How Preventive Maintenance Works in Property Management

In property management, the fastest way to lose money — and tenants — is by only reacting to emergencies. A busted boiler in January or an AC failure in July can turn a profitable building into an expensive headache overnight. Repairs cost money, vacancies cost more and reputational damage lingers longest of all.

Preventive maintenance (PM) exists to stop that spiral. By scheduling inspections and upkeep before systems fail, property teams extend asset life, stabilize operating costs and protect occupancy. Swapping a filter, clearing a drain line or tightening a loose connection is cheap. Replacing a failed system under pressure never is.

But here’s the uncomfortable truth most articles skip: Property managers don’t fail at preventive maintenance because they don’t believe in it. PM breaks down because property environments are uniquely hostile to doing it perfectly. Units are occupied. Residents control asset usage. Emergencies are emotional and public. Turnover deadlines don’t move. Staffing is thin, and the backlog is always there.

This article combines two realities: why preventive maintenance matters to the bottom line and how it actually gets executed across multifamily and commercial properties. We break down where PM programs fall apart, what equipment dominates workloads and how high-performing teams still make PM work in the real world.

Why Property Preventive Maintenance Matters for the Bottom Line

If you aren’t spending money on preventive maintenance now, you’re just waiting to pay a much larger bill later. Repair costs are only part of the equation. Tenant turnover is the silent killer of profit margins.

Every time a tenant leaves because the elevator is always broken or the AC is spotty, you’re stuck eating the cost of repairing and renting an empty apartment. Keeping the building’s systems running efficiently is just the cheapest way to keep your occupancy up.

Then, there’s the actual value of the property. When it comes time to refinance or sell, an appraiser is going to look at the books. If they are full of emergency service calls and last-minute repairs, the building looks like a liability on paper. Having a clear history of upkeep proves the infrastructure is solid. It protects your CAP rate and actually makes the place worth the asking price.

You also can’t ignore the legal risks. A dark stairwell or walkway is an invitation for a lawsuit. Regular maintenance of these common areas is the only real defense you have against liability claims. Swapping out a bulb costs almost nothing compared to what a legal settlement does to your bottom line. 

Maintenance vs. Inspections: Clearing the Confusion

Before we continue, let’s clear up these two aspects of property management because confusing inspections with maintenance is how essential tasks fall through the cracks.

An inspection is an assessment. It involves checking gauges, testing sensors, looking for leaks and identifying signs of wear. It’s a diagnostic process meant to ensure compliance and find red flags. When a technician walks the roof, checks mechanical rooms or scans ceilings for water stains, they’re gathering data about the health of the property.

Maintenance is the labor. This is the hands-on work — swapping filters, clearing out drain lines or tightening components. It is the physical action that prevents a system from failure.

An inspection triggers maintenance. When a tech finds a frayed wire during a routine walkthrough, they take the discovery to maintenance management, which then generates a work order before the system can short out. You need to conduct the inspection to identify the risk, but the maintenance is what keeps the building and its systems running smoothly.

How Preventive Maintenance Is Actually Executed by Property Managers

Now, let’s take a deep dive into how preventive maintenance actually happens in property management. There are several factors to consider compared to, say, a manufacturing plant. As such, here’s insight into the very real way property maintenance teams perform PMs (if and when they can):

PM Happens in Campaigns, Not Calendars

In most portfolios, PM tasks don’t follow a smooth weekly schedule. They happen in seasonal bursts. Pre-summer is all about HVAC readiness. Pre-winter focuses on freeze protection, boilers, roofs and weatherproofing. Outside of those windows, PM activity rises and falls based on workload pressure.

Then comes turn season. During heavy turnover, preventive maintenance becomes whatever survives the make-ready process. Units must be rent-ready on fixed timelines, so PM collapses into turnover work. This is why make-ready has become a discipline of its own in multifamily operations. It’s the moment when access is guaranteed, residents are gone, and maintenance can finally work uninterrupted. PM doesn’t disappear during turn season; it gets absorbed.

Outside of those windows, PM activity rises and falls based on workload pressure.

PM Shrinks to the Repeatable Few

Of course, under pressure, PM programs narrow to the tasks that prevent the most emergencies:

• HVAC filter programs
• Smoke and CO detector checks
• Basic water heater inspections
• Common-area lighting and safety checks
• Roof, gutter and exterior inspections

These tasks scale. They’re predictable, verifiable and deliver outsized ROI.

Data-Driven PM — When Teams Can Breathe

In theory, modern maintenance systems should guide smarter preventive maintenance. Ticket history, asset data and completion times can all be used to identify failure patterns and prioritize preventive work.

But many property teams struggle to get there. Clean data requires time, discipline and consistent workflows — three things that disappear when a site is drowning in work orders. As a result, many PM decisions are still driven by instinct and experience rather than dashboards.

That doesn’t mean data-driven PM is a myth. It means it only becomes possible once the operation escapes constant firefighting mode.

Preventive Maintenance in Multifamily vs. Commercial Properties

Preventive maintenance even happens differently across different multifamily and commercial properties. Here’s a look at the different constraints the two face.

Multifamily PM: Occupied Units & Emotional Urgency

Multifamily maintenance happens inside people’s homes. Access is the defining challenge. Notices, no-shows, pets and work-from-home schedules turn simple PM tasks into coordination exercises.

Resident perception drives priorities. A failed rooftop unit matters less than a hot bedroom. As a result, multifamily PM succeeds when it piggybacks on reactive work, focuses on high-impact systems and uses turnover as the primary PM window.

Commercial PM: Fewer Tickets, Higher Stakes

Commercial properties offer scheduled access and centralized equipment. Assets are fewer, larger and more expensive. PM is more calendar-driven and formal — but complexity and vendor coordination introduce their own risks.

Strong operators tailor PM to the environment instead of copying strategies across property types.

Where Preventive Maintenance Programs Break Down

Most PM programs don’t fail technically. They fail organizationally. The breakdowns are predictable.

Breakdown #1: Access Is the Silent Killer

As we already mentioned, preventive maintenance requires access, and access is never guaranteed in occupied properties. This is especially true for multifamily units where simple PM tasks almost always require serious scheduling logistics.

Every failed access attempt means rescheduling, more admin work and less confidence that the PM program is actually progressing.

Breakdown #2: PM Is the First to Deprioritize During Backlog Spikes

When work orders pile up, preventive maintenance becomes a labor valve. It’s quietly deferred to protect response times, even though the downstream cost is higher failure rates later.

Because PM failures are delayed, the decision feels safe — until it isn’t.

Breakdown #3: PM Lives in People’s Heads

In many properties, PM knowledge is tribal. One tech knows the boiler room. Another remembers which buildings have old panels. Someone else knows which units always have drain issues.

That works until someone quits, transfers or burns out. When preventive maintenance depends on institutional knowledge instead of systems, continuity is fragile.

Breakdown #4: Staffing Models Ignore Reality

Staffing is often based on unit counts, not workload drivers. Building age, deferred maintenance, turnover velocity, resident behavior and asset complexity are rarely factored in.

The result is chronic understaffing that turns PM into a luxury instead of a baseline function.

Pillars of an Effective Property Maintenance Strategy

For those teams looking to implement a more proactive maintenance strategy, here’s an overview of the four most common ways to trigger preventive work.

1. Time-based maintenance: These are routine tasks you do based on a calendar. Examples include changing the filters of an HVAC system once every three months or cleaning gutters before the autumn leaves start to fall. Tasks like these stop small issues from snowballing into larger problems and are typically the easiest way to keep a building and its systems stabilized.
2. Usage-based maintenance: An elevator in a high-rise with 200 apartments works harder than one in a small four-story office building. Servicing it every 10,000 cycles makes more sense than conducting maintenance on it based on a calendar date. This strategy ensures proper maintenance is performed on high-usage equipment and that you avoid spending money on unnecessary maintenance.
3. Risk-based maintenance: This is where you assess and prioritize the systems that would cause the most financial or structural issues if they failed. Risk-based maintenance forces you to focus on the “high-consequence” systems, like roofing, main electrical panels, plumbing and HVAC, long before you worry about cosmetic touch-ups like paint or landscaping.
4. Augmentation: Your onsite maintenance crew may be highly skilled, but they aren’t experts in every aspect of a system. Augmentation involves using third-party vendors for critical systems that require specific tools or legal certifications, like fire suppression testing, elevator inspections or high-pressure boiler certifications. Bringing in outside pros helps keep your property compliant with local laws and relieves your team of life-safety equipment liability.

Critical Inventory & Preventive Maintenance Examples

Ask any seasoned property maintenance supervisor where the hours go, and the answer is remarkably consistent. Here’s the most critical equipment property maintenance teams oversee as well as example PM tasks based on frequency. 

HVAC Systems

Heating, ventilation and air conditioning are the largest drivers of energy costs and tenant complaints. When the AC quits in August or the heat fails in January, you’ll hear about it immediately.

• Monthly: Replace filters, inspect intakes
• Quarterly: Inspect belts, lubricate motors
• Bi-annually: Clean coils, check refrigerant
• Annually: Full calibration and duct inspection

Check out our free HVAC preventive maintenance checklist for a more detailed overview of tasks.

Roofing & Gutters

Neglecting the building envelope (exterior) can lead to catastrophic water damage and expensive maintenance costs. Water intrusion doesn’t announce itself until it’s already a disaster.

• Monthly: Ceiling checks for water stains
• Quarterly: Clear gutters and drains
• Bi-annually: Inspect flashing and penetrations
• Annually: Professional roof inspection

Plumbing & Water Systems

Plumbing failures are often silent until they become emergencies. Regular PM tasks are the only defense against burst pipes and flooding.

• Weekly: Check common-area leaks
• Monthly: Test sump pumps
• Bi-annually: Flush water heaters
• Annually: Inspect shut-offs and insulation

For a detailed task list by frequency, check out our free plumbing maintenance checklist.

Common Areas & Exterior

These areas define the tenant experience and are the primary focus of property maintenance for liability reduction. For building residents, first impressions matter and so does safety.

• Weekly: Test lighting
• Monthly: Inspect walkways
• Quarterly: Test security systems
• Annually: Deep clean and repaint high-traffic areas

Preventive Maintenance Best Practices for Property Teams

Even the most successful property maintenance teams struggle finding that perfect balance between consistently doing PMs and satisfying the tenant. Here are four approaches that seem to be most effective in finding that balance. Not by doing more PM — but by doing smarter PM. 

• PM piggybacking: Every reactive visit becomes a mini-inspection. While fixing a disposal, techs check shutoffs, look for leaks, inspect filters and test detectors. This way preventive maintenance still happens quietly, one visit at a time.
• Do PM where access is guaranteed: Common areas, mechanical rooms, roofs and exteriors get priority. Anything that doesn’t require resident coordination gets done first.
• Obsess over the highest-ROI tasks: Filters, life safety checks and leak prevention deliver disproportionate value. If a team can only do 20 percent of PM, it should be the 20 percent that kills repeat tickets.
• Let failure patterns drive PM: Instead of calendar-based PM, high-performing teams study ticket history. They perform preventive maintenance on the systems that fail most often and ignore the rest until capacity improves.

Streamline Preventive Maintenance With Coast

The best property maintenance teams don’t perform PMs the way textbooks describe. They do it the way reality allows: opportunistically, selectively and relentlessly focused on what actually breaks. Of course, Coast’s preventive maintenance software helps with exactly this. That’s because standard operating procedures, checklists, photos and task history are all organized in one place — and are all accessible via a mobile device. Teams stop relying on memory and start automating PM tasks within the platform. This leads to fewer repeat failures, fewer emergencies and fewer angry residents.

After all, when maintenance is organized, tenants stay happier, assets last longer and properties run more smoothly overall. Sign up for a free Coast account today to see how.