STR Pro – Maintaining Your Short-Term Rental

Good morning,

Any real estate investment is going to require maintenance, upgrades, and capital improvements. We make quarterly visits to our properties ourselves. It’s hard to give up revenue in the short term to make your own trip, but it’s worth it in the long run to have properly maintained units.

It’s imperative to keep an eye on your short-term rentals so they don’t get run down or beat up.

By Lauren K. Aumond

Maintenance We Do Ourselves:

• Hardware: We make sure towel bars, shower bars, faucets, doorknobs, shower heads, and toilet paper holders aren’t loose and fix them if they are. 

• Toilets: Check for running toilets that haven’t shown up on the water bill yet.

• Remove Hard Water: Shower heads and faucets sometimes have buildup on them, which we treat.

• Missing Items: Replace missing (or stolen) items, like power supplies, night lights, etc.

• Hide-A-Keys: Even though we have electronic locks, we have backup keys hidden. We check on them and make sure they’re still there.

• Lightbulbs: We change lightbulbs that are out.

• Blinds: Check for broken blinds and replace if necessary.

• Touch Up Paint: If there are little nicks or dings in the walls or trim, we touch them up.

• Change Batteries: We change batteries in the thermostats, locks, remotes, etc.

• Inventory Supplies: My cleaners are very good at noticing when we need things, but I check everything, like soaps and linens, when I’m there.

• Sinks: We look under the kitchen and bathroom sinks to make sure there are no leaks.

• Dryer Vents: We vacuum out the dryer vents.

• Air Filters: We change the AC filters in every unit. We have these on automatic reorder. We also have sizes for each unit documented.

• Refrigerator Water Filters: If fridges have water lines, we change the filters when we’re there.

• Furniture: We check the furniture to make sure the pads are still on the legs. We also check drawers and doors to make sure they’re functioning properly. It’s also important to see if any chair legs need to be tightened.

• Rugs: We spot treat the rugs when we visit. We wash the ones we can in the washing machine. Once per year, we fully clean or replace them.

• Shower Curtains and Liners: If shower curtain liners need to be replaced, I do this to give my cleaners a little break, although they always have them in stock. I also wash shower curtains.

• Throw Pillows and Blankets: Our cleaners wash these as well, but I also do when I’m staying in the units.

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Taking REI – how to maintain your short term rental

Maintenance We Hire Out:

• Lawn: We have a bi-monthly lawn service.

• Gutters: We hire people to clean out the gutters.

• Bugs: We have a professional service that treats for bugs quarterly.

• Air Conditioning: We get our AC’s professionally serviced annually.

In Conclusion

I hope this article helps you maintain your short-term rentals and continue to wow your guests.

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More from Lauren K. Aumond

Lauren | Adulting Is Easy (@AdultingIsEasy) / Twitter — twitter.com
Making Adulting Easier by Making Money Easier on the Adulting Is Easy podcast. Teacher at Cash Flow University.