What is the most cost effective/efficient way to go - Use the management company for maintenance or hire a Handyman to be the first call when things go wrong in a rental property?? If Handyman what would your recommendations be??

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What is the most cost effective/efficient way to go - Use the management company for maintenance or hire a Handyman to be the first call when things go wrong in a rental property?? If Handyman what would your recommendations be??

Sometimes the PM hires a handyman to do something. I know of a few owners that have a handyman on record for the PM to send work orders to when a repair is needed. The down side is if they are busy, don't reply to the work order or drag their feet rather than fixing it quickly. A PM's priority is to fix it ASAP and so they will call several handymen to find one to fix it ASAP if possible.

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What is the most cost effective/efficient way to go - Use the management company for maintenance or hire a Handyman to be the first call when things go wrong in a rental property?? If Handyman what would your recommendations be??

Would you like a recommendation in Ocracoke or Carova?

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What is the most cost effective/efficient way to go - Use the management company for maintenance or hire a Handyman to be the first call when things go wrong in a rental property?? If Handyman what would your recommendations be??

If you have a rental, making sure your guest are happy, not about reasonable cost.
Repeat guest are the 'name of the game'.
As Tim stated, if your self picked handy man is busy, and your guest have to wait until he has time, that is not a recipe for repeat guest.
You may paid a bit more for a PM asigned Handy man, but that handyman will be there to resolve problem.
Now, having your handy man for off season repairs make sense
.

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It's possible the PM will get the work done faster than your own designated handyman, assuming they've expanded their vendors beyond what they had last year . But there's no reason you can't have a handyman or two on standby or opt to have the PM contact you and you reach out to your people, and if they can't do it, let the PM's people take care of it.

It's about more than money, though. Focus on the quality of the work. Some of the PM fixes are fine, especially where it involves them needing a tradesman, but some of the maintenance fixes are not what I would term maintenance or a repair.

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My caution against a handyman would be - make sure they show up!! we've hired handyman for random jobs and no one shows up. We are NRPO so maybe that is why? Not someone that uses them regularly.

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I have an A/C company and an electrician. The PM does everything else, unless they are not allowed (plumbing for instance). I have a preferred appliance repair company too, but they can't always respond in a timely manner, so the PM calls their repair company. Works very well both ways.

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If he doesn't respond or drags his feet then he isn't a very handy man is he?

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If he doesn't respond or drags his feet then he isn't a very handy man is he?

Not everyone is available 24/7 365 days a year. Often, handymen have multiple gigs going on, as well as other clients, so he may legitimately not be able to respond right away.

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You need to remember that not all calls are “handyman” related. Some people report things, such as Tim-OBX’s “toilet timer” who calculated each toilets refill rate and deduced that there was one that was off.

Yes, that may be a future problem that needs addressing later, but certainly not an emergency call...

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Another consideration is where your home is located. For instance if your house is in Duck or Corolla and you need a handyman on Saturday or even Sunday during height of season it might be difficult getting handyman to your house. The couple of hours(or more) sitting in traffic trying to get back and forth to your location is money lost for them. This is where having your PM take care of problems comes in "handy". Pun intended.

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If he doesn't respond or drags his feet then he isn't a very handy man is he?

Not everyone is available 24/7 365 days a year. Often, handymen have multiple gigs going on, as well as other clients, so he may legitimately not be able to respond right away.

I don't hire anyone to do anything unless it requires specialized equipment, and usually I try to find work arounds. I wasn't talking about anyone specific.

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My caution against a handyman would be - make sure they show up!! we've hired handyman for random jobs and no one shows up. We are NRPO so maybe that is why? Not someone that uses them regularly.

This is a known problem here. Trade persons will always say yes and never no because as soon as they say no you are no longer a possible customer to them, you go find someone else. So they never say no, they just put you off or ignore you until they are not busy. The PM's know the people that are reliable and they follow up since they are here. If you are a maint guy here you treat the PM's pretty well as far as being on time.

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I don't own and really can't weigh in but thought you all might enjoy this story...

We rented through VRBO from an owner we've rented from several times with absolutely no issues. He is very flexible with his check in time if no one has been in the house the previous days so he and I had agreed upon a morning arrival time - hours before the standard check in time. He cautioned that a tile guy had finished up the day before and could be returning to pick up some of his tools on the first floor and he would let him know we were coming. Maybe his call didn't go through....

We roll in at the agreed upon time and there's a van there, the door is open, music is playing, cigarette smoke and I means clouds of it hanging in the air in the non-smoking house, washer and dryer going, a dude laying tiles in the bottom floor and his lady napping on the bed.

WHAT?!?!??! We told them we were renting the house and had the owners permission to be there. They said they needed an hour or two to clean up and get his tools gathered.

So we drove around and went to the beach and passed the time until they left about 2 hours later. I called the owner who was shocked and suspected they had been living there while doing the work. Awful right?!?!?! We had to open windows, light candles, and hang our heads out the windows for fresh air for a few days!

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Oh I have heard more than a few stories about repairmen over doing their welcome. A house was being painted near mine a few years ago and after seeing lights on inside at night and more than a few people in the pool in the off season a call was made and an owner showed up a few hours later

They did finish painting the house but not at night anymore. I went to a house to check it and found a screen cut, window unlocked and a bed that had been slept in for days. the police counted the cigarette butts and concluded they were there 2-3 days. I wonder why they would not flush the toilet - noise? I told the police office I bet there is a lot of DNA evidence in that toilet and he gave me a look I'll never forget.

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