A Property Maintenance Tracker for Landlords and Airbnb Hosts

Property maintenance is almost entirely a timing problem. The same boiler service costs a modest amount in September and a great deal more on a Sunday in January when a tenant has no hot water. Nearly every expensive repair had a cheap, scheduled version available months earlier.

The Property Maintenance OS is a simple system for staying on top of tasks and essentials across every property you own or manage.

Reactive versus preventive, in money terms

Reactive maintenance means waiting for something to break. It's cheaper in any given month and considerably more expensive across a year, because emergency callouts carry a premium, damage compounds, and a guest or tenant is inconvenienced in a way that shows up in reviews or turnover.

• Annual: boiler service, gas and electrical safety checks, gutter clearing.
• Seasonal: heating check before winter, cooling before summer, exterior after storms.
• Per-turnover, for short lets: deep clean, consumables, a check of anything guests break.
• Monitored: appliance ages, so replacement is planned rather than urgent.
• Reactive: the things that genuinely can't be predicted, which is fewer than you'd think.

The essentials list for short-term rentals

Hosts lose more reviews to missing basics than to broken ones. Nobody leaves four stars because the kettle is three years old; they leave four stars because there was no toilet roll. Tracking consumables per property, with a restock threshold, is unglamorous and disproportionately effective.

Guests forgive an old sofa. They do not forgive an empty coffee jar on a Sunday morning.

A log is evidence as well as memory

Beyond reminding you what's been done, a maintenance record does real work in disputes: deposit disagreements, insurance claims, tenant complaints about a recurring issue. Dated entries with costs and who did the work turn an argument about recollection into a document, which almost always resolves it faster.

Appliance ages are the quiet forecast

Recording when each major appliance was installed lets you see what's approaching the end of its life. Replacing a fifteen-year-old water heater on your schedule, in a gap between tenancies, is a different experience and a different price from replacing it the morning it fails during a booking.

Setting it up

• Add each property with its key systems: heating, water, appliances, and their ages if known.
• Set the recurring annual and seasonal checks with real dates.
• Log every repair from the last year that you can remember, including the cost.
• For short lets, write the turnover checklist once and reuse it.
• Add each new job the day it happens. Backfilling never works.

For the wider hosting operation, see the Airbnb Host OS; for long-term rentals and leases, the Property Management Hub. Get the Property Maintenance OS and schedule this winter's checks now, while it's cheap.