We’ve all heard the horror stories. Bad vendor selection can not only cost you more money in the long run, it can result in a great deal of stress and eat up your free time as you try to remedy the issues.
What’s the easiest way to ensure that property turns, renovations and maintenance requests go smoothly? There’s an art to vendor selection, but with a little planning, it’s not as daunting as it sounds.
That’s why we’ve put together some tips that will help you protect your investment through good vendor selection.
1. Don’t be overly price-sensitive.
Any goods or services you purchase from vendors or contractors are exactly that: purchases! Most of us would agree that getting a good price is important—but other factors also matter just as much. While quality vendors are not always the cheapest, it’s often more cost-effective in the long run to work with reliable companies whose work you know and trust.
After all, if something goes wrong, you don’t want to be stuck dealing with a company that isn’t licensed or insured. If you’re a property manager, the liability falls back on you for not vetting the vendor properly in the first place. If you’re an owner, you’ll end up wasting even more time and money dealing with partners who are slow to respond, unorganized, or just generally unprofessional. So yes, you do want to get the most bang for your buck, but there’s more to consider than just price.
2. Screen your vendors.
As you’ve probably gathered by now, it’s important to do your due diligence to ensure you’ll receive quality goods and services in a timely and reliable manner. One good way to go about screening is to get recommendations from other owners. (After all, they’re likely to recommend people they worked well with and who didn’t hold up the timeframe.) If you haven’t yet formed those kinds of relationships, you can try different vendors out on small, lower-cost jobs and gradually increase their responsibilities if all goes well. It’s crucial that your screening process includes checking for thing like appropriate licenses, adequate insurance, and more.
3. Establish an onboarding process.
Again, this goes hand in hand with the previous point. (Are you detecting a pattern here?) Once you’ve screened your vendors and have chosen the best partner in your price range, it’s wise to walk the vendor through your expectations, especially where things like licenses and insurance are concerned. You should also consider scheduling reminders to let the vendor know when any renewals are approaching. While it’s a little extra work for you, it ensures that their forgetfulness won’t mean that you and your properties are no longer protected. Make it clear that expired licenses and insurance are a deal breaker for your relationship with them.
4. Put your guidelines in writing.
You guessed it: This point piggybacks off the last! It’s not enough to sit your vendors down and discuss your expectations. Put everything in writing. The more documentation you have around the way you do business, the more protected you are if any issues arise. This tip extends beyond vendor relationships and is simply a key component of all things related to rental property management and investment.
5. Get payment and invoicing systems in place.
We’ve put a lot of focus on making sure your vendors are professional, but don’t forget that it’s also important to make sure your cash flow is smooth and predictable. At Haven Homes, we use our onboarding process to ensure that vendors (who, as a rule, tend to be lax about billing) know to invoice us upon completion of the job. In turn, we pay them within 10 days instead of the usual 30. We find that keeps us from running into any surprises.
If you follow these simple tips, you’ll be more likely to secure vendor relationships that are reliable, which will help keep you from wasting money on low-quality goods and services. It probably feels counterintuitive to read that being less price-sensitive could save you money, but it’s true. You get what you pay for, so don’t pay a low cost for something that will need to be redone and end up costing more down the road. Vet your vendors, establish systems and guidelines for expectations, put everything in writing, and commit to a partner that will deliver what you need when you need it, even if they’re not the cheapest choice. You’ll thank yourself in the long run.
If you want to learn more tips about property management, download Your Guide to Being a Successful Real Estate Investor.