In connection with rental home ownership nationwide, realizing and monitoring the state of each home’s exterior elements is just as primal as contemplating on when to replace the carpet or repaint the walls.
Whether you’re renting out an older property or a newly built home, learning the age of each item and how long it can prudently be expected to last is a very important part of successful rental property management.
Importance of Maintaining Your Property’s Exterior
A good landlord or property manager finds out the healthy lifespan of common exterior elements of your rental property. A product’s lifespan is the time frame it should last, applying standard conditions. For example: a quality cement patio gets by upwards of 50 years, on account of the immensely durable nature of cement. However, by contrast, wooden decks only last about ten years, given their sensitivity to the natural elements.
As a guide, we’ve listed a few common exterior items and their average lifespan:
- Garage Door: 15 years
- Automatic Garage Door Opener: 5-10 years
- Wood Fence: 10 years
- Stucco Exterior: 20-50+ years
- Vinyl Siding: 25 years
It’s essential to work out how long an element is expected to last in your property, above all if your tenant induces damage beyond normal wear and tear. For instance, if the vinyl siding, which is over 25 years old, gets damaged, the tenant shouldn’t be held responsible for the repair cost. Yet, if the vinyl siding is less than 25 years old, the renter would perhaps be blamed and called to pay some or all the repair costs.
Stay Ahead of Property Damage
Rather than spend time and money on an unfruitful judicial process, the preferable option to take is to be ahead of property damage. With the right and benefical information, and a proactive system for property management, it’s undeniably possible to manage and keep every single component of the rental home – both in and out– in fine condition. Properly replacing items, at regular periods, beyond their good and useful lives is one way to avoid bearing the full cost of repairs resulting from tenant negligence. Another is operating regular property evaluations to carefully monitor various areas of the rental home.
Real Property Management Colonial delivers a full property management program that takes into account preparing for the next few years with maintenance plans, property evaluations, and advantageously more. We have the necessary equipment and expertise to handle your Old Southwest real estate investments, making them highly profitable for the impending future. Contact us online or at 540-595-7411 today!
Originally Published on March 22, 2019
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