Proper maintenance of your vacation home should make your rental business run smoothly.  I advocate doing preventative maintenance. Don't make the mistake of thinking you'll only call in maintenance people when something is broken. With your vacation property, I suggest doing preventative maintenance on everything you possibly can. I know you've heard this phrase countless times before, but it bears repeating here: An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Here's my rule of thumb: Anticipate all problems and make fixes before they become an issue. With this mindset, you'll definitely view vacation property ownership as a business venture. That means don't get worked up about spending $75 twice a year to have your furnace cleaned. What's $75 compared to the costs of having things breakdown and losing valuable rentals over it? I promise, taking care of standard maintenance issues regularly will make your life easier.

I advocate hiring a maintenance person to oversee your property on a continual basis. This works particularly well for people who live far from their second home and can't visit more than once or twice a year.

Exactly how much should you have your regular maintenance person do? As much as you feel necessary. Some people have a maintenance person come to their property after each guest leaves to check on things such as light bulbs, furnace filters, leaky faucets, and so on. Others have their cleaners scout any problems and notify you and/or your maintenance person if need be. Experiment and find out what works best for your situation.

© Christine Karpinski 2006