The Successful Landlord Blog

So this week, the A/C unit in one of the rental houses slowly started to fail. It was working fine but then it just wouldn’t cool. These days, in Melbourne (Florida), the temperatures have been reaching into the low 90’s and the humidity is just nasty and sauna like. The tenants in this property were understandably freaking out.

When they first told me about the situation, I immediately called the A/C company who installed the unit about 2 years ago. They’re usually pretty good and reliable. This time however, they gave me an ETA window of between 10am to 12 noon. They didn’t show up until 5:30pm. When the A/C tech did show up he quickly said, “Oh, all you need is some freon.” There was no improvement in the cooling of the system. Read the rest of this entry »

This post really has nothing to do about being a landlord but … anyway. Last week I had to finally break down and replace the air conditioning unit in my primary residence. The one that was installed was about 15 years old and apparently not very efficient when it was new. For the 5 years I have lived in this house the unit mostly de-humidified the environment, but cooling? Not so much.

I got a recommendation from a local real estate agent for a good AC company here in Melbourne Beach, FL. The guy that came out is the president of the company, installer, salesman and service technician. Basically a one man show.

Read the rest of this entry »

Why oh why, is it necessary to beg, plead, cajole and socially maneuver to get certain contractors to come out to work here in Brevard County, FL? If this is typical, someone please let me know by leaving a comment.
I was recently out at a one of our rentals for something unrelated and the tenant mentioned that certain electrical outlets and light fittings were not working. After checking the obvious things like tripped breakers in the electrical panel and broken switches, I determined that I’m in need of the services of a professional electrician.

Getting an electrician to come out, however, is another story. So far, I’ve had electricians say that they will be there at a certain time and not show up. I’ve also had one electrician say he can’t make it out for a full month.

I mean really, I will pay for the services, on the spot if necessary, but this is getting pretty ridiculous. Brevard County is still growing and I think that when enough of the general public starts demanding decent service, the contractors will fall into line….hopefully.

For a while now I have been unhappy with one of the three lawn service companies that we use to maintain the yards of the rental houses.

This lawn service in particular is the worst at customer service not to mention they do a completely half-assed job. Case in point, I drove by the property one time and they had not weed-whacked the grass next to the house in so long that the grass was about three feet high and growing up the side of the house.

When I call to complain, they do not return calls and sometimes, only sometimes, do they actually remedy the problem. Not to mention, the owner, who actually works on the crew, has never so much as come to the door to introduce himself after he bought the lawn service business from my old lawn guy.
If I need to communicate with him, it’s usually by mail and there is no response. If he needs to communicate with his customers he does the following:

If he needs to change his contact phone number (what’s the point?), he will change it on the bill heading and not take the time to write a note or highlight the fact that the number has changed.

If he wants to let his customers know to write checks to him personally rather then to the business name, he has a rubber stamp made and stamps all the invoices before they go out.

There’s something to be said for doing a little public relations sometimes. For instance, in my other job, I do most of my work remotely. My customers are about 100 miles away on average. Yet, about every couple of months, I find a way to stop in to their offices so that they can see my face and interact with me on a personal level. It’s just so that they know who they’re sending their checks to. It makes them feel warm and fuzzy (I think) to see me every so often and so far, it’s worked out OK.