Today’s topic is how to budget for maintenance for Columbia, SC rental properties. The first and most important thing we tell everyone is to know the age of your property and its condition. This is the main thing you need to know when estimating how much money you need to budget for maintenance.

Routine and Preventative Maintenance

Routine maintenance is what you do on a regular basis to keep everything at your Columbia SC rental property working. Nothing is necessarily wrong, but you want to make sure you handle things before anything breaks. A good example is the air conditioning unit. You’ll want to clean the coils and check the Freon levels. You can call people to service it every year and you know to budget around $129 for that service. It’s preventative and it ensures nothing breaks.

Corrective Maintenance

When you have a corrective maintenance issue, something has broken and you need to fix it. Things are going to break when people are living in a property. So if something goes bad or the garbage disposal has a crack and needs to be replaced, that’s a corrective action. You replace the garbage disposal and life goes on.

Emergency Maintenance

Emergency maintenance is when something happens suddenly and you have to repair it right away. A pipe breaks or a gas line breaks and it has to be fixed immediately because it’s hampering the people who live in the house. This is hard to budget for, and it’s at the far end of your maintenance budget.

Money for Maintenance

When you’re budgeting, think about age and condition of the systems, structures and appliances in your property. For example, carpet lasts for 10 years if you maintain it. It can cost between $1 and $2 per square foot. So, to budget what you’ll need for carpet maintenance, take the number of square feet in your property and multiply that number by $1 or $2. Divide that by 12 and you’ll know how much to save every year for carpet. Paint has a life expectancy of three years, so you can do the same thing. If you haven’t painted the house in three years, you know it’s time to paint it and paint is usually around $1 per square foot. Do the math and get your budget in place. You’ll have the money when you need it.

Escrow Accounts

At Empire PMG, we have an escrow account where you can put as much money in as you like. This is your money and you'll get it back when you decide to stop renting out your property. We keep your money in this account for maintenance. We recommend having $250 to $300 in there at all times so you’re not taking it out of your pocket when routine maintenance is needed.

If you have any questions about maintenance or how to budget for it, please contact us at Empire Property Management Group in Columbia SC, and we’d be happy to tell you more.