Welcome back to the Short-Term Rental Riches podcast. I’m happy you’re here again. I just got back from a little trip visiting some of my properties in my personal portfolio that I haven’t seen in over a year and a half. And so, I’ve got some insights on some maintenance items that my team was overlooking and I bet your team may be as well. Stay tuned. Let’s jump right in.

Welcome to short-term rental riches. We’ll discuss investing in real estate but with a specific focus on short-term rentals. Quick, Actionable items to Acquire, Manage and Scale your portfolio. I’m your host Tim Hubbard.

Well, here we are another week. Welcome back to the Short-Term Rental Riches podcast. I was just over in Tennessee where I have a lot of properties in my portfolio. And believe it or not, I haven’t actually been there in person in over a year and a half. I know that sounds like a long time. So, I just want to point out to anyone out there, any of those naysayers out there that don’t believe virtual management is possible. I am living proof my properties exceeded my expectations even after not seeing them for so long. Of course, it does come down to having an excellent team and excellent procedures and practices in place. Something we talk about all the time. That’s what leads to great reviews and our team has thousands and thousands of those. As you know, if you’re just tuning in for the first time, our team’s managed probably over 32,000 guests at this point and properties all over the place now across the US and also outside of the US. So, I’m happier here again. I want to give you my insights because there were a few things that were overlooked on some of my properties. I want to tell you why.

So, the first thing is why would our team, if they’re doing such a great job, be overlooking a few maintenance items? And the first question, or the first thought is, well, maybe they’re not there when they need to be to see these maintenance items. So, I know that sounds a little confusing, but let me give you an example. Exterior night lighting. So, when are your housekeepers and your maintenance crew, when are they normally at your property? It’s usually during the day, right? Housekeepers, I know our team works, our checkouts are between, they start at 11 and our check-ins are at 3 p.m. So, that is our window to get the properties cleaned. And unless you’re in Alaska and you’re in the Northern Hemisphere somewhere where it’s dark half the year, it’s very likely that your housekeeping team has not seen the exterior lighting when they show up and it’s very likely that they’re not seeing it at all. And so, that was one thing I noticed with quite a few of my properties is that some exterior lighting had gone out. Even these LED bulbs that are supposed to last 10 years, whatever they happen to be, the dusted-on ones, we’ve actually talked about lighting before in a prior episode, those bulbs burn out too. Hopefully, you have some sort of low voltage lighting on the exterior to light your walkways and make a really warm, bright welcoming for any guests that shows up. But that is one thing that I’m sure is getting missed in quite a few properties out there. So, just double check that one.

The next reason our team might be missing some sort of maintenance item, and this is kind of an oddball one, is because the issue’s not there when they’re there. Now, that sounds weird. I’m talking about creepy crawlies here. So, pests, spiders, those types of things, cobwebs. So, I know we have an R maintenance checklist to tackle those types of things. I’ve got some other more common maintenance items that I want to list off here, just kind of rapid fire I’ll get to in just a second. And then how we can make sure we’re overlooking any of these things. But I just want to get back to this second point is that those creepy crawlies, they come out when you’re at least expecting, right? When your guest checks in and they’re there comfortable in the bed and then doot, doot, doot, little cockroach or whatever happens to be, especially if you have properties in urban cities where there’s sewers that have been there for hundreds of years. These things are pretty hard to avoid a hundred percent, but we can avoid them by having routine pest maintenance. And that’s something I highly recommend if your property is affected by pests in whatever area you are. And that’s pretty much most of the world, right? So, make sure you have some sort of routine pest management in place. Of course, there’s a bit of a coordination act that goes into that. We don’t want to be disturbing our guests and having a pest person come in and spray chemicals in there. It’s really something better to be done during a housekeeping turn or when a guest checks out. So, make sure you’re doing that on a regular basis.

I’ll get to some of the other ways to make sure we’re not overlooking this maintenance in just a second. But those were some of the big ones for me. It was really exterior lighting and then just making sure our pest management was up to speed. That’s also seasonal too. So, sometimes you might get more pests during one part of the season and you want to be prepared for that, right? The first one there was exterior lights. The next one are scissors and wine openers. And you don’t want to have that guest check in with a nice special bottle of wine and no way to open it. So, make sure that your housekeepers are checking up on this periodically to make sure that these important but little things are still there in place. Now, I’ve got a list of just some common maintenance items. These are some of the more or the most common maintenance items that I see popping up. The first one are linens. Of course, we want pictures. Our team gets pictures of any soiled or dirty linens when they get messed up. So, we make sure they never go back in a property. But you want to double check all your linens. Make sure that there’s nothing that’s getting overlooked there as well as throw pillows. So, throw pillows are something that’s really easy to change out and actually can provide a lot of color and a really nice vibe to your property. But they also get stains, they also get worn out, they also go missing sometimes. And so, make sure you got a good set of throw pillows. The next one are lights. And I’m not talking about the exterior ones that we just touched on but interior ones that might be hard for your housekeeper to get to. Maybe they’re in a fan that has an enclosure and it’s high up and they can’t get to it. Maybe it’s in some sort of chandelier hanging over an entryway. These are things though that they catch every guest’s eye, believe me. If there’s three lights and one of the three are out, it’s pretty obvious, right? Because the lights next to it light up the one that’s burnt out, right? So, make sure all your light bulbs are working and also make sure that all your light bulbs are the same color. That is one of my personal pet peeves. When I check into a property and there’s two nightstands with lamps on each one and there’s a different color bulb in each one, I know it’s a little thing. But it really just bothers me and it goes to show like these things aren’t being checked, right? Luckily, there are some light bulbs now where you can literally change the color or the tone of the bulb right on the bulb itself. LED. I know that Costco sells these, for example. So, if you found that you’ve got multiple color bulbs in your property, buy these ones. They should last for a long, long time and then make sure you’ve got the right color in the right spot. You want like a 3000K which is a nice warm tone. Also, consider getting one of those light bulb changing extensions. If you have light bulbs in some really hard to reach places, you know that it’s basically a pole with a little thing on the end that can grab a light bulb, spin it out and bring it down. So, if you do have light bulbs in hard-to-reach places and you find them burning out often, then make sure you get one of those handy for your housekeeper. Make it easy for them to help you change those out.

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The next one, this is undoubtedly one of the top maintenance items or inventory items and that is broken wine glasses or broken dishware or silverware of some sort. We want to make sure that our kitchens are complete, right? If we have a house for five people and we have four plates, well, then that doesn’t work out too well. What I would suggest is if you’re operating a property remotely, like we do all of ours and all of our partners properties, then you have more than enough dishware knowing that it’s going to get broken and knowing that you might not be replenishing it as often. This leads me right into the next one and these are knives. Now it’s not always that or knives or silverware and it’s not always that we lose silverware, but sometimes they just get damaged or they get bent or the knives are no longer sharp. So, get yourself a set of knives that actually have the sharpener there and then make sure in one of your deep cleans or your semi-annual inventory checks that you have a note in there to make sure the knives are sharp.

This next one is probably one that has gotten overlooked as well and that is not just a first aid kit, but missing items in a first aid kit. So hopefully you have a first aid kit in your property. That’s one of the safety items that most all the OTAs ask for. It’s a little check that we put on our listing, but we want to make sure that it’s actually got stuff in there, right? So, it’s been quite a while since we checked on these and I was just scoping around, checking out the properties, going in and out, just looking for little things. And I noticed that quite a few of the first aid kits were missing, like maybe all the band-aids got used, whatever it happened to be. So those are super cheap. Make sure that those stay stocked.

The next one are smoke detectors. We do luckily have ways to prevent smoke now. We just installed a minute sensor, which not only monitors noise, but also monitors smoke. You can check out all of our recommended resources, by the way, the technology we use, the items we use at rest methods.com. There’s recommended resources. It’s free there. It’ll be a big, big help if you’re looking for items for your properties. So anyways, smoke detectors. So, there’s a couple reasons why these get taken down. They’re often not easy for your housekeepers to put back up either. The first reason is if the battery was going dead, they get that annoying alarm going off, right? And so, guests will take these down and put them away because they can’t sleep and the battery needs to be changed. So, they do have these smoke detectors now that last like 10 years. If your smoke detector is not hardwired, that’s the ultimate way, but a lot of older properties, that’s harder to do. So, spend a little extra, get those smoke detectors that are going to last you a long, long time so that your guests aren’t taking your smoke detectors down, making it hard for your housekeepers to put them back up. The other reason a guest might be taking your smoke detector down is because they actually want to smoke in your property. So maybe not cigarettes, right? But maybe they’re vaping or they’re smoking marijuana or something like that. So smoke detectors, especially in a big property where you’ve got one outside of every room, basically, and all the hallways, we want to double check those and make sure they’re all where they should be.

So, there we are, the top three items I think that might get overlooked. The first one is exterior lighting. The second one are the little things like scissors and a wine opener, if it’s been a while since you’ve done an inventory count. The third thing that might get overlooked are pests. And again, that’s seasonal and it’s something that usually isn’t there when we’re there, right? So, if you’re getting any sort of feedback from your guests, definitely make sure to up your pest control services because this is a sure way to get a bad review. Some people can handle a few creepy crawlies, but some people have a zero tolerance. So just remember that. And we went over seven common maintenance items that are sure to be happening. They are the most common. The first one are linens. The second one I would say are throw pillows or not having enough or some that have a little bit of a stain. So, we want to have a lot of nice throw pillows and swap them out regularly. Interior lights or even just mismatched colors on interior lights. Hard to get to places. Make sure that we’re checking on those regularly. Broken dishware. So, we started with wine glasses, but then we went to silverware, damaged silverware or dull knives. So, we want to make sure our knives are sharp. There’s nothing worse than trying to cut through a nice fresh loaf of bread and the knife just doesn’t do the trick. Number six was first aid items. So, make sure you have a first aid kit in there. Remember this is really important. It’s even more important when a guest actually needs it, right? It’s usually some sort of emergency. Number seven, smoke detectors. So, there’s a couple of reasons why guests might be taking these down. Either your battery’s dying or they’re actually smoking in your property. Hopefully not. Hopefully you have some sort of smoke detector installed if you’ve been having issues with that. But those are also something it’s hard for your team to put back up. So, what can we do about all this? Well, our team uses Breezeway. I’ve talked about that quite a bit. That’s a software program set up just for short-term rentals. It integrates with a lot of property management software programs and allows you to track regular maintenance and any sort of maintenance as well as your housekeeping to make sure you’re never overlooking anything. We have semi-annual deep clean set up in ours, as well as a general inventory checklist that we schedule periodically just to make sure those dish items aren’t missing and everything else that goes along with a general inventory of a property. So, you can make it as comprehensive as you want, but they have a really easy to use application. This makes it easier for our whole team. Don’t forget your pest management, your routine pest management, which you can also schedule through an app like Breezeway if you’re using that. If you’re not using a comprehensive checklist or your housekeepers aren’t open to getting rid of exterior cobwebs, for example, maybe ask your landscapers if they don’t mind. Sometimes they can just blow it off if they’re there at the entryway, but we have landscapers who work with us that also will do a little extra and get some of those cobwebs down for us.

One other item, this was mentioned in a prior episode with Jasper Rivers actually was an interview. They talked about having an ammo box and that’s a little box or a little basket or whatever it happens to be that we pretty much hide in our property. And in that ammo box are for small maintenance things that might come up where guests might be able to fix them on their own and save us a maintenance trip from going out there and also do it much quicker. Now, of course, we don’t want to be asking our guests to be fixing maintenance items, but just to give you an example, one that might be okay. Garbage disposal gets clogged. There is a little garbage disposal tool that you just stick in the bottom, you crank it around and boom, it frees up the garbage disposal. So that’s something your guests might not mind. Of course, they don’t want to do it. No one wants something to break in the first place, but those things are helpful. They can make it easier for both sides. Some of the items you might want to include is a garbage disposal tool. If you happen to have one of those spare light bulbs, spare batteries, a multi-use tool. So, like screwdrivers and pliers, maybe an Allen wrench, a lot of furniture these days has Allen screws in there. So again, these aren’t things that we want our guests to be doing, but it’s something that can save us both a little bit of time and hassle. Make it easier for both sides. Lastly, if your housekeepers are not showing up to your property or your maintenance staff is not showing up to your property at nighttime and you don’t live nearby, well, maybe check your cameras to see if those nightlights are still on. If not, schedule a trip. Maybe ask one of your housekeepers to go out there and just double check that all the exterior lights are on so that your guests have a nice warm, inviting welcome. So, there we are. There’s some of the top maintenance things, some that you might have not have thought about, but maintenance is just one of those things that we need to do, right? And it’s a slippery slope. When we start letting a little thing go, then we start to get bad reviews with our guests and it just snowballs. We don’t want that. Not a good experience for our guests, not a good experience for anyone. So hopefully that helped you and hopefully your properties are in tip top shape. But until next time, I hope you have a fabulous week.

Whether you’re just getting started with short-term rentals or you’ve been in the game for a while, one thing remains the same. Your management can make or break your performance. Our team has learned a lot managing thousands of guests and we put together a handbook just for you with our checklist to cover our exact process. There’s a lot to consider from verifying guests to managing reviews and you don’t want to miss a step. You can get your free copy by going to restmethods.com. There’s no charge. It’s my gift to you for being one of our loyal subscribers and I hope it helps you earn higher returns with less headache.