The Real Estate Podcast

These are the MOST COMMON Repairs and Neglected Maintenance | EP298

Discover the hidden challenges of property management in this episode of KT Confidential! Adrian Trott and Ariel Kormendy dive into the most common repairs and neglected maintenance items their property management company encounters. Stay tuned and learn how to keep your property in top shape and your tenants happy! ************************ 0:20 – Intro 1:54 – Common service requests 4:08 – HVAC maintenance 11:19 – Appliance longevity 13:00 – Dishwasher maintenance 17:12 – Fridge and freezer tips 18:48 – Tenant stories 20:09 – Junk removal service 25:58 – Rental property maintenance 28:24 – Outro/recap ************************ Want more real estate podcast discussions? Watch it here: youtu.be/uLhNb8fdHt4 Listen to it here: http://www.soundcloud.com/ktrealty Catch clips and highlights of the show here: http://www.instagram.com/kormendytrott ************************ Our Social: Instagram: www.instagram.com/kormendytrott  YouTube: www.youtube.com/user/kormendytrott  Facebook: www.facebook.com/kormendytrott  Twitter: www.twitter.com/KormendyTrott Soundcloud:http://www.soundcloud.com/ktrealty  LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/ktrealty  Pinterest: www.pinterest.ca/KormendyTrott  TikTok: www.tiktok.com/@kormendytrott?lang=en ************************ In 2011, Ariel Kormendy and Adrian Trott formed The Kormendy Trott Team, now often referred to as KT (thanks to our logo!). The foundation of KT is built on providing unmatched value and attention to detail in everything we do. From our ever-expanding, comprehensive list of exclusive services to our expertly trained team, you will receive the highest level of care throughout your entire real estate journey. Originally a team of two in Milton, Ontario, the KT Team has grown into a large team of exceptional REALTORS®, a client-care department, and now includes KT media, KT Commercial and KT Property Management to provide our clients with a complete lineup of genuine, professional, and proven services across Halton Region, Peel Region and the surrounding Regions within the Greater Toronto Area. We’d appreciate it if you’d subscribe and follow us for behind-the-scenes footage, real estate tips, industry secrets, exclusive listings, KT Confidential - the real estate podcast, and more!

Duration:: 30m
Broadcast on:: 25 Jul 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

Hey, welcome back to KITI Confidential Real Estate Podcast. In today's episode, we're talking about the most common repairs and neglected maintenance items that we're finding through our property management company that you should know about. All right, pal. So today is a kind of a grouping of topics almost. Yes, well, all maintenance repair. Yes. Home maintenance, home costs, cost of ownership. Yes. It all stems from us having a conversation a week or two ago about the most common repair or maintenance request we're getting from our tenants from our property management company. Yeah. My rentee. You can't do that. I'm actually going to use it. I think we're going to do a radio ad. Yes. I don't know if we can do that with a jingle. Hey, we can come up with a jingle. Yeah. So well, let's start with. I don't know what he wants to start with. I'm very my mind is starting to. So there's a whole bunch of, yeah, a whole bunch of ways that this could go. We could be talking about what to look for when you're buying a resale home. And then kind of break that down and stem off of that. We can talk about landlords and what they can expect. In terms of things that always go wrong or are most. Most complaints, most requests. Like that's important because that translates into what should you be doing, then? All right. So let's start there. So among the most common service requests we have are certainly plumbing related. A lot of plumbing related. We have some great questions on call. And HVAC, especially at the beginning of any summer and winter. Yes. Always HVAC. Yes. And then appliance, I would say. Yes. And then the rest of us kind of scattered minor stuff. Right. You're always going to have stuff that happens and stuff that needs attention, stuff that are unexpected. So if you are a landlord, make sure you're budgeting for unexpected expenses. Yeah. But some of them are avoidable, avoidable. And that would be some of those conversations would be directed to the tenant. And some to the reason, Mr. Mrs. tenant, you have bugs in your house, right? You're a slob. Yes. And you are responsible for maintaining your house. As you say, interesting. We had one person who had ants, kept going, ants in the house. I was quite visited, which is shit everywhere, crumbs everywhere. Right. Told her to clean up and even, you know, we said, well, we'll do it this time. But we're not coming again. Right. And even the, who was it? It was the exterminator. They even said she has a very messy house. And that's the reason for the insects. Right. Usually if you have bugs of any kind, ants fruit fly while not of any kind. Cause spiders are common or yeah. Well, she even took so she had laminate floor or butts to the tiles. There's the transition piece. I guess that's where she saw ants coming in. Somehow under the floorboards up through the transition piece, she took white caulking on brown floor and cocked the transition piece. So another unrelated message to tenants is don't take it upon yourself to do anything. Right. Especially if it's not approved by the landlord. Absolutely. And I just wanted to get that off my chest. Yes. This is a good venting session for us. It is. Yes. So tenants are great. Some tenants are better than homeowners. So HVAC, HVAC, about HVAC. So furnace filters, how many times we have to stay on top. Of tenants to replace the filter once every three months, every season for sure. And yeah, like I do mine every two months. We do ours monthly, but we buy. So we buy the cheap ones. Yeah, it was recommended to us that we use the cheap filters and do it regularly. It's also because we have a cheap furnace. Well, it's because, yeah, when you have the higher, more expensive, higher quality filters, which, you know, filter out, you know, whatever, microbials and allergens. Yes. So they say the air flow is reduced. Which consequently, which causes two things. One, it causes more strain on the motor. Yes. The lower motor. You lower the life expectancy. Lower the life expectancy. And it also becomes, it also takes longer to heater cool your house. Sure. You're restricting air flow. You're restricting the proper. So I remember once we were hosting an event at our house in the summertime. And this is before we started using the cheaper filters. Yeah. And we just couldn't get the temperature down between cooking. So what did you do? You pulled the filter. Pulled the filter out completely. And within minutes, it was cool. Yeah, it was profound difference. Right. So since using the cheaper filters and replacing them regularly, it's way better. We just buy a bulk box of them from Home Depot. So they're, I don't know, 10 bucks each, eight bucks each, like pretty cheap. Right. As opposed to 25 or 30, if not more. Right. Yeah. Now, do you have any type of air filtration type of mechanisms throughout the home? No, I'm surprised. You know, I've thought about it. And your wife has asthma and one of your children has asthma. Well, we have shame on you. And no, no, no, no, not at all. We have air quality sensors throughout the house. Yeah. Sensors. But what's cleaning the air? It doesn't need it. OK, what are you going to do? Go ahead and if you're outside, you're going to carry a mask with an air purifier on it. No, but while you're sleeping, have good, good quality air. Yes. And no, it's already good quality. I know that because we have sensors, so it may have allergens in the air. But if you want to go side, you're going to have to face those anyways. And if you're so clean inside and you have fucking sanitizer hands every day, every day of 10 times a day, and then you walk into your D, you know, whatever super clean, purified home, you're not going to be able to leave because your body is going to become so this is so sensitive. That's not true with allergens and dust and stuff like that. I think it is. Why is it that when we have a dog, we have a dog for 11 years. Nobody has any issues. The dog goes away or dog died. It goes away and then all of a sudden, after several months of having no dog and being reintroduced to an animal, allergens, allergies and symptoms of allergies are heightened 10 times coincidence, not coincidence, coincidence, it's exposure. No, a hundred percent. Or now you, there was a buffer or some kind of transition period where actually you were feeling good and now you're feeling like shit. There. So there is a component of it where maybe you are accustomed to it and you don't know that you feel bad, right? But I think it is, and maybe you become more aware of it. Yes. Are you getting another dog? No, no, anytime soon. No, too much work. So the other thing with HVAC is having the furnace and the air conditioner serviced, a proper seasonal servicing. Let the technician open it up, clean out any dust, vacuum it up. Do any, you know, inspection of, hey, this is not looking too healthy. We might want to replace this hose. Or we might want to keep our eye on this because this is getting rusty. And a good technician will be able to tell you, hey, the life expectancy of this furnace is only another couple of years. So you might want to budget for that. How many, how often would you recommend servicing furnace and air conditioner? Well, me personally or by the book, no, no, I think by the book is excessive. I think by the book is excessive would be once a year. That's by the book, by the book. Yeah, by the technician standards, the HVAC. It's a bit excessive. So I think go on the dentist every six months, which I do, but I'm contemplating changing that up a bit. Every, I would say every two to three years. I would say two years to, yeah, write in, I would agree. Right. Um, and it's like to do both the furnace and the AC at the same time. So good time is actually the spring. Because you want to make sure that your AC late spring, because you got to turn on the AC. Right. So you want to make sure that AC is really ready to go for summer. And that's often the biggest repair in terms of timing or the most common repair in terms of timing is that hot summer day, your AC, if it hasn't been maintained, or if it's ready to go. It will go on that hot summer day. We've had it happen recently on several properties. Yes. That's not coincidence. And then what happens is that you're not the only one. There's hundreds of people that this happened to because they're in the same boat. You're waiting weeks sometimes to get it fixed. Now you can't get the parts. You're waiting to get it. You can't nail down a technician because they are swamped. You get a date from them and it's two, three weeks out. And now you're going to be very hot for the next little while, or your tenant will be hot and complaining and then lies a certain responsibility on you to make sure that they're comfortable. Yes. So that's HVAC. That's HVAC. How long would you say an average AC and furnace will last? Well, I think in a realistic world. Cause some of them will tell you, oh, this is a 30 year furnace. 20, I think is reasonable with probably a furnace for both. But I think with you think an AC can last 20 years this in these days. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Mine's still blown cold. Like that's great. It's 13 years old. Yeah. I'm two times away there. I just replaced mine. It wasn't running great. Did you ever maintain it? Yes. Well, I don't know. You've also replaced three fucking dishwashers. I'm still my first. All right. So there we go. So appliances was high on the list. But I think I think 20 years is reasonable if you maintain them and not like to like you're saying like every couple of years. So mine, Alicia and I will do it ourselves. Realistically, let's give it a window 15 years. It should last 15. I think yeah, you might get 20. Yeah. And then there's air conditioners. We've sold houses or and help people purchase houses have 30, 40 year old air conditioners. Back in the day they made the last a little bit longer. I don't know if that's the case. These freaking appliance companies. You think they're not building this shit to break in 10 years? Well, I don't know if it's that necessarily car. You think these cars that are being manufactured now are going to last 20, 25, 30 years? No way. No way. Not without a bit of repair, especially with electronic technology. That's behind a lot of these things. I think the electronics are the things that will outlast the engines. If they work, they work. I feel like I don't know, maybe not. And how many times during that period, don't they work, right? Yeah. Like you look at these fridges as an example with the Wi-Fi and, you know, you smile at it and it gives you an ice cube or whatever. You think these things. That's actually a great feature because when you smile, it creates a chemical reaction that makes you happy. So somebody should create that feature. There you go. So the first thing you get. Merry Christmas, Frigidaire. And you have or GE. You go to have your nice glass of ice water. Right. And first thing you have to do to get it a smile. First thing in the morning, there you go. Brought to you by KT. Yeah. Dishwashers, you mentioned I'm on my third dishwasher in 13 years. Why are you laughing? I don't know how you're through three dishwashers are pieces of shit. That's why all of them, like, look at this one here. This can't even clean a glass. It's brand new. So this one's our landlords obviously chose the cheapest. I don't think so. Stainless steel. No, it's cheap. No, I think it's half decent. I think to the landlord and dishwashers defense. Yes, we have hard water. We have a very hard water. Yes, we're on the old water system only here. And lean. But like what I've not experienced, I don't do the dishes here. Yeah, thank you. Thank you for your help twice. But like, what is your complaint? Are they coming out with food on them or water spots? Both water spots are understandable given the water can. Yeah. Well, then why buy jet dry? Why buy like actually the best time the dishes come out. The nicest is when we use the cleaning vinegar as opposed to any other. Like no dishwasher tab and no jet dry, just cleaning vinegar, like a half a cup of cleaning vinegar. And a lot of people don't know this. But before you start your dishwasher, you should run your tap. Very hot because the first burst of water that your dishwasher pulls in should be hot water, not cold, waiting it for it to warm up. Right. This makes it a lot more efficient because yes, if you're bringing in cold water, it's going to take extra time to heat it up, which is more energy. And then a lot of people don't go into the filter and pull out the filter and get out all of your corn kernels. I've removed my whole door like a few weeks back and I cleaned up all the gunk from underneath the seals and I give it a really thorough cleaning. Wow, you got nothing better to do. Why do you think it's lasted me for 13 years? Yeah, well, you also wash the dishes before they go into the dishwasher. You're supposed to. Are you ours? Don't have a carburetor built in or sorry, you don't have the same one as me anymore. No, so you have to because otherwise there's no way for it to get chewed up. I guess my I maybe it's some gunk from your dishwasher. Maybe. So dishwashers are often complained about that the dishes aren't getting cleaned. I've been to some of these properties and you pull out the filter. The filter's not been cleaned. They haven't run a cleaning cycle. Like it's a great idea when the dishwasher is empty, throw a cup of vinegar in there. You can get those afresh tablets, which actually work quite well, throw it in there, give it a cleaning cycle. A lot of the newer appliances now, like you're washing machine and your dishwasher, have a specific cleaning cycle where they will operate at a higher temperature. Sometimes adding more water. Sometimes adding more water, a higher pressure cycle or something like that. And it literally cleans the inside of it and all of the whenever you call them, the washing mechanisms within it. Yes. I just want to add a little tip and also. So one tip was what you were talked about with running the hot water at the faucet. That's connected to the dishwasher before running the dishwasher. But also I had someone recently who was complaining saying, oh, this water filtration device under the sink with this separate filter top takes forever to get cold. And I feel like I'm wasting the filter. So I said, well, it's connected to the cold water is coming into your tap. So run the tap on cold for 20 seconds before you run the filter tap and you'll get colder water quicker. And she was like, wow, forever grateful and we're great. That's a good tip. Yeah. And if you're not replacing your filters, that could also be part of the problem that filters are getting gunked up. Yes. How often do you replace the filter in your fridge? Oh, you don't have water in your fridge. I have ice. Yeah, but it's not the same. What is water before it's ice? Yeah. How much, how many glasses of water do you drink in a day versus how many? I changed my filter, maybe once a year. Yeah, OK, I probably do twice a year. I change mine every quarter. Yeah. I actually do all my filters all at the same time. So it reminds me. So every three months, I'm doing both fridges while the dishwasher, when I do on a regular basis, like once a week and then the furnace. So the furnace and the fridges get new filters every three months in our house. Yeah, like some of those, like there's air filters and fridges. That's, you know, personal preference. But the one thing I would recommend and this goes back, I guess for anyone, but something I see and we had to deal with recently at one of our rental properties we manage is that a tenant had a fridge and a freezer way overloaded. Yes. Oh, I know what you're talking about. Full to the brim complained about water leaking from the fridge. Yeah, you can't. It has, you know, I don't know how you could explain it, but there is a capacity. I don't think a mouse could have got into that freezer. There was so much crap in there. I mean, it probably wasn't a mouse in the freezer. That's true. Do you remember that? Where, where was that? Where we found a dead mouse in the freezer? I've never found a dead mouse in the freezer. Yeah. Oh, did I tell you the story? Maybe I did. Maybe I didn't, but I'll tell the audience. So we sold a property recently where it was tenanted. Tenants moved out. Sellers decided to sell. Coincidentally, the sellers had a trip to Europe planned. And the timing lined up that we were listing the property for sale while they were away, which is fine. It actually benefits us that we have free rein. They trust us. They're repeat clients. And as long as they have access to some kind of electronic communication to sign documents or for us to have a zoom call. No worries, it's perfectly running smooth. So in that process, we sold or in that time frame, we sold the property. Did real well. They're super happy, but. They were again away. During closing, right. And in that process, there was. Some visits from the buyer, which is common. And the buyer on their last visit before closing identified some stuff that was still in the home that needed to be there was garbage, there was junk, personal belongings and garbage. And the seller asked me very nicely, says, Hey, can you help us out? We need to clear that stuff out. We know we need to clear that stuff out. I was planning on doing it, but life got busy and we're away. I said, no problem. He said that they were planning on calling 1-800-GOT-JUNK, which is an affiliate to. We have a discount through our corporate program with them. I said, OK, I'll call them. I'll apply our discount. I'll go and I'll even meet them there. It shouldn't take that long. There was a whole lot more than I had anticipated. We filled up more than half of the bin of stuff. Because I said, if they're there anyway, might as well get rid of everything so the buyer doesn't come back and say, hey, you left this behind, you left that behind. Well, they move out big stuff. Like if you have a better a desk or anything, or everything. Well, so some of the stuff that they moved out was a huge pantry. OK, so they're equipped to do that. That's two guys and a bunch of tools that pull up with a bin. OK. In fact, up at the cottage and Steve Chiqueto took my recommendation and hired them after I told him this story when he sold his cottage at sometime in the fall. I had arborists come to assess the property for trees that were dead. Every couple of years I have the arborists come to trim things, make it look nice, but also, more importantly, get rid of anything that's dead because I don't want it falling and that costs you more money. So I spent about 10 grand on getting rid of 11 trees, I think it was, or something like that. And the company I hired, they are not the one stop shop where they take it down, trim it down, cut it up, and then turn it into mulch. But they did for a few of them for me as a service. And I paid extra for them to do that, but then there was a bunch of it that they said, we can't do this because the machine that we have is not capable, whatever. So I said, OK, cut it up and put it on my back lot, you know, my back on the other side of the driveway. We have about an acre and a half on the other side of the property. And I'd already had some old tree stumps and leftover shit from the previous owner and all that just dumped there, right, it's out of sight out of mind. So they dumped the rest of the tree stumps with the old tree stumps and the old rail ties, things of that nature. And I said, well, how am I going to get rid of all this now? He said, well, you can call 1-800-GOD-JONK. I said, really, they do that? So I did, 1-800-JONK, they pulled their truck right up into my back lot. And literally the rail ties, the tree stumps, there was old barrels of who knows what, dead bodies, I don't know. And they filled up the bin with a lot of the stuff that was back there. And I never thought of them as an option. So it was super easy. Anyways, going back to this story, so they removed that big pantry from the garage. So they took it apart and then threw it in the bin and they then shifted to the inside of the house where there was a bunch of stuff left in the basement. So as they're clearing stuff from the basement, I went into the garage and I started sweeping up, just make it nice for the new owner. And on the floor, I see it looked like just a plastic black. I referred to it as, you know, when you buy a plant and it comes into that black little container that you take it out of like a temporary pot. Yeah, it looked like one of those temporary pots upside down. So I picked it up and I'm walking over to the garbage bag, but it's sticky, right? And, you know, things are sticky and I didn't have gloves. I didn't have anything. I wasn't prepared for this. There was a broom there, which is why I was sweeping up. And I was sticky and then I went to throw it in the garbage and the way I opened the garbage can or the garbage bag, I had to kind of maneuver this in my hand. And as I'm maneuvering it in my hand, I feel like it's fuzzy. And I turn it around and there's two dead mice that I've been hanging holding on to. I understand how you were holding on to where were they? So it's one of those sticky traps. Oh, got it. Yes. But it was it must have been under that pantry because they were flat. Right. So somehow these mice got flattened on this sticky trap on this black piece of plastic thing. And because it was flat and it didn't look like anything, I just picked that up and didn't look at the other side. Right. But when I went to throw it in, I'm like, why is that fuzzy? And I turned it over and literally my hand was on one dead mouse. And there was another one right next to it. That's funny. I'm surprised it's the first time I'm hearing the story. Oh, man, the things we do sometimes. Yeah. I think we kind of got a track on our topic, little storytelling. Anyways, roof. Water leaks plumb. Oh, plumbing plumbing. Well, plumbing is just could be one of many things. I would say if I was buying a fridge for rental property, I would not have a water line in that period. Right. They can drink out of the tap or get a Brita because that's I find they are often problematic. Yes. And if especially if you're pulling the fridge out to clean, you're putting it back. There's movement. Yeah. So anything extra like that, I would avoid. Avoid the extras. Yeah. Avoid the extra. Keep it basic. Keep it clean. I wouldn't have an over the range microwave because they've we've had problems with those. And those are pricey. They're pricey and they're tough to replace because they're heavy. Yeah. If it's listed as an included appliance, you have to replace it with. Yeah. Or you have to get a microwave for them. Yeah, somehow. Yeah. Yeah, that's that's all I got. So from a plumbing perspective, what I would suggest to people is if you have shedders in the home, y'all know who I'm talking about, have hair traps that prevent hair from being flushed down or well, flushed down not so much because I don't know if there are filters for that. But down your shower drain. Yeah. Down your bathroom sinks, have some sort of filtration system there to stop it from clogging up the the pipes, clogged pipes are not an often complaint. Yeah. So for that, generally what we do is after a period of time, the tenant becomes responsible for it because that's almost regular maintenance. Like if you're not preventing the the clog from happening, then you're at fault for it happening and irresponsible for it being fixed. Yeah. My toilet seems to be not flushing properly. Yeah. That's because your kid flushed he-man down the toilet three weeks ago. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's the biggest one. Still a thing? Probably not. No. I mean, great to buy to garage sale, probably valuable for collectors. Yeah. Or probably, what is it now, pop troll? Oh, yeah. Yeah. You flushed rubble down the toilet. Yeah, poor rubble. All right. Well, yeah. If you have any comments or questions about things that break down often, need repair often that you should maintain. Or if you're a landlord looking for advice on what to do, what to look for, how to handle a tenant with complaints about repairs. And if you're buying a resale home, take these things into consideration. Know the age of the things that you're buying because these things all do break down and could be a cost to you in the future. Well, and as a seller, address these things before you list your home for sale. I had a conversation with the tenant or a tenant, a buyer that one of our team members helped purchase home recently. And this guy was, I just called him to congratulate him. And he was telling me a story, but another house you saw before the one that they ultimately purchased. And it was in rough shape. And he couldn't believe how poorly it was prepared for the show, the listing. And he felt that if it was that, if it showed that bad for the listing, what else is there hiding that we don't know about? It's very apparent in the homes that are clean and well presented. Like when you walk into a home, you know, if somebody loved and cared for that property and maintained it properly, agreed. And it is also very apparent that if you walk in and it's smelly and dirty and in disrepair, that you probably have some underlying issues that you're going to have expenses that may be unexpected. Good chat. Yep. Thanks. Bye. Thanks for watching or listening. We hope you got some value out of this podcast episode. And we would appreciate your insight. If you have any questions or suggestions for upcoming episodes, topics for discussion, please leave a comment and subscribe so you don't miss next week's episode.