Do Your Rental Home Repair People Care? 2 Lessons Learned

“People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.”

Theodore Roosevelt

 

“We have met the enemy and he is us.”

Walt Kelly (Pogo)

 

When you’re in the property management business, many different things in houses will break.  It’s a sad reality, but it is also the reality that keeps property managers in business (so we keep our complaints to a minimum!).

 

Contrary to popular thought in Charlotte, we really don’t know everything (please laugh!).  So like most property management companies, we employ repair professionals to work on things that break (plumbing, roofs, appliances, HVAC, painting, etc.).  They are, in effect, an extension of us at BDF Realty.

 

So how do we know if the repair people we use are any good?  The simple answer is if things are fixed and tenants are not calling us to say their issue did not stay resolved.  And if the issue recurs (which happens to the best of them), how does the repair person handle it?  Do we get charged for another visit to the house?  Do these recurring issues happen often?  How long does it take for them to get back to do the repair again?

 

So skill-wise, we can figure out if a repair person is any good in a reasonable amount of time.  Let’s call those the hard skills.  But what about the soft skills?  Are they kind?  Conscientious?

 

Do they care?

 

That’s tougher.  We can’t go on every service call with our repair people.  And if they can’t at least fake being nice and caring during those calls, they weren’t going to last anyway.  So how can you tell if they care?

 

I’ve learned 2 lessons over the years:

 

1.  If any tenants call to complain about a repair person, there is probably something wrong with the repair person.  Two calls and there is definitely something wrong.

 

It takes time and effort to locate the property manager’s information, call them, and detail your experience without sounding like a whiner.  Most tenants don’t care enough unless something is really off.

 

Several years ago, I used a really nice, reasonably priced handyman to work on many of our homes.  When I would see him in person, he was sharp as a tack and would bend over backward to resolve issues.  But I started getting a few tenant calls about chronic lateness and “shady” people he was bringing with him to work on jobs.  We had to sever ties with him.  He’s still a nice guy, but he just didn’t care enough to show up on time and be professional.

 

2.  If the repair person is treating us poorly, chances are they are doing the same to the tenants.

 

Recently, we had a repair person work on an issue at a vacant home for us.  We gave him the lockbox code so he could get in and do the work.  The next day we were at the property and found the house key in the lockbox, broken in half.  We called the repair person and he said he had broken the key in the lock and forgotten to call us about it.

 

To me, that’s sort of a big deal, but not the key breaking per se.  I will be the first to tell you that things happen.  As Charles Swindoll said, “Life is 10% of what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it.”  I’m not going to give someone a hard time over things breaking; truthfully the lock was tough and anyone could have broken a key in it.  But not thinking it was important enough to let me know immediately about?  I have to ask, “Does he care?”

 

Having repair people that care matters.  Being a property manager who cares is important too.  And the two are exactly the same to the tenants we serve.

 

Happy Landlording!

 

Brett Furniss is the head property manager of BDF Realty (Charlotte Residential Property Management), the trusted real estate advisor for Charlotte landlords & Home of $100 Flat Fee Property Management.   BDF Realty utilizes their innovative Pod System for exceptional customer service in residential property management, home repairs, and home sales for single-family homes, Uptown condos, and town homes in the Charlotte-Metro Area.  Contact Us Today!