Of the multiple decisions rental property owners must make, who will take charge of the landscaping maintenance is one that can be confusing. Many Arcadia property owners assume that their tenant will be responsible for keeping the yard appearing neat and tidy, but in reality that might not always be the best course of action.
There are both pros and cons to assigning landscape maintenance to your tenant, in the same vein there are pros and cons of taking care of it yourself (or hiring any person to achieve it for you). To make the proper choice for your property, it’s significant to take a closer look at the responsibility of landscaping maintenance from both sides.
As the property owner, the most definite way to ensure property maintenance is getting done correctly is to hire a professional to undertake it for you. There are clear benefits to taking this approach to landscaping maintenance for single-family rental homes. By way of illustration, you won’t need to worry that your tenants will mistreat or neglect the lawn, trees, or other plants.
With good care, your rental house will always have great curb appeal, helping you better protect your property values. Offering landscaping maintenance for your tenant might just become a big draw, helping you attract and keep higher-quality tenants willing to pay a bit extra for the convenience. When your rental property is rented, many states do not allow you to come on the property unless you give proper notice, or it is outlined in the lease agreement. However, it is not a good idea to handle the landscape maintenance yourself.
Added to these snags, if you plan to do the yard maintenance work yourself, you’ll need the time, skills, and tools to do the job efficiently. If you don’t live near your rental property, this could promptly become a serious difficulty. Also, the time you spend caring for your property’s yard might not be the best way to address it.
But, hiring a professional landscaping company will be an additional expense. If you forget to add landscaping maintenance costs into your initial calculations, that could put an unwanted strain on your monthly cash flows. It can equally be arduous to get a cost-effective company that does great work. This is presumably the best part of having a property manager: they will have a list of service providers that may even do the work at a discount.
The usual way property owners do landscaping maintenance is to require your tenant to do it. There are several factual benefits to this means. The tenant takes on the time and expense of mowing lawns, trimming bushes, and pulling weeds, freeing your time and money for other things. More to the point, tenants who have been renting single-family homes for many years often already have the tools and experience needed to do a decent job of things. They will be able to keep your rental property’s yard looking neat and tidy for the whole year.
Not all tenants are willing or able to live up to landscaping responsibilities. By delegating such obligations to your tenant, you do run the risk of doing serious damage to the yard. Tenants may mistreat or miss the lawn and trees, leading to dead or dying plants. Your rental property could abruptly become a neighborhood eyesore. But so much worse, a corresponding reduction of your property value could result. Not only that, if your tenants don’t already have a lawnmower or other tools, buying them could present a serious problem. Many tenants don’t want or can’t afford to invest in expensive lawn care equipment.
In the same vein, they may not know how to use such tools safely. If you undertake to go around the issue by giving tools to them, you could bring on a situation where the tenant injures themselves, breaks or damages your landscaping equipment, or both. Any of these can seemingly trigger unwanted legal problems unless careful steps are taken.
In the final analysis, the decision of who will look after your Arcadia rental property’s landscaping will rest on your specific situation. Although by contemplating all the pros and cons and being realistic about your availability and budget, you can attain an agreement that should help everyone.
If you need some advice on how to handle landscaping for your rental property or would like someone else to take care of it entirely, contact Real Property Management Fairmate. You can reach us online or call us at 626-691-9749
for more information.
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