Property Inspections – Why it is important and How to do it?

Having a property is one of the biggest investments undertaken by anyone and maintaining the upkeep is crucial to maintaining the value of the property. Hence Property Inspections are essential, and it is one of the most important aspects for any landlord. A lot of property owners do not organize the inspections of their rental property until tenants contact them for an issue. However, it is vital to conduct regular inspections to ensure the property is maintained in excellent condition. The satisfaction levels of a landlord have a great impact on the condition of the property or community they own.

Two reasons why conducting regular inspections of your properties are important:

1. To demonstrate your tenants, you care and to ensure they are following the rules - 

After you have signed an agreement with your tenant, checking on the unit every three or six months can signify to your tenant that you care for their living experience at your property. This provides you with an opportunity to determine whether or not the tenants are adhering to the agreement rules. Having an inspection recorded with images and documents before renting out would help in substantiating any issues that may arise.

1. Stay on top of Maintenance Issues:

Tenants would usually raise maintenance concerns only if it is of inconvenience to them.

At times, there could be issues causing severe damages to the unit if repair is prolonged.

With regular inspections, such issues can be mitigated by identifying problems in advance and recommending suitable preventive measures. This would also ensure minimal repair costs.

Types of inspections to conduct:

There are four types of inspections that property or community managers can conduct such as:

1. Handover Inspection: If the property or community you manage is owned by others, a thorough inspection needs to be conducted before taking over the project. Identifying the condition of the property and the fixtures and recording all data and images of it is imperative to avoid any disputes at the end.
2. Move-In Inspection: Before leasing out the property to a tenant, conducting a move-in inspection will allow to determining the condition of your unit and all the assets in it. This should be done along with the tenant and the move-in inspection report must be signed by the tenant and the staff signifying mutual agreement of the process. This report will warn the tenant that they have to maintain the unit well and the condition should be the same when they move-out. Additionally the report should be used for subsequent inspections and during move-out inspections to compare and assess for any damages or repairs.
3. Seasonal Inspections: Conducting inspections every three or six months of the units rented will provide you the opportunity to determine any maintenance issue and the adherence of unit rules by tenants.
4. Move-out Inspections: At the end of the lease period, a move-out inspection must be carried out to compare the unit condition from the time of move-in. Any damages to the unit must be recorded and appropriate deductions can be made from the security deposit by informing the tenant and providing a receipt for the same.

Must have for efficient Inspections:

To ensure timely schedule and execution of these inspections, its best to have a digital solution that will automate these processes, trigger notifications when inspections are due, records all images and notes related to these inspections. Moreover, it is best to opt for a cloud-based solution that will enable staff to handle these inspections conveniently from their mobile app.

During this pandemic, for the safety of your tenants to ensure social distancing, enabling them with a self-guided inspection where they can go through the inspection checklist and upload images of the unit would be greatly convenient for all. Once they finish the inspection from their portal, the property or community management staff can review, verify, or ask for additional details, store these records and mark as completed inspection. These can be easily facilitated with intelligent software for property managers like RealCube.

Also, promptly responding to maintenance requests from tenants is important to ensure the preservation of the property. This not only maintains the value of the properties but also increases the satisfaction levels of the tenants thereby increasing their retention rate. Automating the maintenance request process can enable tenants to easily raise requests and maintenance staff to respond quickly to it.

Maintaining a property or a community requires persistent care and proactive maintenance to preserve its good condition. A well-kept property attracts more tenants and has a higher market value, therefore any effort taken for it will only yield benefits. With an end to end integrated PropTech solution like RealCube, automation of all these tasks, inspections and maintenance is a cakewalk for any property developer company or community managers.