Hello, greetings from Colorado Springs. My name is Lance Kohler. I'm the managing broker for Cornerstone Real Estate Team.
Today, as part of our landlord education series for do-it-yourself landlords, I'd like to talk about finding and vetting maintenance vendors. There are several steps we take when we're adding a vendor or a new or different capability to our list of vendors. I'd like to share that with you so you can use it while you're finding vendors to support you in managing your rental property.
First off, you should check their reputation online. Now, I would tell you in a service business you're not always going to—if you had somebody that had 50 reviews and they were all five-star reviews, I'd be really surprised. Somebody probably isn't going to be happy. But you can read through the reviews and see what kind of work they do, how people accept their work, how they interact with the public. So I'd recommend checking their reputation online.
You want to discuss with them how they submit invoices. Are they mailing them to you? Are they dropping them off at your house? Are they emailing them to you? Do they send you a digital copy through QuickBooks? That's important for you to know so you know whether you can handle those. Do you have a mailing address for your business? Can you receive them online? What email address do you want to provide them, etc.
And how do they accept payments? Do they accept electronic payments? Do you have to pay them through your bank? Can you pay them? Do they expect payment at the time of service? Are they a 30-day net? Are they mailing you an invoice and then you, in turn, are mailing them a check? Those are all things you ought to know before you engage with the maintenance vendor.
Do they do specific types of work? Are they general handyman? Are they specific? Are they an electrician? Are they a general contractor? You can understand what you might be expected to pay and what kind of licensing or insurance you would expect them to have.
And then you ought to try them out. Oftentimes, if we're adding a new vendor, I might use them at my house if I have a need for that, or somebody on our staff may use them to try them out before we use them on a property that we're managing.
Then, when you decide on them and you engage them to perform some work at your property, you should have a conversation. You don't want them discussing issues or repairs that they find with a tenant. And likewise, if the tenant—they go to your property and you have a tenant in place—don't allow them to continue doing work that the tenant has not reported to you
And make no verbal agreements. Please don't have the vendor say, "I'll come back tomorrow and do that," because maybe you have somebody else planned to do a certain type of work
Then ask them to report back to you—how was the condition of the property, how was the work that you did, were there other items that needed repair
So I hope that was of value to you. Make it a great day. Thanks.