What is Property Maintenance?

You know the importance of keeping your residential property in good condition. These issues can have a significant impact on your business and the lives of your tenants.

You can’t care for a condo community, hotel, apartment building or individual home if it isn’t well-maintained. This will ensure your occupants are safe and happy, and they will be more likely to rent and recommend your properties in the future.

We’ll be discussing the benefits and specific duties that come with property maintenance in this article. Before we get into these details, let’s first define what property maintenance is.

What is property maintenance?

Property maintenance can be best described as any preventive and/or reactive maintenance that is taken to maintain a property in its best state.

There are many responsibilities that property maintenance involves. Some of the responsibilities include answering tenants’ maintenance questions, maintaining landscaping, servicing or repairing HVAC systems, pest control, cleaning common areas, and even painting. Property maintenance should include safety inspections. Unsafe conditions or alarm systems can pose a serious risk.

Failure to maintain your property can lead to serious consequences. There are many benefits to regular property maintenance. Below are a few.

Property Maintenance has many benefits

Property maintenance has many benefits:

• Equipment breakdown and failure prevention Property maintenance is a form of preventive maintenance that ensures your property or buildings experience fewer failures. You can ensure that the most expensive equipment is operating at its best by regularly inspecting it, such as HVAC units and elevators.
• Avoidance Of Liability – Regular property maintenance will reduce the likelihood of accidents or incidents occurring on site, which will help you avoid lawsuits and liabilities.
• A well-maintained property will retain its market value Neglecting a property will eventually cause it to lose its value, which in turn will affect rental prices.
• Happy tenants – Satisfied tenants will be more likely to rent from you again and to refer your property to others. This will allow you to maintain or increase the capacity of your buildings.

Disadvantages to Property Maintenance

Although there are very few disadvantages, it is important to note that property maintenance can have some negative aspects.

• High-priced expenses – If your business relies on rent payments to survive each month, then property maintenance might be too expensive to pay. This is especially true if you hire a professional either on a full-time or part-time basis and not on a case-by-case basis.
• Less control over your property – As with all things, you will have less say over which assets are inspected, repaired or updated by a professional property maintenance company.

Property Maintenance Jobs

A combination of four professionals is usually responsible for property maintenance: a property manager (or maintenance technician), a custodian or janitor, and a facility manager. Although any one of these professionals may perform property maintenance actions, each field has its own roles, responsibilities and salaries. They also often require different training and certification.

Here is a professional overview of each career:

1. Property Manager

• Job description A property manager is a person who works part-time or full time to inspect, supervise, and maintain the property’s utilities, tenants, and other assets. He or she is ultimately responsible for maintaining the property in a condition that is attractive to tenants.
• Responsibilities : Assign cleaning tasks, submit work orders (from tenants or guests) to maintenance technicians, ensure contractors are paid and expenses are recorded; maintain rentals by advertising and filling vacant spaces.
• Salary range, Approximately $53,683 per year, according to Glassdoor.

1. Maintenance Technician

• Job description A maintenance technician is a person who repairs mechanical systems on a property. They work closely with the property manager to ensure that residential facilities are maintained and run at their best. However, they report to the property manger (who assigns work orders to maintenance technicians). They may also be responsible for performing preventative maintenance on equipment and machines.
• Responsibilities : Manage or supervise repair processes; maintaining, repairing, and/or maintaining HVAC systems, boilers and chillers, as well as scheduling and performing maintenance work orders. Assisting and supervising equipment upgrades and installations.
• Salary range Approximately $39.995 per year, according to Glassdoor.

1. Janitor/Custodian

• Job description A janitor is usually hired on a temporary basis to maintain the hygiene standards of a residential building. Common areas such as public bathrooms, gyms, and lobbies are cleaned by a janitor.
• Responsibilities – Cleaning and disinfecting surfaces, sweeping and mopping floors, vacuuming carpets, washing windows, disinfecting bathroom surfaces, and replenishing hygiene items (i.e. Toilet paper, soap, and paper towels.
• Salary range – Approximately $24,038 per year, according to Glassdoor