DIY vs. Professional Maintenance Repairs for Your Boca Raton Investment Property

Florida PMServices • October 9, 2020

Every rental property owner handles maintenance a little differently on their Boca Raton rental homes. Some owners don’t want to have anything to do with maintenance or management; they’ll hand the entire process over to professionals. Others want to maintain a hands-on approach to the repairs that are made at the property, but leave the actual work to qualified professionals. And some owners are professional contractors or extremely handy, and they enjoy spending time making repairs on their own.

There are benefits and challenges associated with every option.

When DIY Repairs Make Sense

There are certainly situations in which it makes sense to handle your own repairs. If you embrace the DIY culture and you love painting walls, repairing fences, and taking care of everything related to your property, you should spend your time and resources doing it. Just make sure you aren’t doing anything that’s beyond your range of expertise. Taking care of the paint, the floors, and the landscaping between tenants is one thing. Installing a new hot water heater or putting on a new roof are completely different.

If you’re able to acknowledge where your strengths lay and where your expertise ends, you can probably have a successful DIY approach to maintaining your home. Just make sure you can respond quickly; don’t make tenants wait until you’re available. It will only lead to frustration and distrust.

Hiring Professionals to Make Repairs

You should always hire professional contractors and vendors when there’s an elevated risk. For example, if trees need to be trimmed away from the house and you’re afraid of heights, you’ll want to hire a tree expert who can get on a high ladder. If you have only watched a couple of YouTube videos about installing new pipes, you might want to leave it to a plumber.

Issues like sewer backups, hurricane damage, and fires often require a professional expert. While you might think you’re capable of removing mold yourself, you’ll want to protect yourself against any legal claims by having a professional mold remediation company take care of the problem.

Measure your desire to do the work yourself against the potential risk you could be putting yourself and your tenants in. Hire professionals if there’s any doubt.

Money Matters: Is DIY Always More Cost Effective?

Many Boca Raton rental property owners do their own repairs because they believe it saves them money. Sometimes, this is true. However in other cases, it can lead to larger expenses and more complex problems.

For example, if you don’t fix a leak completely and the water simply starts leaking from somewhere else, you could be looking at more work that needs to be done. If you don’t fix the drywall right the first time and you need to call in experts for the second time, it’s going to cost you more and your tenants will be frustrated that the work wasn’t done properly the first time.

There’s also the expense of vacancy. If you can’t respond to maintenance and repairs as quickly as an outside vendor, you may be losing the trust of your tenants. They’ll leave when the lease ends, and that will put you in the position of dealing with vacancy and turnover costs.

We can tell you more about whether specific maintenance issues are best handled on your own or with the help of professionals. Contact us at Florida Property Management Services, and we’ll talk through your situation.

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