By Susan Parks, REALTOR®
All properties require regular maintenance. It’s important to be aware of what maintenance a home requires when purchasing, selling, or owning a property. Not properly maintaining your property can mean that there may be many repairs when you sell, or selling “as is” (where no repairs are made before selling) for a lower price. Purchasing a home that has not been maintained can mean lots of elbow grease and contractors when you buy, and possibly even problems you didn’t know existed.
Regular maintenance to home systems examples include:
- Servicing heating and air conditioning systems to keep them running more efficiently and extend the life of the system.
- Painting, power washing, and sealing the exterior openings of your property regularly to help save energy and extend the life of those items.
- Pumping your septic system, if your property is equipped with one, at regular intervals.
- Cleaning and maintaining appliances like microwaves and dishwashers to keep doing their jobs and help you be happy and healthy in your home.
Unfortunately, not all homeowners maintain their properties well, which can cost the seller and the buyer in the long run.
The Cost of Deferred Maintenance
Deferred maintenance happens for a number of reasons. Sometimes it’s small problems that build up slowly over time, and are hard to see, sometimes it’s missed knowledge of what maintenance needs to happen (have you checked your dishwasher filter lately?), and sometimes it’s as simple as a repair costing money.
Whatever the reason, when you choose to sell your home, all of that deferred maintenance comes home to roost. If a seller has not done needed maintenance on their home, they can end up spending money just to bring their home up to standard instead of using that money to make improvements to raise their home’s value.
A seller could also choose to not make these maintenance repairs to sell their home “as is,” but that could lower the value of their property and make buyers wary of making an offer. If a buyer can’t trust that a seller has taken care of the little things, can they trust that a seller will take care of any larger items that are discovered by the home inspector?
Staying on Top of Your Home Maintenance
By staying on top of your home maintenance, you’re able to take care of problems while they’re small and space out the expenses. You’re also able to enjoy the benefits of the repairs! When you fix your leaky faucet when it becomes a problem, you get to enjoy the slightly cheaper water bill and the silence of working faucets before you move, instead of doing the work to repair them for someone else to enjoy.
There are many maintenance checklists available online that you can follow if you are a homeowner or trying to be one. You can find seasonal checklists, with one task for each week, on the homeowner page at MarylandHomeownership.com.
Different lists will give you monthly, quarterly, and annual items to check and maintain. Many of these maintenance items, like changing the HVAC filter and vacuuming under the refrigerator, can be performed by the homeowner. Some, like servicing the heating and air conditioning systems or pumping the septic system should be performed by licensed professionals.
If you need help finding local trusted professionals, neighbors and community members can be a great source for recommendations. Your REALTOR® can also assist you with the names of licensed professionals in many fields in your area. Many sellers may leave a list of the service professionals they have used for you to reference as well. It can be especially helpful to continue with the service people who have been maintaining the property before it was your home.
