I see this in my industry. A family has had a vacation cabin that gets used less and less, or a condo by the beach that they haven’t been to in 3 years, or the large lot that Grandma left in another state. All property has some type of value, and all property needs oversight, some more than others.
Put together a maintenance list or hire someone to take care of it for you. Yard
maintenance, plumbing, electrical, roof, doors and windows, appliances, furnaces
Imagine a water heater failure that floods the house and ruins all the flooring and
the lower 12” - 18” inches of sheetrock in your property. Or the 1,000 acres that is the local hunting grounds and motorcycle track, or growing operation for illegal drugs.
I have heard of or personally dealt with properties that have been neglected for
years. Whether they are owner occupied, tenant occupied, or vacant these are
Sometimes it's as simple as mowing weeds and keeping the fence standing
upright. Other times, it's a little more in depth and has out of pocket expenses.
If it’s a rental property, the owner usually wants to point the finger at the tenant
which sometimes can be appropriate, but a majority of the time they need to
point at themselves for deferred maintenance items that turned into more costly
repairs. For example a “small drip” under the kitchen sink, a quick fix, left
unrepaired, a major water damage repair that will have a comma and more 0’s in
the total cost of repair.
