Ongoing Care & Owner Services

Angela, there's a lot of communication that goes on throughout the year to both owners and tenants; we call it continued care. Why don't you tell us a little bit about why some of these communications need to be made?

Ultimately, all throughout the year, we have our different seasons, and even though we're in Florida here in the Panhandle, we do have some pretty cold weather. One of those things would be like winterizing. What we like to do for our owners as well as tenants is just to kind of touch base on those issues, send out reminders or suggestions to help prevent any problems. For the example of freezing weather, sometimes here it does freeze, unfortunately. So, we like to just update people, our owners, on what could happen, what could potentially happen, how to prevent that. Working with our list of vendors, we have some of our vendors that are fabulous with making suggestions themselves and offering us things like built boxes to go over the pumps. So, we like to present those opportunities and that information to prevent a problem from happening in the first place. For those of you who don't know, a hard freeze makes the pipes that have water in them burst, and then that's not such a problem, except now that you have burst pipes, water goes everywhere, causing thousands and thousands of dollars. So, it's a big deal. That's what we like to do: we just like to educate and talk to people about potential issues before they happen, and try to catch those things, and use an educational approach. So, we'll work with our vendors and try to summarize the information in an educational way so that it makes sense for everybody to understand what we're referring to and the "whys." We then offer a solution, you know, talking with our vendors and having a handyman build a pump box, an insulated pump box to prevent the irrigation system from freezing over, or as simple as a cap for the hose spigot. So, those simple quick fixes, or something that's custom-designed.

Let's talk about some of the other issues that we might bring up. Here in the Panhandle, another big one is hurricanes. We will send out notices again, to both our tenants and to our owners, on how to prepare for hurricanes: the before, the during, and after. What's needed to prepare for it on the tenant side, to make sure that the homes are being set up properly for whatever is there at the house for either shutters, curtains, or whatnot, and then what to do during, what checks and systems to be put in place, and then the after. So, if it hits, and it hits hard, what do we do after? We keep that communication with our owners and our tenants going at all times, and having those notices put out there. You said that you were going to go into a specific feature on that. So, what are some of the other ones?

Another seasonal thing, going into spring, things that we would look at in spring and fall is like gutters. Again, in an educational way, we try to eliminate any potential problems with legalities, liabilities, and educate our owners on some of the things that we want to look out for. You don't want your tenants to be up on a ladder cleaning out your gutters because that's a liability for you as owners. So, we'll go into that, and then also, same thing, we'll work with our vendors and try to get quotes for that area/region because every area has different service markers, different rates, so we'll get that all set up.

Also, heading towards springtime is the unfortunate thing in May where we have our termite swarmers. We again talk to our owners and tenants, notifying our tenants about not leaving lights on to not attract the swarmers, and doing our preventative work and education—a lot of education with the tenants as well as owners—on how to handle that and what's needed for prevention. Tenants that are unaware freak out because the swarmers just happen, and it's not a problem with the house per se, as it is it's that the house is in Florida, and so there are going to be termite swarmers, and they need to be educated that this is normal and not to panic. Same thing with palmetto bugs and things of that nature, because a lot of people come from all over the world; we have a lot of military here coming in from everywhere, and it's not a unique thing as we think it is everywhere else in the world. You know, there are palmetto bugs here, snakes, lizards, and so it's a lot of education on that.

How about the air conditioner? I know that you wanted to mention that too.

Because our air conditioning is not only seasonal for cooling but also for heating, we need to really educate tenants and owners on what we can do to maintain those systems. So, we'll send out our seasonal messaging on, "Okay, it's heating season; we need to get the systems maintained, get them checked out." We recommend twice a year. So, we'll educate about that and again resource. We talk with a lot of our vendors, we pre-price all of their maintenance packages, work with the tenants on how to flush out drain pipes, things of that nature, and then switching over from heating to cooling season, and just making sure that we cover all those bases on all the different seasons. All of this to save the owners money when it comes down to making sure that the properties are well cared for, whether it be in a normal cyclical thing for the year or whether it be in a time of emergency like a hurricane. One way or another, the tenants need to be informed, the owners need to be updated as to what's going on.

Angela, thank you so much for informing us of this. I'm Rob, this is Angela, of Rob Brooks Realty Property Management.