Spring Maintenance Checklist For Rental Properties

Routine maintenance is of utmost importance when owning rental property and Spring is the best time to get in there to inspect the structure and landscaping.

In this episode we cover in detail all aspects of what to inspect on the exterior of the building from the roof to the basement, and landscaping to fences.

Where the interior is 𝙎𝙐𝙋𝙀𝙍 important, we only discuss issues that may have occurred due to inclement weather, like where to look for mold and what to look for with all your mechanicals/HVAC.

Finally, we discuss several items for rental property owners to do some spring cleaning of in the business itself.  You’d be surprised how evaluating these items can save you thousands when tax time rolls around.

BONUS: We created a Spring Maintenance Checklist just for this episode!

So tune on in and please let us know what you think! Be kind please 😉

Links:
BONUS (Free Download):  Spring Maintenance Checklist

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Read Our Blog:  How the California Deck and Balcony Law Affects Your Rental Property

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Transcript

Stacie: 0:00

Rental maintenance tasks may be a chore, but completing them properly each season will protect your investment, preventing structural damage, saving energy, keeping the property systems running properly are all benefits of attentive property. Mainten. So think about it. You feel good when your rental properties look good. It serves the tenants well and your property values are protected Hey, there are are landlords. Welcome back. This is Stacy and I'm here with Kevin. Hey everybody. We're here today to talk to you about spring maintenance for your rental properties. We are gonna cover both single family homes and multi-family. You might find certain parts don't apply to you right now, but if you plan to scale your portfolio, a lot of these points might come in handy down the line. Obviously, winner can cause a. Multitude of problems to structures. The reason for doing these inspections is to identify and remedy issues that can be very expensive if they are not addressed. Unless you're house hacking, you may not even realize that there are issues, and spring is a great time of year, right after there's a lot of wind and snow and rain. Big temperature changes that's a good time to evaluate your structures, make sure all is well. It's also a good time to reevaluate a few of your business related issues, so towards the end of the podcast, we're gonna cover that as well. Okay, well, let's do first things first. What we do before we even start the inspections. Like anything we do, we want to communicate with our tenant. So we let them know when we're gonna be up there and why even though we're outside and for the most part not going in their units, because we want them to feel that they're a part of this and they actually are because they can give us if they've noticed anything A lot of times from leaking gutters or raised sidewalks or things that have happened during the winter, they're a good source of information. So We can start. On the right foot. The other thing that we do, we always have our contractor, we pay to have him come and do the inspections with us cuz we can see a lot. But I think we've mentioned in a previous episode, he's trained, he can see the issues that we can't see. And on top of that, he can take care of some of'em. Right. That same day. Yeah. I mean, a lot of them, he can take care. That same day, or we can schedule'em at another time. But getting back to talking about why it's important that the tenants know you're on property, especially if you're in a single family home, if you're gonna have to be going into the backyard, if they have pets, things like that. You wanna make sure that those that the pets are, are put in or that they, that they're aware that you're gonna be on on your, on the property. Exactly. Yeah. So let's start with exterior inspections. Talk about the roof Oh boy, So what you're looking for on the roof is you're looking for missing or lifted shingles or, you know, anything like that. That can allow water to penetrate or pests to get in. And they can create nests and also mosques can build up Often yards In rental properties are small and tenants can't really see what's going on up on the roof. All it takes is a big storm with high winds to lift a couple shingles. So grab a ladder, get on up there and look for loose shingles. And also look at the the vents. and fireplace caps and, and check those out as well. A little aside here. We had a a family member that was having a leak in their property and they didn't know where it was coming from, was just outside the kitchen, and so we went over. Got on a boy. This was fun. a rickety old ladder and it was a pretty steep roof. So I got up there, was checking things out. It turned out it was the fireplace cap. And the funny thing is, I, yeah, I hail down to Stacy. Oh, it's, the fireplace doesn't have a cap on it. She goes, there's no fireplace there. And well, she was partially right. The fireplace had been taken out years ago. The chimney was still there. Long story short, the fireplace cap wasn't there with the wind and the rain was going down. It was leaking in, it was coming down. One of the walls in the kitchen. Yep. That's exactly what happened. That was, that was a fun afternoon. Cause I'm like, yeah, you can get up there. Just get on ladders. Climb up. No big deal. Yeah, getting, getting up was easy. Getting back down. Oh boy. Yeah. On an extension ladder from a steep roof wasn't so easy. So maybe, maybe we should leave that to the professionals. Exactly. The next thing we want to cover when you're on the roof or close to the roof, you wanna make sure the gutters are clean. Now that's something you're of gonna want to do in your fall inspections because with winter coming, you don't want'em clogged and overflowing. But after a long winter they get just as filled or. As before you have wind, you have leaves and, and just the guck and the Meyer. And you don't wanna leave that even if you don't have a lot of rainy seasons, it's gonna sit there, it's gonna cause rust. It's gonna wear out your gutters well before They should. And if you, obviously you wanna maintain them. But another option would to do gutter guards. And when you have gutters, you can have them permanently installed. And that helps greatly. Yeah. We did that on Chico house when we had the roof done, we did all new gutters and It was funny, Costco was selling them. They weren't expensive. No. You know, we picked up, you know, they told us how many we needed and they said, Hey, you grab'em, we'll'em in and take much at all. And they. Have been in, they've never blown away. And it, it's made a huge difference cuz now we, we really don't have much maintenance that we have to do to those, those gutters. Other, the, other than the downspouts. Yeah. Well, well worth it. Yeah. The other thing you wanna do when you clean the gutters, you wanna put your hose down, the downspouts, flush'em out cuz there's a lot of stuff that can, even if the Gunther look great, there's a lot of stuff that can be stuck in the downspouts themselves. Yeah. So we had a a, a few few years. We get a call from a family member who has a rental and they're out of town, and the tenant gave'em a call and said, Hey, the garage, which is a separate piece of the property, it's a detached garage, has a flat roof on it is filled with water on top. And yeah, it was coming over the sides. Yeah, it was blowing over the the sides. And, and so she was concerned, so she. And so we, we go down there to go check it out and it was again, pulled out the extension ladder. Kevin crawled up there. Well, that wasn't bad. It was a flat roof. I'll, I'll take those anytime. And we couldn't figure out what was going on, but obviously the downspout was clogged. And this is one of those, one of those roofs that has a downspout Inside the roof. So there's no gutters to this. So it's just a hole in the roof that goes directly into the downs. And And apparently what happened was there was a large liquid under tree and they have spiky balls that are like a golf, the size of a golf ball. Yeah. Mm-hmm. And it had gotten stuck down in the downspout with a bunch of leaves. And over time the water wasn't draining and that's what happened. So I get up on the ladder and I hand ke a Hose. And he shoves down there as far as you can. And we cranked that puppy on and it started to back up and then all of a sudden it just let loose. And of course I'm standing at the, at the bottom of it, he got soaking wet. But, you know, anyway, that's just a, and the other on there too, while I was up there, it wasn't causing any of the backup, but there were some trees hanging over the The back parts of the roof. And they had dropped a bunch of, Needles. branche and branches. And so it was a good time just to go up there and sweep them off. Cuz at some point they were gonna make their way down to that corner and, and clog it that way too. Yep. So just, just keep ahead of this, you're doing it now instead of when it's rain pouring on you. Yeah, exactly. And just like roof shingles loose siding can allow water to get behind it. Eventually you're gonna have some dry rot there. And loose sighting is where termites had got in and caused us thousands of dollars. And that is a story for another podcast. Yes, that's Yes it is. That'll be a good one. Yeah, it was. we learned a lot. Oh, we did? Yeah. Learned a lot of lessons, not just in regards to Pests. So, yeah. Yeah. I, I'm looking forward to to that one. one. Yeah. So The other thing you want to is window screen. This is a good time. A lot of ti things can happen during the winter or even before, and you wanna check for any rips or holes. You know, it allows pests anything to fly in, you know, those beautiful summer nights when you have the windows open. You don't want, you know, little buzzing friends, coming to, to visit you at at night. Yeah. So a couple options here. If they're small, you can do where they have screen tape and that works. And what we've had to do a couple times when they've kind of too big for that, take it down to your local hardware store, they can replace the screen and it's very cost effective. So way cheaper than buying new ones. Exactly. So that's, that's that. The next thing we wanna talk about is very important are decks and stairs. Now, this is very important because this is a huge safety issue. Yep. Now the first thing you wanna look at Is how, it's the wood treatment. A lot of times the staining the coat you can put on, they typically last what stays about five to six years. Five, six years or so. Yeah. Yeah. Something like, So you wanna do that to protect the wood, but even more important, you want to check to make sure they're in good order. No dry rot. No cracks. No cracks. Yeah. And if there are, you might want to hire a professional to take a look at this because this is the railings the boards, the concrete footers, all of this are very important. You wanna look at the stair tread. Make sure the nail headss or screws aren't popping up, that there's a tripping hazard. You wanna make sure that there's no cracks or dry rot in the posts. And place special attention to the railings. Make sure they're not loose anything over six feet. I think that's the, that's the standard. Yeah. Yeah. But So this is not just from, you know, visually you want it to look nice and have a nice stain. But Especially in a safety issue, it's, it's huge. Yeah. And of course, you know, state of California a lot of regulations, they recently, I think it was 2018, passed a statewide a Senate Bill 7 21. It's also known as the deck and balcony law. And it requires a special inspection From an outside source to verify safety of all exterior raised decks, balconies, and stairway. In rental properties that have three or more units. I think it's important that this, that noted that the reason that this all came about was because in Berkeley, California Is it in the nineties? Yeah. May somewhere there. Yeah. Six college students died when the railing on a In the entire deck. Oh, the entire deck. The deck, yeah. Collapsed. Collapsed. And that was because it was dry rotted and. Landlord needed to replace it, did not. And there was no regulation. No one's checking these, these decks after they're put up. So That is why that whole deck in balcony law came around. Even though you're not in California many states are gonna follow suit and start passing similar regulations. California landlords. We did write a blog all about this. And how it affects you, what you need to know to pass inspections and when your inspections need to be completed by, I believe 2024 is the the, the clock really starts ticking. There is gonna be a link in show notes for that blog that we wrote. The next thing we wanna talk about would be driveways and walkways. So after you get a lot of. Water ice, things like that, you need to make sure there's no damaged or lifted areas that are gonna be tripping hazards. If you find a lifted or collapsed area, like from tree roots or ice or water issues, get some neon paint or reflective tape and mark that area so other people will notice it. Gives you a little bit more time process the issue and get it remedied. It's a good idea to send out an email to your tenants, letting them know as well, and do everything you need to do to cover yourself in case someone falls. A judge is gonna be little bit more lenient if they find you work to keep your tenants safe, rather than if you just took pictures and vowed to get back to the issue later. So, and your tenants are gonna appreciate the notification. Exactly. And here's where you want to evaluate the lighting on those pathways and outside areas. Yep. We have motion sensors. A lot of people do you wanna make sure they're in working order? The path lighting isn't working, order and even kind of aim the right way. You know, during the winter things can be pushed out and aimed in different directions, so you want to keep up on. The other thing I wanted to note that I forgot to say was that when you have a lot of rain, but not a lot of sun moss builds up and creates a slippery surface. So you need to make sure you're power washing that as well. Get rid of that so people aren't slipping. Exactly. This is also a perfect time to check the exterior air vent. When you're checking your walkways, they can be blocked during the winter, you know, leaves, branches, even sometimes furniture is pushed up against them. Yeah. We, we have tenants who have, have, you know, used the overhang to protect things and they'll lean things up there not realizing that they're Exactly. That they're covering'em. And that's why you want the good airflow you don't want the moisture to build up under the crawl space. That's why those air flows are there. Right. And, and some air vents also allow carbon monoxide to escape. So you wanna. Really careful to make sure that those are always cleaned and, and open. You don't want that building up and backing into, backing up into the rental property at all. Yeah. Very important. Yeah. Let's talk a little bit about sprinklers and water lines. So if you have sprinklers in your rental property, do a test run. Make sure all the heads are intact. Spray patterns are going the towards the plants and not the sidewalk which we definitely have problems with. Also look for broken lines that can cause excess water to gather or flow to the street and not go to the plants. Open your water spigots, make sure that You wanna clear those lines out and make sure that there's no water that's dripping from inside the wall or anything like that. If you've used protective sleeves to keep the water lines from freezing which would prevent cracking and things like that, and. Put those, store those away in a, in a safe place so you have'em'em ready for when you're getting ready to do your fall maintenance. Yeah. You also want to check branches that have Some of'em have broken off or about to break off. You want to check them around the property that they're not blocking windows overhang. Good example is our property up in Chico. We have a, a apple tree in the corner and it's great, but it tends to grow right over the corner of, of the roof there. Yep. So that is constantly, needs to be pruned or trimmed off. Not just for safety, but we've noticed when we have had some little pest Yep. Troubles up there. And he pointed out that they would use that, use the branches to kind of crawl and access, get onto the access to the roof, and, and then Sometimes into the attic. So, It's a lot easier in the wintertime or springtime too, because there's not a lot of leaves on'em right now. Right. A lot easier to trim trees. Yeah. You wanna, especially the fruit trees. We're i'll. I was gonna mention that later, but I'll say it now. Especially the fruit trees. You wanna get them before they start to flower. Yeah, that's a a real good point. The next thing you do, you wanna walk the fence line. Really important. And as we record this we're looking out the window. You know, with the wind and rain, we see a post that Yeah. That's gonna have to be done. Yeah. Let's just say our, our, our back fence is waving to us Yes. Yeah. But it's real important to do that now because you don't, it's not just, you know, falling down in the wind of the rain. You wanna make sure there's no holes or, or openings. You don't want a tenant for if you allow pets their dog or conversely a neighbor's dog coming into their property. So you. That's an important thing to check off your list. a lot of times it all takes a strong wind to take down a whole section of the fence, weaves our neighbor across the street. That just happened a couple weeks ago. Yep. So, once again, be proactive. Yep. So if you have access to your attic from the exterior, which a lot of older homes do, so our house in Chico, that's the only way we can access it, is through the outside. If you wanna head on up there and shine a flashlight in there, make sure you don't see any standing water or any new water stains on the interior of the roof. Also Kevin had a good point is make sure you're looking at the roof and make sure you don't see any daylight coming through. That's a, that's a surefire sign. You got an issue with your roof Yeah. Yeah. A lot of times you can't see that from the outside looking in, but definitely inside looking out. And you're also looking for pests that have maybe taken up residence during the winter. We've had, we've had rats, birds, squirrels, raccoons. Squirrels were the biggest ones though. Yes. Not biggest, biggest problem, but we had them, living in the attic and in the case of the raccoons, they were kind of underneath Yes. The Raccoons were under the house. Yes. In a different, in a different location. But yeah, we wanna make sure also you don't want pass up there. Primarily, you don't want pests up there because they chew on wires and that causes fire hazards, obviously nobody wants. We just mentioned the same goes for the basement Spaces too. You're looking for water intrusion there. And you can tell when you go down there, if it's or mildew, I mean, it's, it's a basement. It. I'm gonna smell the best anyway. But you can tell when there's been some moisture there and it needs some attention. And sometimes you just need a dehumidifier to keep the mold from growing. Fans sometimes too. Yeah. Get air movement on it to, yeah. Mo air movement. What we said before about the anything in the crawl spaces, any place air movement is your friend. Yep, for sure. So it's important to know. Interior inspections are just an important, and we're gonna touch on them briefly here, but we're gonna do a whole episode on inspections, so that's gonna cover a whole lot more. If you don't have access from the exterior Quick, do a quick look in the attic. Check your windows, make sure there's no leaks or mold growing. So a lot of people tend to put dressers or furniture under the windows, and if there's a leak that's coming from that window, there's no air. That is, and it can cause mold behind that furniture. So just kind of do a quick peek behind there as well. And this is where you can sometimes only see it from the inside. Yep. We, we had a window leak on the third floor window and you really, you couldn't see it from the exterior. Luckily our tenant, because we train them. Well, yes. Informed us that looks like there a leak, there was some moisture, and we were able to go in, fix it. That was, that one was an easy fix. Yeah, it was. And, but had it not, that could could have turned into something major dry rot. And once that sets in, you're, you're looking at a big, expensive project. Well, it was, let's, let's back up. It was, it was an easy fix for us. It wasn't so easy for our contractor cuz he had to get up to that third story and Exactly reseal the window around it. You wanna also check around the doors, look at your floors, make sure they haven't been damaged from the tenants that are dragging in mud and water and salt if you live in an icy area or sand. However, however, they do that check to make sure all the doors and windows open and close properly and that the locks engage. A lot of times moisture can get into these old windows and. Safety is the number one for your tenants. You need to make sure those wood windows and doors can open in case of a fire. And if they are swollen or warped from wet weather, you may have a problem on your hands. So make sure those are, are in good shape. You're gonna check your mechanicals as well. So you wanna look for rust at the the bottom of the water heater, make sure air filters have been replaced in the heater and the wall vents, you know, check your appliances, things like. And here's an important one too, and a timely one is you want to get your HVAC or air conditioner guy out here. If he can go on this inspection with you, that's fantastic because he needs to get into the unit because you, you just can't do it from the outside. You want to check the thermostat, you wanna make sure the air is flowing well and it's cool enough and they have the instruments that can, can do that. And it's much. And in a lot of cases, cheaper to have him doing the inspections or any fixes in April or whenever in early spring. May. Yep. Than in June or July. And all of a sudden everybody's wants the air conditioner guy there. That wave comes and, and your AC goes out. Yeah. Good luck trying to get a guy out there to fix it. The next thing, and this is more for a single family, is if you have a chim. Chimney's maintenance is essential. Every year you should have all the components checked, you know, the hearth any connecting pipes, the chute the flu, and you want to have it cleaned too. Uh, you don't have to have it cleaned every year, but you, right, you should have, you should basically have a good eye. Yeah. And it also depends on how much it's, it's used. They can kind give you an idea there too. They also look for damage, which is very important. You know, when they're checking the chute, they can look for any cracks in the bricks where smoke or, you know, can Yeah, anytime a, anytime a house settles. We we're an country here in ca. Just had one this morning actually Mm-hmm. And the smallest little Adjustment to the foundation can cause a crack in that fireplace. Yeah. And you don't want the, you know, they light a fire and they get it roaring and the the flames go up and, and that those, yeah. The fire can get in between those cracks. Okay. And then also when they're up there too, they can check the, the chimney cap or the spark arrest or whatever you call it. You know, we talked before. Yeah. That not only for. Obviously sparks going out for fire, but for leaks, yeah, water. You don't want water in there. All right, let's talk about exterior spruce ups here. So whether you have a single family home or you have an apartment building, curb appeal is super important. You never know when your current tenants are gonna be moving out. Make sure your rental property shows well. It's all part of marketing to new prospective tenants. It's that curb. It also shows the existing tenant what a caring and wonderful landlord you are when you, and you'll make them think twice about wanting to move out if they have a beautiful home, right? Yeah. You also want to do Some power washing The exterior even of the building, sometimes and grime. That's an easy way Once we mentioned it before, but on the walkways themselves, you know, is sort of growing up. Yep. Your power washer really helps with that. If you provide patio furniture like we do with our units Yep. You wanna make sure the pads are all in good shape. Wash'em down, clean'em. We had an outdoor carpet back there. Just kind of hose it down, wipe off the barbecue. Anything that's outside, just get it all set up. Clean it up. Yeah. Here's a good tip for you if you have children. Employ your teens to do this task while you work on other areas. And we wrote a blog all about tax benefits of employing your children or your grandchildren or your business. We'll link it in the show notes. So we had the youngest son up with us last year. Yeah. And he, he did a bulk of the cleaning for us. I mean, he was washing down all the decks and to the entrances and he cleaned all the patio furniture and the carpet and wiped down the barbecue. And he did a real good job. He did a great job. They can also plant flowers cuz now it's perfect time to plant perennials and gives your tenants a beautiful front yard or walkway to come home too. It's this time of year where you wanna do your landscaping. So you're gonna do lawn aeron, you're gonna recede fertilization, prune your shrubs and trees. and if you have flowering trees or fruit trees, like we talked our apple tree, this is when you prune them before they start to. We talked about the lawn. Another thing we can do, we've mentioned this earlier, but besides the aeration and fertilizer, you want to check your sprinkler system there. That's sprained in the right patterns, cuz a lot of times that's another, besides making your lawn look great, it's another expense if you're just watering concrete. And this goes without saying, but in the lease you wanna make sure who is responsible for the landscaping. For example, in our multi-unit buildings, we are, and that's usually the case. But when you do single family properties a lot of times it can fall on the tenant. Yeah, that's true. So here's a tip. Have a discussion with your tenant before you rent to them. And if they don't have a desire or can't find the time to maintain the landscaping Offer to hire a landscaper for a fee. So say you have a person that charges a hundred dollars a month to come out weekly and mow the lawn weed and make all the standing leads are cleared up. Charge the tenant 125 to offer the service. You would be managing the landscaper and earning an additional$25 a month. This is not rent. This is a fee for landscaping services. And if the tenant doesn't wanna pay that they can find their own l. Other topics that should be covered in the lease include general indoor cleaning. For example, if your unit has hardwood floors, make sure you have some it written in there somewhere that they need to properly and routinely clean those to avoid salt and water damage during winter months. So whether you're referring to spring maintenance or year-round maintenance, it helps clarify all the responsibilities in writing when you put it in the lease. And business-wise, there's office spring maintenance as well. Here's a tip. Your property taxes, if they have gone up, which a lot of times they do Do a little homework and check the sales comps in your area. In California, if we think the property value listed by the. Is too high, we can contest it by providing recent sales comps. Yep. Kevin saved my dad over a thousand dollars one year by doing this. Yeah, so that was a, it, it, it, it's worth it doesn't take doesn't take a lot of time. No, it's not. It's filling out some paperwork, getting some sales comps and turning it in. So as spring is also tax time, it's a good time to evaluate your income and your. expenses. Hopefully as your tenants renew or they turn over, your rental rates will increase. So with that increased income, you want to think about ways to increase your deductions or your expenses so you can pay less income tax. So, as we mentioned before, employ your children or your grandchildren. There are huge tax benefits to this one. Yeah, do improvements to your rental properties. Tenants always appreciate, improve. So that can be anywhere from, again, just planting flowers or, or getting new appliances or anything like that. So, and you know, one other that I think we don't talk enough about is education, which is a, is a very reasonable expense. Take courses and educate yourself. Take courses on fair housing. That's a very, yes, that's a really good one. Very important. And necessary go, you have to keep up, keep up on that, and they're changing all the time. That's, that's exactly right. Rental maintenance tasks may be a chore, but completing them properly each season will protect your investment, preventing structural damage, saving energy, keeping the property systems running properly are all benefits of attentive property. Mainten. So think about it. You feel good when your rental properties look good. It serves the tenants well and your property values are protected. Wow. that, that was a lot of info. Yes, it was. Have no fear. We've put together a simple checklist of the items we talked about today, and the league is in the show notes. We appreciate you tuning in. If you'd like the podcast link delivered to you, we included in our free newsletter called Landlord Weekly. It's sent to your email each week and includes tips, early access to our blogs, landlord specific articles from other industry pros and products that we use and love, and we would love if you would subscribe. The link is in the show. Well, I think that's a wrap for episode three. Please subscribe or follow on your favorite podcast site. Tell your friends we're trying to get the word out to help d i y landlords. So for my co-host, Stacy, this is Kevin, take care. Till next time.