A property maintenance company is by definition an overpriced third party vendor.
Why are they overpriced? Because this company has to support: 1) Massive Overhead - which consists of office rent, company trucks, accounting person, receptionist, the list goes on and on 2) Management Salaries - it is likely at least one manager has been hired to supervise the maintenance staff.
3) Owner's Profit - if the company is a decent size, you can rest assured the owner is not out there doing any of the maintenance work.
4) Advertising - they need a lot of business to support the costs above so you are also paying for overpriced yellow page ads, direct mail pieces, and perhaps a full-time marketing person.
As an experienced real estate investor with a great deal of rentals and having bought and sold over 150 rental properties in the last 8 years, I have never met a single successful real estate investor who hired a property maintenance company.
In fact, I have never even heard of a successful investor hiring one of these companies.
Why? Property maintenance companies are extremely over-priced.
When hiring a Property Maintenance Company you can expect to pay $80 -$120 per hour to perform carpentry, plumbing, or electrical work.
You can also expect a mark up on materials of about 300%.
We generally find the technicians are much more likely to lie to you and claim that an AC condenser has to be replaced when all it really needs is a $20 part and 2 hours of labor.
Or they might say the electrical box is too small and must be replaced for a charge of $3000 when there is room to add a couple more breakers for a minimal cost.
If business is slow, these guys have to make a certain amount of money or they go broke.
Successful real estate investors will seek and find a one to two person vendor.
In other words, we look for a plumber without an office, a fancy truck or staff (except for a helper and possibly a spouse) that is licensed, insured and has over 20 years of experience.
These vendors are great at their trade.
However, they are usually not very good with advertising or budgeting money.
This unique type of vendor needs steady work.
They could make more money doing maintenance work for home owners, but since they only work by word of mouth, this is a feast or famine segment of his business.
If they can get connected with a large landlord or a Tampa property management company, they no longer have to stress about getting enough work to pay the bills every month.
By hiring a much smaller company-preferably a one or two person company-you will receive volume discounts.
We normally pay 50-90% less than landlords who hire those large companies.
Our vendors are much more loyal and responsive.
A Tampa property management company or investor should think carefully before hiring large maintenance companies to do any of their work.