Rental Home Repairs…Keep ‘em In-House or Farm ‘em Out?
There are two different schools of thought when it comes to property management companies and their decisions on how to handle repairs. Basically, you can hire a handyman or repair crew to be on your 
staff, or you can farm out the work to local companies. Most apartment complexes will have a maintenance guy on staff because it is convenient to have someone close at hand to take care of issues. But what about companies that cater to single family dwellings like houses, condos, and town houses? Why don’t we take a look at these two options and I will let you know which route we at Classic have chosen and why:
Option #1: Hire Maintenance Staff
This route does have some attractive features. For one thing, you can set your own rates for repairs. This means that if you want to charge $100 to change out an A/C filter, you can! This is a tremendous money-maker for a less than ethical company. Another plus it that you can determine what repairs are made. This means that you are running an unethical company, you have the ability to nickel and dime an owner for every little thing that you can think of and make a ton of money doing it! If you have hired a fantastic company this route isn’t a problem, but I would always be wondering…
Option 2: Farm Out the Work
This is the route that Classic has chosen. Although we are a company with impeccable ethics, we wanted to make sure that we were above reproach as much as possible. As a result, we didn’t want owners to have to worry about us making repairs that weren’t necessary in an effort to boost our income. Basically, we have spent over 16 years sifting through local companies in an effort to find the folks who make repairs quickly and correctly. Oftentimes, because these honest repair guys value our business, they will put our requests at the top of the list and even give us discounted pricing! Not only does this eliminate the unnecessary repairs, but it saves the owner some $$ on the repairs that ARE necessary!
