Property Maintenance 101: A Guide to Examples, Benefits & Jobs

Every property manager knows the feeling. It’s a Tuesday morning, the phone rings, and it’s a frantic tenant whose toilet is overflowing. Your maintenance team is already buried under a pile of work orders, and you’re left scrambling to find a plumber who can respond immediately. It’s the constant, reactive churn of property maintenance — and it’s costing you time, money and peace of mind.

But what if you could change the script? What if you could anticipate problems before they happen and build a maintenance system that works for you, not against you? The difference between a property manager that’s constantly putting out fires and one that’s consistently improving asset value is a strong, proactive property maintenance plan. We’re not just talking about checklists and work orders. We’re talking about shifting your entire mindset from simply “fixing things” to strategically managing your entire portfolio.

Before we get into that, though, we’ll need to start with something much more basic. What exactly is property maintenance?

What Is Property Maintenance?

Property maintenance refers to any preventive or reactive maintenance action taken to keep a property fully functional and operating in its best condition.

It includes a wide range of responsibilities and requests. A few of these might include responding to a tenant’s maintenance requests, maintaining landscaping, servicing and repairing HVAC systems, performing pest control, or even cleaning or painting common areas. Safety inspections are also an important component of property maintenance, as malfunctioning equipment (i.e., alarm systems) or unsafe maintenance issues can be a major liability.

Benefits of Property Maintenance

Failing to perform property maintenance can result in serious consequences; thus, as you might imagine, there are several advantages to implementing a full-service property maintenance plan. These include:

• Reduction of equipment breakdown and failure: As with any type of preventive maintenance, building maintenance ensures that your buildings or properties experience fewer instances of failure. Regularly checking major property assets, such as HVAC units, elevators and boilers, ensures that your most costly equipment operates as optimally as possible.
• Avoidance of liabilities: If property maintenance is performed on a regular basis, this will reduce the number of onsite potential accidents or incidents, which will help you steer clear of liabilities and lawsuits.
• Increased property value: A well-maintained rental property retains its market value. A property that suffers from neglect will inevitably decrease in value and detract from rental prices over time.
• Happy tenants: Tenant satisfaction means high tenant retention rates. They’ll also be more inclined to recommend your property management company to others looking for high-quality service. This will help you achieve or maintain full capacity in your buildings.

“Building maintenance on a regular basis helps an individual evade costly repair expenses because any potential issues and problems can be identified at an early stage when remedial actions are taken to nip them in the bud,” says Jonathan Cobey, CEO of Carolina Home Cash Offer, a Charlotte, N.C.-based, accredited home-buying company. “This proactive approach will not only help extend the life of the property but also provide it with more attractiveness intended for buyers or tenants, thus ensuring high occupancy rates with high tenant satisfaction.”

Disadvantages of Property Maintenance

While the disadvantages are few, it is worth noting that some downsides of property maintenance may include:

• Costly expenses: If your business depends on rent payments to stay afloat each month, property maintenance may be too pricey to afford — particularly if you were to hire a professional on a part-time or full-time basis rather than case-by-case.
• Reduced control over your property: As with anything, handing over the reins to a property maintenance company means you’ll get less of a say in which assets are inspected, repaired or updated.

Job Roles in Property Maintenance

A combination of four professionals — a property manager, maintenance technician, or janitor or custodian — typically perform property maintenance. While any of these individuals may perform a property maintenance task, each one has distinct roles, responsibilities and salaries that often require different training and certification processes. Here’s a brief overview of all three careers:

Property Manager

• Job description: A property manager is hired in a part-time or full-time position to inspect, oversee and maintain a property’s assets, utilities, tenants and more. Ultimately, he or she is responsible for ensuring the property is in good condition as a place that tenants will want to live.
• Responsibilities: Assigning cleaning tasks; creating a preventive maintenance schedule; submitting work orders (from guests or tenants) to maintenance technicians; ensuring contractors are paid and expenses are tracked; maintaining rentals by advertising and filling vacancies.
• Salary range: Approximately $60,000 a year, according to Glassdoor.

Maintenance Technician

• Job description: A maintenance technician may be contracted out or hired on a part-time or full-time basis to streamline regular repairs and maintenance to mechanical systems around a property. They often work hand in hand with the property manager to keep a residential facility up-to-date and running optimally for occupants, though they usually report to the property manager (who assigns the maintenance technician work orders). Their scope of duties may also include performing preventive maintenance on machines and equipment.
• Responsibilities: Managing or supervising repair processes; maintaining and repairing HVAC systems, boilers, chillers and more; scheduling, performing and tracking work orders; assisting and supervising installations and equipment updates.
• Salary range: Approximately $40,000 a year according to Glassdoor.

Janitor/Custodian

• Job description: A janitor is hired typically on a part-time basis to clean and maintain the hygienic standards of a residential property. A janitor or custodian is typically responsible for cleaning, tidying and disinfecting all shared domains, such as common areas, public restrooms, gyms and lobbies.
• Responsibilities: Cleaning and disinfecting various surfaces; sweeping and mopping floors; vacuuming carpets; washing windows; disinfecting bathroom surfaces and restocking hygienic items (i.e., toilet paper, soap and paper towels).
• Salary range: Approximately $25,000 a year according to Glassdoor.

Building Your Maintenance Team: In-House vs. Outsourced

There are two ways to implement routine property maintenance into your business’ workflow. You can either hire a part-time or full-time maintenance professional (or property manager), or you can contract out your property maintenance needs to a provider. No matter which you choose, there are benefits and drawbacks of each, so you’ll need to decide what makes the most sense for your property.

In-House Maintenance Team

The pros and cons of an in-house property maintenance team include:

Pros:

• More insight and familiarity with your specific property’s needs
• More cohesive and streamlined communication among your facility maintenance team and the rest of your facility, especially if you all use the same property maintenance software
• Control over maintenance costs based on steady salary payments and increased budget flexibility
• High-priority and emergency maintenance can be promptly handled

Cons:

• The hiring process may be more rigorous and intensive to build a maintenance team
• Each property maintenance professional’s salary factors into the property owner’s budget
• More pressure for the property to run smoothly and issues to be addressed promptly with an in-house team

Outsourced Maintenance Services

Likewise, there are pros and cons to contracting out property maintenance services as well. These may include:

Pros:

• Contracted property maintenance professionals are more likely to have extensive knowledge of local laws and property maintenance codes
• Property owner doesn’t have to constantly focus on property maintenance
• Better planning for capital expenses
• Property owner pays a contractor based on need rather than on a regular basis

Cons:

• Can be more expensive than having in-house property maintenance
• Property owner has less influence over the quality and speed of contracted work
• Less streamlined communication among the property owner, the community and contracted services

Ultimately, your budget and regular maintenance needs will play a large role in your decision to hire an in-house team versus a property maintenance contractor. Whichever you choose, always ensure that your candidates are qualified for the tasks you need completed.

Buildings That Require Property Maintenance

There are a variety of building types that could benefit from property maintenance management services. These include:

• Apartment complexes or condominiums: Perhaps the most popular type of buildings for routine maintenance, residential communities require a lot of upkeep to ensure safe and satisfied tenants. From elevator functionality to energy efficiency and indoor environmental quality, maintenance is extremely important for secure and comfortable living.
• Retirement homes: Assisted living facilities tend to be quite extensive, and they require routine maintenance to run efficiently. Since residents typically require extra care and accessibility to maintain their health and safety, this makes having a preventive maintenance checklist all the more necessary for retirement homes and assisted living. Broken equipment, a malfunctioning thermostat or other preventable failures are the last thing nurses and aids need.
• Hotels: Hotels, like residential communities, need to implement property maintenance to ensure the facility is compliant with health and safety checks and that it adheres to a certain level of quality for guests. Regular property maintenance means a pleasant environment for customers — who will recommend your hotel to others — and optimized functionality for proprietors.

“A robust [property] maintenance plan should address preventive measures, emergency protocols and routine checkups across systems,” says Tim Choate, founder and CEO of RedAwning, a platform for short-term vacation rental owners and property managers. “I recommend prioritizing high-impact areas — plumbing, electrical and HVAC systems — alongside guest-facing aspects such as cleanliness and minor repairs. An anecdote I often share is how our attention to air-conditioning maintenance, especially in peak summer months, has reduced both our energy costs and customer complaints dramatically.”

Examples of Property Maintenance

Now that we’ve covered exactly what property maintenance does for a variety of facilities, let’s take a closer look at specific instances. Examples might include:

• Checking for water damage and leaks
• Testing smoke and carbon monoxide detectors
• Changing filters in forced air systems
• Cleaning and regular inspections of gutters
• Fixing garbage disposal
• Interior upgrades or renovations

Certifications for Property Maintenance Professionals

Even if you’re currently a property manager, you may be considering further education or credentials to enhance your career. Typically, the educational baseline to be a property manager is a high school diploma, but the competition can be fierce in any professional field. Whether you have your GED or a master’s degree in maintenance engineering, there are several maintenance certifications available that will help set you apart from other property maintenance professionals. These include:

• Certified Property Manager (CPM): Awarded by the Institute of Real Estate Management, this certification will provide the necessary knowledge for you to optimize the value of any property and can potentially help you earn twice the amount of an average property manager’s salary. Requirements include trainees to have a real estate license and two years’ minimum experience.
• Certified Apartment Manager (CAM): The National Apartment Association awards the CAM credential, which is among the best programs you can take if you’re planning to deal solely with residential communities or apartment buildings (as opposed to commercial properties). Among the requirements for this certification are a series of relevant courses, final project completion and an evaluation test.
• Residential Management Professional (RMP): Similar to the CPM program, the Residential Management Professional credential requires trainees to have a real estate license, two years’ minimum experience in the property maintenance field and have experience managing 100 units during their candidacy period. Extended by the National Association of Residential Property Managers (NARPM), this organization focuses on certifying property managers in ethics and professional standards of conduct.
• Certified Manager of Community Associations (CMCA): The Community Association Managers International Certification Board awards this certification, considered to be one of the most useful and practical certifications available to property managers. Members of the organization are regularly updated on property management and state laws to ensure compliance.