it needed to be fixed urgently. Legislation dictated that this was the case, and common decency did too.

Without thinking, I booked a repairman to go and look at the shower as soon as possible.

Whenever I get repair requests I always go over and look at them myself. I’m by no means a gifted handyman, but I’ve found that it can be the difference between a minor repair and paying for major, or even unnecessary work.

In this case, I organised the repairman, as not having a working shower was not a good start for my new tenant. but I had planned to get there before the repairman, about an hour or so beforehand, just so I could check it out. Unfortunately, I was running late and it eventuated that I turned up just as the repairman was finishing up.

The repairman charged me $200 for the job that took no more than 5 minutes and a $20 shower head from Bunnings

That $200 taught me a valuable lesson. No matter how busy you might think you are, if you’re self-managing an investment property you need to be prepared to turn up on your tenant’s doorstep at any point.

It’s important to attend to your tenant’s needs as soon as possible – but when you’re actively relying on your investment portfolio as a source of income, it’s also important to ensure that you aren’t paying for things that you don’t need.

After all, what’s the point of saving on agency fees if you are handing over a blank cheque for repairs that don’t need to happen?

An online property management software tool like RealRenta can also help in a situation like this. As tenants need to put the repair request through the platform with photos, as they say a photo says a thousand words and can help you work out what may be needed for the repair.