Deferred Maintenance on your Portland Home…Good Idea or Not?

Deferred maintenance is the practice of postponing maintenance activities such as repairs on both real property and personal property in order to save costs, meet budget funding levels, or realign available budget monies. That’s the dictionary definition but mine would include something like, **WARNING**DEFERRING MAINTENANCE IS NEVER A GOOD IDEA AND SHOULD BE AVOIDED! I heard someone once say, if you defer maintenance to save dollars, you might as well place that money in a box next to your fireplace to use as future kindling. Your cash flow is going up in smoke!

Deferred maintenance can be an absolute killer for a Portland  investor looking to build a reliable passive income. When an investor purchases a property without knowing what maintenance needs to be done they put themselves in a potentially costly situation in the future. Always have the major systems inspected prior to purchasing so you know what you are getting into. Then prior to renting out and getting that cash flow that you are so excited about, fix or replace those major systems. Major systems include but are not limited to; roof, heating system, electrical, foundation, water damage, windows, and plumbing.

As a real estate agent I often hear stories of people making their own repairs. For example, a friend of mine had a leak in their roof. The roof itself was quite old but rather than replacing the whole roof they decided to fix just the leak. After many months they ended up fixing a few more leaks before finally being forced to replace the roof. In the end, they spent almost twice as much as they would have if they had just replaced the entire roof in the beginning.

Overspending on the wrong items can set your return back, but should not eat into your monthly cash flow. This is something I tell every buyer and investor. It is tempting to spend your money on making something look nice, but avoid that temptation and fix the big ticket items before you move onto cosmetic repairs.

If you are investing in Portland real estate, whether as an investor or a first time buyer, make sure you have a plan in place to address the big-ticket items on a property. If you are purchasing a property that someone else has renovated, pay attention to what has been repaired, what has been replaced and what has not been addressed. If you are purchasing a Portland property and looking for ways to make the deal stronger, cutting back on needed repairs and deferring maintenance is a sure-fire way to make that deal weaker not stronger. These items will eventually need to be addressed and it costs a lot less to address them on the front end than it is on the back.

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