Mike:
I’ve been fortunate to have bought my properties over 25 years ago, and they currently cash flow very well, over $1,000/unit for some. In the recent RE surge, the values of 3 families gone from 450K to 850K in a few years.
I have the luxury of splurging for some help.
For the SFH though, I got my tenants doing repairs for less than $200.00. There’s one the tenant loves to write us a monthly letter with the rent check, and they just reported their adventures in replacing some plumbing and a faucet at a cost of $150.00.
As for the multi’s, I do call a plumber, no more than 6 times a year, on nuisance stuff, even changing washers. The guy I use has a minimum charge of $75.00 per visit, and I found it well worth it.
For the first dozen years of REI, both my wife and I had stressful jobs, and we looked at using plumbers and handyman as necessary evils. The last few years, with nice cash flow, we sat back and relaxed.
One time, the wife thought $75.00 for a washer was a bit much, and bought one over to the rental, and found it to be the wrong size. So she drove over to a local hardware, got another one, took it back, and it was also the wrong size. Unfortuantely, here in NYC, it’s not a simple matter to finding parking in front of the place, and each trip takes 45 minutes, looking for parking standing in line etc. Unfortunatley, on the third trip, the store closed, and she had to return on another day.
Where was I?? I told her not to bother, I relaxed at home, and after this, neither did she.
There was a family friend, who got started a few years after us, cashed flow a little less than us, and found it necessary to do all the repairs himself, on top of his and her regular jobs. The last I heard, a few years back, they gave up on RE as couldn’t keep up with tenant problems.
Apparently, they also gave up on the biggest runnup in prices here. It’s hard for me to say if I’m ahead, or my friend is ahead, for taking his profits early, and doing all his own maintenance.
In the case of one 3 family, the previous owner insisted on doing all his own maintenace, and I found so many things done wrong that I was surprised the place didn’t burn down. In one case, the light in the bathroom stopped working, and on opening up the wiring in the walls, he used “extension cord cables” that burnt out.
For this rental, which I finally sold, we had a leak a week inside the walls, which necessitated chopping holes in walls, and then repairing them. Unfortunately, I found few handyman that would come to fix one hole, so I resigned myself to patching up big holes, little holes, large sections of wall needing metal lathing.
Bottomline, I could do it if I wanted to, not that I don’t know how. In fact, the house where I reside, there’s about dozen holes resulting from repairs I haven’t gotten to, which I’ll get to work on as soon as the wife starts hollering.
Not all of us can make the time, or have the ability you have in doing maintenance. Consider yourself lucky. that you can do it.