Where do I find a good maintenance tech for employment at my building?
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[{"id": "grtxojr", "text": "How big is your property? Just wondering when is the tipping point for hiring someone who is dedicated and on your payroll vs just hiring out by the job.", "replies": [{"id": "grtyalk", "text": "About 120,000 SF. Definitely can't justify a full time person, but between normal upkeep of the building and mechanical systems, and improvements projects the person can work on, definitely worth having someone there 3 days for 8 hours each day rather than hiring out per job and having to wait for availability, etc... It's a Class A property so I have to keep quick response times for even light maintenance requests anyway. And we have another person doing cleaning already so it isn't like this tech will need to be a janitor which I know so people don't like. Strictly preventative maintenance and improvement projects.", "replies": [{"id": "grtzkfd", "text": "Your problem is the 3 days per week part.", "replies": [], "depth": 3}, {"id": "grtzobe", "text": "If there is a newspaper or radio station in your area published in Spanish which caters to the hispanic community, place an employment ad there.  Place your ad in English and you'll get bilingual people, generally with valid driver's licenses residing in the US on yearly renewable work visas, or bilingual US citizens.\n\nIf googling doesn't help you find a publication, go to a hispanic grocery store or real mexican restaurant.  There'll usually be a rack with a weekly spanish paper and from there you can call them to find out how to place an ad.", "replies": [{"id": "gru6cny", "text": "Not sure why this is down voted, so far it is the only one actually answering what I want to know.... where to look for maintenance techs other than Craig's List. I suppose most other investors here go the route of not hiring a tech and just paying vendors for everything, even small jobs. Unfortunately, that won't work with the economics of this property.", "replies": [{"id": "grvbuj8", "text": "I do a lot of my own work and just charge out handyman rates. Switches, lights, snaking drains, etc. are all done 'in house'.", "replies": [], "depth": 5}], "depth": 4}], "depth": 3}, {"id": "grua3bk", "text": "Can't find that person at 3 days a week like /u/uncircumcizdBUTchill said. You just need to have \\~3 preferred contractors for HVAC, plumbing, electrical pre-vetted and don't bid stuff out.", "replies": [{"id": "gryey0l", "text": "What city/state?", "replies": [{"id": "gryj9mg", "text": "Coastal California", "replies": [{"id": "gs1h5lc", "text": "Was hoping you said east coast and I might\u2019ve had a connection for you. My only different suggestion from the rest of the comments is to look for someone retired(firefighter/cop) that wants to work to keep busy rather than for the money. Good luck.", "replies": [], "depth": 6}], "depth": 5}], "depth": 4}], "depth": 3}], "depth": 2}], "depth": 1}, {"id": "gru4ina", "text": "Instead of utilizing one person for all requirements, contract each specialty by tech.  First, you won't find one person who is licensed and insured to perform HVAC, electric, and plumbing.  Second, most repair techs have more then enough work where they won't seek part-time employment.  Third, it is easier to rehire specific techs for each specialty.  \n\nMy company utilizes the same 4-5 specialized techs for all our properties.  This ensures they perform proper service, discount their billing (due to repeat business), and over time it garners a relationship where our emergencies become their priority.", "replies": [{"id": "gru5r91", "text": "I don't need a licensed and expert person for those trades, I just need someone familiar to take on tasks like changing outlets that break or a lighting fixture or doing HVAC filters and basic troubleshooting, replacing a fuse, etc. This is also why it is way more cost effective to hire someone 30 hours a week and pay them $30 / hr. (which is more than similar jobs in this market offer) to do these tasks compared to bringing in a vendor each time.\n\nIf I only had 1 lighting fixture a year that needed to be replaced, it wouldn't be worth putting someone on payroll but I know I need a maintenance guy there who is reliable to treat the building as if it were his own. People aren't even applying so I know it's not like I am getting a lot of people and being too picky. And the ad is very simple, not scary looking or anything.", "replies": [{"id": "grua6da", "text": "Because it's 30 hours a week.", "replies": [{"id": "gruafot", "text": "You're right, I guess all maintenance techs in the whole world are only looking for full time work.", "replies": [{"id": "grub26y", "text": "No, there either looking for full time or be contracted out where they are in charge of the schedule. \n\nI went through this same thing, and it was impossible to get anyone reliable for 30-40 hours a week. They can be booking 40-60 doing normal HVAC/ plumbing work.", "replies": [{"id": "gruckj0", "text": "I agree that is likely what most techs are doing instead and why they won't want only 30 BUT there are also techs out there who, for one example, may be older but still want to work a little, and want 30 hours, or a young guy starting a family and doesn't want to/can't work more than 30 hours yet. They exist, I am looking for where to find them.", "replies": [{"id": "gruo69q", "text": "Ask current contractors if they know of anyone would be my go to, along with detailed Craigslist ad. I bet word of mouth will be your best bet.", "replies": [], "depth": 7}], "depth": 6}], "depth": 5}], "depth": 4}], "depth": 3}], "depth": 2}], "depth": 1}, {"id": "gru5fqf", "text": "You generally don't.  If they are competent they are probably looking to work full time or are contractors who will be doing other work, and like you said you may not always be first up.\n\nYour options are basically pay contractor rates (if you are doing 24 hours a week a decent maint contractor should be able to staff that need pretty well in terms of response time and making sure staff is avail, and when needed you can have 2-3 people on site etc).  This obviously is more expensive than hiring someone, by probably 2x-3x, but gives you a ton more flexibility.\n\nThe other option is find someone cheap who probably isn't going to be great and is going to come with headaches.  \n\nIt really comes down to the property and what kind of expense you can justify on this.  If it class A just pay normally as like you said there are higher tenant expectations.  If that doesn't make sense in the economics of the property then hire the guy who is fine only working a few days a week and you get the headaches that come with that.  Go cheap and realize you are going to use a lot of contractors to supplement him in things he doesn't know how to do, but he can be first eyes on stuff.", "replies": [{"id": "gru64g6", "text": "Definitely not trying to go cheap, quite the opposite... But can't even find people to take it on. For a competent maintenance person, the building is manageable and we are offering $5 more per hour than others are for same job. I am just wondering if the problem is like you say, those good people have jobs and we are out of luck or if the problem is we aren't looking in the right spot for them.", "replies": [{"id": "grub5nm", "text": "Who is above this person?  Do they know about construction type issues to offer some guidance when needed or are they more the PM/AM sit behind a desk type?  \n\nI'd consider that too.  I'd be much more comfy putting a warm body in there if there is supervision in place that can provide some direction.\n\nHiring cheap actually may not be as bad as you think.  I've had a lot of luck with the young entry level types who have experience as maint techs for a few years.  (in my market) they are maybe making ya know 12.50-17.50 an hour where their supervisor who is the type of employee you probably actually want makes 30-40 an hour but would never want to work 3 days a week and you don't need them for ft.  TBH the kind of normal maint you are describing you don't need the 30-40 an hour guy to do either.  I'd consider looking at if you can assign more job responsibilities to them.  Can they do some janitorial?  Outside work?  Can you shift over some PM jobs to them like opening spaces for brokers, posting notices, meeting contractors when you do turns/ti/etc?  \n\nIf you find a good way to hire someone for 3 days a week let me know too please ;) I never figured it out either.  I always had the best luck with companies with 3-5 employees I could contract with where I gave them enough work I was typically a priority but if there was nothing to do for a couple weeks, it was fine too, or hiring real low level to be feet on the ground and a first set of eyes who were experienced enough they could communicate to me when I needed to bring in a contractor.", "replies": [{"id": "grucdit", "text": "That's a really great question. Definitely don't want someone's job to be to sit there and wait for something to go wrong. There are too many other things as you mention to have them do to justify paying them to sit there. The problem with that too is I almost wouldn't mind paying someone low to just sit there for emergency but the kind of people who take that job aren't the ones experienced enough to properly handle a broken pipe or electric outage until the big guns arrive.\n\nThe 30 hours a week is already taking into account some other tasks like letting brokers in, meeting contractors, etc. The person I need does NOT need to be an expert in all mechanical trades, but they should know their way around them enough to make the best of a situation until vendors arrive, and be able to eliminate the simplest vendor calls. i.e. avoid paying an electrician $450 to replace a circuit breaker when the part only costs $20 and I have a maintenance tech onsite. There are enough tasks like that combined with preventative maintenance and improvement jobs to justify paying someone 30 hours a week steadily, at $30 / hr., not, unfortunately, 40 hours a week, plus benefits.", "replies": [], "depth": 4}], "depth": 3}], "depth": 2}], "depth": 1}, {"id": "gru7xxq", "text": "Try posting on Facebook, if your company has a page. Not necessarily a Marketplace ad, just a post that you\u2019re looking for someone. It\u2019ll get shared and tagged, and FB is more likely to have your target audience than LinkedIn or Indeed. That\u2019s how I got my current maintenance man, and he\u2019s worth his weight in gold to me.", "replies": [], "depth": 1}, {"id": "gruevec", "text": "I had the exact same problem. The solution that we did was to higher a local management company that had a full time maintenance tech. We pay the management company $2k/month. They field all the maintenance calls and we handle all the finances (invoices, and rent roll comes to us). So the handy man is good for changing bulbs, filters, batteries, general stuff...and then if we need an HVAC serviced or bigger item, they contract out (get us 3 quotes) and send the bills directly to our office. Works out pretty efficiently and cuts down our time spent on that property.", "replies": [{"id": "gruh6tz", "text": "Yeah, this would definitely address the issue, but we self manage all our properties because the personal touch is never just quite right with property management companies we find.", "replies": [{"id": "grv0l9x", "text": "Agreed and I self manage as well. This is more of a hybrid approach where you still property tour etc. \n\nWe did this because we had a property that was a little far to self manage day-to-day and this was the most cost efficient way to do it.", "replies": [], "depth": 3}], "depth": 2}], "depth": 1}, {"id": "grugtqr", "text": "Do you have other properties they can work on? I don\u2019t understand why it isn\u2019t either A) outside vendor or B) full time employee. You\u2019re trying to fit a camel here", "replies": [{"id": "gruifol", "text": "I don't yet. And my thought is why pay someone to sit around if there isn't 40 hours of work. And I'm not being stingy and saying they have to work every single second of the 40 hours or else. It just isn't a full time position, there is not enough work to justify benefits (health, retirement, paid vacation) on top of 40 hours worth of salary a week.\n\nAs for the vendor route, I've never just paid vendors to do basic maintenance work like that (changing a lighting fixture, changing an outlet, unclogging a toilet, etc.) you save SO MUCH money paying someone capable to be on salary part time to be there and do those things. I'm surprised to see so many people here go the route of pay vendors to do every little thing. I mean, honestly props to them if that works for their property but I can't imagine doing that for some reason.", "replies": [{"id": "gruivlq", "text": "Because you often just pass it to the tenant. Do you have high vacancy? You said they want prompt service so they have to pay for it.", "replies": [{"id": "grurht6", "text": "Our vacancy is currently 3%.\n\n\"Ohh it will just be passed through so we don't care what the price is\" is not the strategy that has allowed us to obtain one of the lowest, if not the lowest, OPEX amount in the entire area. If we can provide the same service of other Class A buildings at a lower price, that's more money in my pocket in the longer run as we will generally see higher occupancy.", "replies": [{"id": "gruxpeq", "text": "this is a broader thing but if you are trying to be successful by beating the market you will almost always fail.  If your opex (passable) is way lower that probably means you are assuming opex into non passable expenses.  The market is generally right.  You see this all the time where folks think they are outperforming the market when they are just reassigning costs or creating other expenses.\n\nThere are industries where you know that can work?  If we were talking about a tech company disrupting some industry and slashing opex that be one thing.  How many thousands and thousands of people are out there right now doing exactly what you are doing?  You aren't inventing cost savings by doing 3 days a week for someone vs the other options here.  Everyone else is aware of that being an option it just doesn't generally work.  If your opex is a lot lower than the market you should be thinking about why that is, I mean no offense to you but you probably aren't just smarter than everyone else in the market.  You are likely missing some stuff and should better understand this issue.\n\nVacancy on one property is always kind of random, but I've seen tons of this too where folks think having below market vacancy means they are killing it..... meanwhile everyone else is getting better rents and stuff etc", "replies": [{"id": "grxblh2", "text": "Definitely not basing success on vacancy rate alone. And our OPEX is less than others but not drastically so we aren't missing anything or eating some of it ourselves.\n\nIt might not be possible to find a maintenance tech for the situation we are looking for, but this approach we take with maintenance techs to at least try and optimize it, applied to every category of expenses, makes a difference in the long run. Would rather try to optimize this situation rather than just throw money out the door.", "replies": [], "depth": 6}], "depth": 5}], "depth": 4}], "depth": 3}], "depth": 2}], "depth": 1}, {"id": "grugus0", "text": "I don't employ maintenance techs but I hire them out from a mom and pop landlord shop that operates in the same market.  It seems that most of the techs that we use are either retired facility maintenance men/managers (from an institutional sized facility) or former union tradesmen.  Some of these guys retire from something like a hospital/nursing home/prison (all places that need 24/7 maintenance coverage like you) and have a pension but are just looking for a few hours a week to stay busy.\n\nOn the other hand, if you find a young guy who wants 40+ hours/wk, consider working with another local property owner to split hours and provide a minimum per week. That's essentially how I got into my current agreement with the mom and pop shop. Definitely helps to have someone on call for Class A tenants.", "replies": [{"id": "gruhppz", "text": "That is exactly the type of person I am looking for. The young guy option would be fine too but haven't gotten any really young guys to apply at all. The few who do apply are older and know what they are doing but are lazy (even tried hiring 3 separate times and had to get rid of them) or are middle aged and look good on paper but upon interviewing them I can't understand how they say they were maintenance people who worked with electricity and plumbing and HVAC, even simple stuff.", "replies": [], "depth": 2}], "depth": 1}, {"id": "gruoqbk", "text": "Look for the dirtiest truck you can find with a cell phone number and you got your guy.", "replies": [], "depth": 1}, {"id": "grvdk05", "text": "I am interested in what you come up with. Is it worth it to hire a full time subcontractor and find jobs like adding a backsplash to the kitchen cabinets, remodeling a bathroom (ie going from plastic vinyl to tile) etc assuming this is 100 units of condos. So yes, you pay more since it is 40hrs but you are creating jobs for him/her by upgrading your units.\n\nIf it is a big box commercial unit kind of thing, how did $30/hr for 30 hours with some benefits compare to $25-27/hr at 40hrs with full time benefits?", "replies": [], "depth": 1}, {"id": "grw1w8a", "text": "The labor market for that kind of work is pretty tight everywhere. Not going to be easy to find someone.", "replies": [], "depth": 1}, {"id": "gsdyvd8", "text": "The local union halls.", "replies": [], "depth": 1}]