As a landlord, downtime between tenants can be costly. Any time a property is empty is a time when you’re not seeing a return on your investment. With rising costs and long waits for tradespeople, it’s no surprise that landlords are learning how to do their own property maintenance.  

Why landlords are learning property maintenance skills 

Small repairs like that leaky tap or cracked tile can soon become a headache. You want to keep the property looking tip-top, so it’s appealing to good tenants. You want to minimise disruption to existing tenants if repairs need to be done. You want to keep costs as low as possible..  

A common problem is getting trades in. It can be hard enough to get trades out for small routine jobs, let alone coordinate work so it can happen in the short periods of time between tenants. And if you use a letting agent, although there might be some more flexibility on timings if they have their own maintenance team, there’s likely to be a mark-up fee added to the cost. 

What if you learn some basic property maintenance skills? 

Take tiling. In any property, it’s fairly standard to have some tiles in the bathroom around the shower, bath and basin. In the kitchen, too, a tiled splashback along the worktop and behind the stove. Then there’s floor tiling in hallways.  

It’s incredibly common for grout to get grubby, silicone sealant to get mouldy, and even for tiles to crack or fall away. While some of this can be managed with routine cleaning, it’s not always possible to keep on top of it if you have tenants – who knows what state they’ll leave it in. When they leave and you assess what needs to be done as part of your turnaround between tenants, you might find that simple cleaning isn’t going to cut it.  

Tiling is one of the most useful DIY skills a landlord can learn 

If you have the skills to take on these small routine maintenance tasks, they can be added into the turnaround. Just like you’d clean the oven as part of the deep clean, you’ll run through any tiling repairs as part of a cosmetic update, the same as you’d touch up scuffed paint and fill holes.  

It may seem obvious, but these little touches really stand out when creating a clean, well-presented and welcoming property for your next tenant. Plus, in the case of tiling, it’s not just cosmetic – these repairs are protecting your property from future damp, mould and more serious water damage if left.  

For landlords who want to save time and money by completing these routine DIY tasks themselves during the tenant turnaround, introductory trade courses such as Introduction to Tiling or Introduction to Plumbing are a fantastic way to build skills and knowledge. If you’d like to find out more about how Able Skills training can benefit landlords, feel free to call us on 01322 280 202.