You Break It, You Bought It! Avoiding Rental Home Repair Costs

The dreaded scenario…

 

You enter the “4^th Century Priceless Vases” store with your 3-year old child sleeping in his stroller.  “While he’s sleeping I might as well find a birthday present for Uncle Milt,” you quietly say to yourself as you peruse the priceless artifacts (surprisingly all with prices on them…).  As you turn to the shop owner to ask if there is a chance that the price of the orange vase had mistakenly had too many zeroes added to it (a simple clerical issue could happen to anyone!), you hear a crash behind you.

 

Looking at the shards of glass on the floor and your giggling, (temporarily) smiling son, you realize this could be an expensive trip.  The shop owner, with arms crossed on his chest, points to the antique sign on the wall:

 

“You Break It, You Bought It!”

 

Ouch!  

 

A better scenario for everyone would be that “4^th Century Priceless Vases” decided years ago to elevate every shelf in the store to a minimum of 4 feet off the ground and added a feather-coated floor.  The most expensive vases were put behind locked glass and could only be accessed by store personnel.  This way they were able to decrease breakage and save money.

 

On a similar vein as a Charlotte property manager and fellow real estate investor, it pains me (sad, but true) when I get repair calls from tenants on things that could have been avoided.  By spending money on features (“being nice”), it winds up costing in service calls and replacements for years.

 

My 3 main culprits on optional home amenities that always seem to break:

 

1.  Icemakers on refrigerators (ugh!!)

2.  Washers & dryers

3.  Gas fireplaces

 

Most leases say that if something is working when a tenant moves in, it is the landlord’s responsibility to pay to keep it working (aka “promptly repair all appliances and facilities” under Landlord Responsibilities in the NC standard Realtor lease).  This costs money.

 

But what about if you took a page out of the “4^th Century Priceless Vase” store’s playbook and made breaking these things close to impossible?  Sounds good!  But how?

 

Don’t own them!  Nowhere in the lease does it say you have to have these things in your rental house.  So don’t!

 

I see no rent difference in Charlotte single family residences in whether you have these niceties or not.  So, I would highly recommend dealing with my main 3 culprits in the following manner:

 

1.  Icemaker on refrigerator: when you replace your refrigerator, get one without one!

 

2.  Washer & Dryer: sell them on Craig’s List the next time your house is vacant

 

3.  Gas fireplace: turn it off and let the tenant know it is not to be used.  If they insist, let them know they are responsible for its upkeep.

 

Some parts of maximizing rental home ROI is addition by subtraction.  It’s tough to break expensive vases when you can’t get to them, and you don’t need to perform maintenance on items that aren’t there.  When there is less to break, there is less to be bought!