Property management subcontractors are invaluable allies for landlords seeking to streamline the maintenance and upkeep of their rental properties.
These skilled professionals offer specialized services, handling various tasks crucial for maintaining the condition of the residential properties and ensuring tenant satisfaction. By outsourcing these services to reliable property management subcontractors, a property owner can focus on other aspects of property management while enjoying peace of mind, knowing their investments are in capable hands.
No one wants to waste time, especially when searching for dependable property management subcontractors. You need these potential contractors to provide the services necessary to keep your business running smoothly.
Vendor services such as building and unit maintenance, laundry, landscaping, hot water, insurance, moving and storage, real estate agents, and even real estate lawyers are all examples of the various partnerships your company must find and maintain.
Perhaps one of the most important resources your property management company has is a roster of reliable vendors and contractors you know you can depend on. Be it regular maintenance or emergency 24-hour assistance, a list of trusted property management partners is an invaluable resource.
Partnering with reliable vendors and contractors who deliver high-quality work is important to everyone’s success, and your business tends to run well. Building maintenance and upkeep are attended to promptly, hot water heaters are always up and running, and you have confidence that your real estate lawyers are always working toward your best interests. An unreliable contractor can cost you time, money, tenants, and even potential legal trouble.
It’s important to understand what to look for when you’re searching for the right contractor or vendor so you can avoid a risky business relationship that could mean more trouble. A bit of care on the front end during both your research and vetting process will ensure that you find the right partners the first time.
These Aren’t the Contractors You’re Looking For: Watch Out for These Red Flags
No matter if your company is well established or just getting started, the need to keep your property management subcontractor roster up to date is always worth the effort. Time spent researching contractors and vendors for consideration as potential partners is time well spent. A properly vetted and approved vendor can save your business both time and money, especially when called upon for an emergency scenario.
Below are some key ideas and advice to consider when building and/or adding to your property management partners list.
No Reviews? Bad Reviews…
If you’re considering independent contractors or vendors that don’t have any reviews anywhere (Angi, Google Reviews via Google Maps, or their own website), then you should probably keep looking. Reviews are one of the best ways to verify the credibility of a potential property management subcontractor. In some cases, they may be a new business and haven’t had the opportunity to acquire any reviews yet, but even a greenhorn should be able to provide you with some sort of referral. On the other hand, one or two bad reviews may not be a cause for concern. If there’s a long list of complaints, then it’s best to move on.
No Insurance or License to Operate?
Can they provide credentials, or do they make excuses about their license and/or insurance? Sure, they may have the best price, but in this scenario, you may get far more than you bargained for. Working with anyone who isn’t officially licensed or insured is a risk you simply can’t take. Any legitimate contractor or vendor service should easily be able to produce current credentials and insurance upon request.
“We (You) Don’t Need to Get Permits for This Job”
If a property services contractor or vendor suggests that they can do the work under the table for any reason, stay away. You and your property management company—not the vendor/contractor—will be legally responsible for any violations, accidents, or mishaps.
“We Don’t Need to Write A Contract”
Believe it or not, this is suggested more than you’d ever think. Make it part of your property management policies to always “get it in writing.” Cover ALL your bases by having a professional contract written and reviewed by your legal team, and make your contractual obligations and requirements clean before hiring any contractors. The best contractors will always sign an agreement that details at least the following information:
- the scope of work or type of work, like demolition, new construction, and/or the handling of hazardous waste
the amount of time needed for the job and provisions for extra time - a corrective action plan
the price and terms of payment - phone numbers and other contact information
- quality assurance and termination
Not Sticking to Your Plan (or the Contract)
Is the vendor or contractor ignoring your plan? Are they overriding your established project guidelines? This may be happening so they can cut corners and save money while trying to maximize profits for themselves. They may think that they know better than you how a service or job should be completed, or perhaps they simply don’t want to follow your guidelines. If this is happening, you should look for a new vendor who can follow your established plan.
Getting Ghosted in Times of Need?
Are you noticing that your contractors never seem to be around? If your maintenance contractor is nowhere to be found when a problem with one of your properties needs to be addressed, this is a bad sign. Not only does this reflect poorly on the vendor’s work ethic, but ultimately, this can damage your reputation and relationships with your clients or tenants. You pay your property management company to manage the property, so you’d better be sure that your vendors, contractors, and partners are doing their jobs as well.
A Property Management Subcontractor Guide
To help you avoid wasting time and money, we’ve outlined a sample ideal scenario of what it should look like when finding a vendor or general contractor to partner with.
Below, we highlight what an ideal vendor working relationship looks like. The need for a hot water heating service provider serves as our example vendor. We outline from start to finish what establishing a good working relationship should look like with examples.
The Scenario
Your property management company owns or manages various properties, including small multi-family buildings, and just purchased an apartment complex with over one hundred units. You know that hot water is critical to every single unit and you’re considering a hot water service provider that you can depend on to efficiently service your unit’s hot water appliances.
Your qualifications include a reliable water service provider that can service, maintain, repair, and replace your machines quickly and without fail. The last thing you want is for any of your tenants to be without hot water for any amount of time.
Additionally, you are also considering the option of renting vs. owning your water heaters, and you’re looking for reliable and trustworthy insight into the advantages and disadvantages of both options.
Research and Vetting
- References: First things first—check references. As you look for a hot water heating service that can meet the qualifications outlined above, you need to do your research into each of your potential vendor choices. Don’t just look for testimonials on their website but check other review sites as well. Look for both positive and negative reviews, and be sure to read into why they received these reviews.
- Communication: How easy are they to get a hold of? Do they respond immediately or within an established timeline? Do they answer your calls or call back as soon as they are able? Do they provide an honest assessment of the work and do they always show up to the job site on time or even ahead of schedule? Have they given you a non-biased outline, guide, whitepaper, sell sheet (or even simply a conversation) detailing the pros and cons of renting vs. owning your various properties’ machines?
- Honest Work: Does anything appear “off” about how they do business with your company? A reliable property management partner won’t give you pause about how they operate professionally, nor will they cause you to question if they are a trusted partner. Honest work and communication aren’t hard to identify. If you find yourself questioning the honesty and credibility of your hot water service vendor, look for a new one.
- Honest Recommendations for Service: You should also feel confident that they are providing you with honest recommendations. After reviewing their response to renting vs. owning hot water heaters, how do you feel about the information they’ve provided? Does it sound legit? Have you cross-referenced with other information researched online and how does it stand up? The information offered by your selected hot water service provider should be honest and inclusive. It should include the pros and cons of each option and any recommendations they make should sound reasonable and be backed up by facts. Don’t let high-pressure sales and dismissive tactics affect your opinions.
- Competitive Price Structure: This one is pretty straightforward but worth mentioning. Do your research and find out what the competition charges for similar services. Whomever you decide to work with, their pricing structure should be fair, competitive, and beneficial to each party involved.
- Effective and Organized: You can usually tell how organized a company is fairly quickly. Signs include communication, response time, maintenance and service schedules, job completion, and invoicing best practices.
- Establishing A Fair Property Management Contract: Depending upon how well-established the hot water service vendor is, they may already have a form of “boilerplate contract” that both of your companies can work from. If your property management company doesn’t have at least some sort of stock contract template drafted, it’s definitely worth the investment. You can easily acquire your own custom template from your real estate attorney partner(s), or perhaps even find one that you can modify to suit your needs online.
Regardless, the details of the job and the contract agreement should be hammered out together with (each and every one of) your chosen vendor or contractor before any work and/or payments are to begin. Once both parties have agreed to the terms, take the extra steps in having your attorney look over the documents to ensure that there are no surprises hiding in the fine print. Your client should do the same.
For more information on property management partnership contracts, visit All Property Management. If your hot water service vendor satisfies these conditions professionally and with speed and grace, you know you’ve found a solid property management partner. If not, then it’s probably best you keep looking until you do find one that satisfies these values.
This example scenario is designed to be a good outline for what your property management company should be working toward with your vendor and contractor partners.
While the details of each contract and relationship will vary depending upon the services provided, the above outline provides you with a solid structure to follow, no matter what type of property management subcontractor you’re working with.
For more ideas, tips, and best practices to help you manage your property management partnerships, hot water needs, and all your property management industry concerns, visit us today!
