Interior Maintenance Tips with Tim Emery

Transcript

Krista Reuther:

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, and 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?

Tim Emery:

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, five 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. Mindset should be keep your tenants happy. Keep do things, make sure they get things done. Communicate with them so that they know what’s going on in their properties. The biggest problem for 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.

Krista Reuther:

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?

Tim Emery:

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’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.

Krista Reuther:

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?

Tim Emery:

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.

Krista Reuther:

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 laylords take on in the interior of the rental to protect it both for tenants and from tenants?

Tim Emery:

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. Tenants 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 our 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 at all 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 is 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 is great. And to tell you the 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.

Krista Reuther:

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 What are some of the best tips you can get from a

Tim Emery:

The good LVP that is water resistant, 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 is going to really last very long if you’ve got six kids and two dogs running around on it. It’s just something you’re going to have to deal with but that type of material does seem to last longer.

Krista Reuther:

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?

Tim Emery:

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 water is, 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. They called us one day and said, we’ve got this black stuff growing in our bathroom. Of course, we got there and there was some black stuff growing in their bathroom. We asked them if they had ever opened the window or opened the bathroom door and they said no.

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 we are air so dry. Other parts of the country though, I’m sure you guys got better tips and tricks on that.

Krista Reuther:

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 of them 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?

Tim Emery:

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 of the property management company that we kept notes of every conversation we had. That way, if I’m not there or somebody else isn’t 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 a 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.

Krista Reuther:

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?

Tim Emery:

Having yearly inspections, teaching tenants how to change furnace filters. It doesn’t always happen, but doing your best to teach them. The yearly and by 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 a tenant’s life that isn’t like yours. So if you’re very neat and keep all your dishes in the dishwasher and put them away 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 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 to that’s always to a point and to a fault. You know, if you have a hoarder or somebody who’s really messy and 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.

Krista Reuther:

This was just one little nugget of wisdom from Tim Emory. 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.