Busy landlords and property managers will know how time-consuming maintaining property can be. But if you’ve found yourself with a vacant property on your hands, you might feel like your to-do list just doubled.

Keeping a vacant property safe, protected and looked after comes with a whole new set of ongoing responsibilities and tasks. On top of trying to find a new tenant or purpose for your site, there are now regular patrols, property visits and security measures to consider. Sometimes, it just feels like there just aren’t enough hours in the day.

In a fast-paced world where time is money, many landlords come to us looking for a simplified solution to the task of maintaining a vacant commercial property. Property Guardianship is a creative, zero-cost solution that finds a meaningful use for the space while it is empty, saving you time and money. Our professional guardians move into a vacant property to provide 24-hour live-in maintenance. The guardians take a whole load of security and maintenance tasks off of the property managers hands and in return, they benefit from lower than rent prices in prime locations.

You can read more about the ins-and-outs of Property Guardianship here. Or, to learn about Blue Door’s zero cost service and how it could help you and your business, you can also get in touch for a friendly chat.

This week on the blog, we’re looking at how using property guardians has saved our landlords and clients precious time – and extending our time-saving tips to our readers.

5 Time-Saving Tips for Property Managers & Landlords

1. Schedule Your Tasks

Number 1 priority when it comes to saving time? Prioritising! A little bit of organisation goes a long way when it comes to property management. Write your tasks into a calendar or planner and find efficient ways to schedule your time.

We recommend using an online calendar from a site like Google for two reasons. Firstly, you can share your calendar to collaborate with your team, and secondly, you can easily re-arrange your tasks/meetings at the click of a button.

2. Outsource Where Possible

You might be busy, but you are also only one person. Where possible, outsource your tasks and streamline your time. If you have a team of colleagues that can help, use them. Or, if you’re working for yourself, then look for services that can take some of the responsibility off of your hands.

3. Use Property Guardians

Using property guardians takes a lot of the stress out of property management. We might be biased, but it is for good reason!

With the guardians living on-site to protect the building 24 hours a day, you don’t need to invest any initial time (or money) into setting up traditional security and CCTV systems. There is also no need to board up the property or arrange to have deterrent fencing put up. Getting the property suitable for guardianship can take some initial time but at Blue Door, we assist with this to make it as easy as possible.

In the long-term, once your building is set up and secured with guardians there is very little left for you to do. Under the professional care of guardians, your vacant property will basically look after itself until you are ready to have it back. (We have an efficient 30-day hand back system). And property guardianship is the only vacant property maintenance solution that is free to the landlord, saving you thousands on traditional security measures.

4. Act on Maintenance Issues Quickly

When you’re stretched for time, it can be easy to let small maintenance issues slip to the end of your to-do list. But one of the easiest ways to save yourself a lot of time in the long term is to handle every maintenance issue before it becomes a big problem. For example, getting a broken window fixed is far less time consuming than dealing with, a) mould caused by damp, b) the resulting insurance claim from a metal theft break-in attempt, or c) trying to evict squatters who have gained entry through the broken window (especially difficult for commercial properties).

To catch these issues early, you need to be making regular site visits and patrols to thoroughly check out the property. We know that this can be time-consuming, so we’re going to circle back to tip number 3. Property guardians make regular patrols around the building to catch any small issues. At Blue Door, we then use our team of knowledgeable, approved tradesmen to get any damage fixed before it becomes a bigger problem. For bigger maintenance issues, we offer a comprehensive range of facility management solutions at affordable prices that complement our live-in guardian services.

5. Get Help with the Fees and Finances

A vacant property comes with a new set of unexpected costs and fees. From vacant property insurance to empty property rates, working out what you need to upgrade and where you can save some money can take a lot of time.

We have an article here that goes into more detail about the new rates you may have to pay, and some tips to avoid them. But, with property guardians, you will probably find that most empty property rates and insurances no longer apply as the property won’t be empty. Plus at Blue Door, if your vacant property is entitled to any further business rates relief, we have a specific team on hand that will do the research for you to save you time and money.

If you want to find out more about using our services then you can take a look at our Property Owners page, have a browse through the rest of our blog full of helpful tips and tricks for landlords, or get in touch with us directly.