Whether you host your own units or run a growing property management business, sporadic maintenance checks aren’t enough to guarantee the good condition of your vacation rentals.
Properties require frequent maintenance checks and work, but how often should you schedule each type of task? And if you’re not running the maintenance checks yourself, how can you ensure quality and consistency? A standardized checklist that’s customized for each property is the answer, helping you formalize your maintenance processes and make sure your properties are guest-ready for every stay.
Also, with a concrete process in place, and a way to share all your completed maintenance tasks, you can showcase your professionalism to homeowners.
This article walks you through an example vacation rental maintenance checklist (be sure to download the PDF) and explains how you can streamline your cleaning and maintenance operations.
No more guest complaints about leaky faucets or blocked drains |
Making sure you’re covering all the right maintenance tasks when you should isn’t just important for keeping guests happy—it helps you keep your properties safe and uphold owner relationships. Here’s why you should be using a checklist to organize your maintenance checks:
If you want to make sure your guests always show up to a property that meets their standards, follow this vacation rental maintenance checklist. We’ve divided it into weekly, monthly, quarterly, and yearly tasks, as well as categorized the tasks into interior and exterior jobs.
Just note that while this checklist covers a lot of the basic maintenance tasks a vacation rental property needs to stay in great condition, every unit is unique. So be sure to take the specific qualities of your property into account when customizing your checklist, whether you have a hot tub to maintain or a leafy yard to look after.
These regular maintenance tasks should be performed by your cleaners and can be included in your cleaning checklist. These are quick, simple tasks that can be performed in minutes and will help you provide a great guest experience with every stay.
Basic preventative maintenance is essential to keeping your properties in good condition, as well as preventing maintenance issues that can snowball into big problems. To ensure everything in your property, from air conditioning to plumbing, is in working order, perform these tasks each month.
You can leave bigger tasks, like sump pump and septic system checks, for your quarterly maintenance inspection. Not only will completing these tasks help you ensure your vacation home rentals are in great condition, but doing so will also help you build rapport with your property owners.
Safety inspections on smoke alarms and CO detectors, plus checks for exterior damage to your home, can be completed annually. However, if you know your area has faced extreme weather recently, you’ll want to do the following exterior inspections after whatever storm, cold, or heat you’ve encountered.
While using a maintenance checklist can help you stay on top of your property and keep it in good condition, you need a more advanced solution to address ongoing maintenance and ensure important tasks don’t get left out.
Short-term rental management software like Breezeway can help you do that with features like task automation and work coordination. With Breezeway, you can auto-schedule maintenance repairs and monitor task status on a centralized dashboard. Plus, if guests encounter any issues during their stay, you can create and assign maintenance jobs directly through the platform’s guest messaging tool.
And, to ensure a member of your staff never shows up to a property without the supplies they need to complete their maintenance job, use Breezeway’s inventory management feature, which monitors real-time changes in cleaning and maintenance supplies. That means your team will never get to a job just to find out they don’t have the right light bulbs or air filters.
Vacation rental managers pay a lot of attention to turnovers, but maintenance is also essential to the upkeep of your properties. Not only does it keep your units in good shape, but your ability to run solid maintenance operations also directly impacts your reputation with guests and owners.
Use this checklist to standardize your maintenance and ensure no tasks slip through the cracks. By doing so, you’ll build solid owner relationships and bring in more 5-star reviews.
And to optimize your maintenance operations even more, use Breezeway’s vacation rental management software. Features like automated maintenance tasks, task status tracking, and inventory management, eliminate manual tasks like following up with maintenance workers and checking stock at your properties—making you more efficient and giving you time back in your day.
No more guest complaints about leaky faucets or blocked drains |
When making a vacation rental maintenance checklist, you can divide the tasks by property location or by the frequency that they should be performed. While it can be helpful to follow a template checklist, it’s important to take into account the unique aspects of your property to make sure you’re covering all inspections and repairs it needs.
When running maintenance for your vacation rental business, your routine checklist should cover tasks like:
These tasks should be completed weekly to ensure every guest has a great stay.