As a property owner, you want to understand every line item on your statement. That's smart business. One question we hear occasionally is about our 10% maintenance coordination fee, and it's worth explaining not just what it is, but why it exists and how it actually protects your investment.
The Industry Is Evolving—And For Good Reason
Property management is catching up to what general contractors have known for decades: coordination has real value and real costs. Increasingly, it's becoming industry standard to charge for maintenance coordination separately from basic management fees.
Why? Because some property owners were using property managers to bypass the coordination fees any general contractor would charge for the exact same service. When you hire a GC to oversee a project, they charge 15-20% to coordinate subcontractors, manage timelines, and ensure quality work. Our maintenance coordination provides the same professional oversight for your rental property, so it's just fair we should be compensated for our time and effort while we make sure your property retains its value and your tenants stays satisfied, all boosting your bottom line.
Fairness for All Owners
Here's something most owners don't realize: properties vary dramatically in the amount of management attention they require.
A well-maintained home with modern systems might need two or three maintenance calls per year. Meanwhile, a property with deferred maintenance issues might generate five calls a month—each requiring phone calls, troubleshooting, vendor coordination, tenant communication, scheduling, follow-up, and documentation.
If we bundled all coordination costs into our base management fee, we'd have to charge every owner a higher rate to cover the time-intensive properties. That's not fair to owners who've invested in preventive maintenance and quality systems.
Our lower base management fee combined with a coordination fee creates equity: owners with well-maintained properties pay less overall, while properties requiring more coordination pay for the actual service they receive. Owners who invest in their properties shouldn't subsidize deferred maintenance.
Real People, Real Solutions—Even at 2 AM
When a tenant calls at 2 AM because water is pouring through their ceiling, who do you want answering that call?
Our coordination team sits here in the United States and brings real contractor experience to every call. They're not offshore call center workers reading from scripts and blindly dispatching vendors—they understand how homes are built, how systems fail, and what questions to ask to diagnose problems accurately. This contractor background means they can tell the difference between a true emergency and something that can wait until morning, and they know which contractor is actually needed for the job.
They understand local building practices and—critically—how to calm a panicked resident while quickly assessing the situation. They know which plumber can get there fastest, which situations are true emergencies versus problems that can wait until morning, and how to communicate clearly with tenants during stressful situations.
We recently heard from a contractor about a property manager using an AI maintenance coordination phone system that went down the wrong troubleshooting path for what turned out to be a tripped circuit breaker. The bot dispatched three different contractors before a human finally diagnosed the actual issue. That property owner paid service call fees to three contractors for a problem any experienced coordinator would have solved in a two-minute phone conversation.
Technology has its place, but there's no substitute for experienced human judgment when something goes wrong in someone's home.
We Offer True 24/7 Maintenance Support
Emergencies don't wait for business hours. Our coordination service includes genuine 24/7 maintenance reporting and response. Whether it's a Saturday afternoon or Tuesday at 3 AM, your tenants have a direct line to someone who can help, and you have peace of mind knowing urgent situations are being handled immediately.
We respond to emergency maintenance requests within one hour (usually right away if your tenant calls), and routine requests within one business day.
What Happens Without Professional Coordination?
Talk to any DIY landlord and you'll hear the same stories: frantic 11 PM calls from panicked tenants, playing phone tag with contractors for days, scheduling nightmares trying to coordinate access, no leverage when work is subpar, and the sinking feeling when a "quick fix" turns into a multi-week saga.
Without professional coordination, you're the one answering every call, vetting every contractor from scratch, following up on every job, and managing every tenant expectation. If you have a full-time job, this becomes a part-time second job. If you live out of state, it becomes nearly impossible.
Even worse, poor maintenance coordination is one of the top reasons good tenants leave. When issues drag on for weeks, when tenants have to make multiple calls to get updates, or when contractors show up unprepared—that's when you start getting move-out notices. A single extra month of vacancy costs far more than years of coordination fees.
Troubleshooting Saves You Money
Here's where the coordination fee truly pays for itself: approximately 60% of maintenance requests are resolved entirely through troubleshooting, without ever dispatching a vendor.
Before we send anyone to the property, our maintenance team walks tenants through systematic diagnostics. Is the outlet working? Is the breaker tripped? Did the pilot light go out? Is the filter clogged? Many issues that seem like emergencies to tenants are simple fixes once someone asks the right questions.
When we do solve problems through troubleshooting:
- You avoid $125-220 service call fees just for a diagnosis
- Repairs happen immediately instead of waiting for vendor availability
- Tenants appreciate the quick resolution
- You avoid the tenant frustration that comes from paying for a service call that reveals user error, charged to the tenant
Even if we only prevent 3-4 unnecessary service calls per year, the coordination fee has more than paid for itself.
You're Not Playing Russian Roulette With Contractors
Not all contractors are created equal, and finding good ones in Richmond is much harder than it should be.
Our coordination fee gives you access to our fully vetted vendor network. Each contractor we use has been independently verified for appropriate licensing and insurance - you'd be amazed how many property managers skip this step, simply taking a contractor's word for it. We've encountered a surprising number of competitors here in town using unlicensed or uninsured vendors, which puts owners at serious legal and financial risk.
Beyond paperwork, we evaluate each vendor's work quality, reliability, pricing, and communication skills. Each contractor we work with has signed a contractor agreement with us that lays out our expectations, includes fair housing compliance. When we send someone to your property, you're getting a contractor we've worked with repeatedly and trust - not whoever answered the phone first.
Does this guarantee perfection? No - we're honest enough to admit that even our best vendors occasionally disappoint us. But you're far more likely to get quality work, fair pricing, and professional service than if you were rolling the dice with random contractors yourself.
We also follow up on jobs to ensure the work was completed properly and the tenant is satisfied. This accountability keeps our vendors sharp and gives you peace of mind.
If a repair fails or wasn't done correctly, we handle getting the vendor back out to make it right—at no additional coordination fee to you. We stand behind the work our vendors do, and we have the relationships and leverage to ensure callbacks are handled promptly.
Documentation That Protects Your Investment
Maintenance items are documented in your owner portal, including original vendor invoices shared with you. This documentation isn't just for your records—it's invaluable when you need to file insurance claims, justify tax deductions, or demonstrate property condition for refinancing or sale.
We've seen owners save thousands on insurance claims because we had timestamped photos and detailed records proving when damage occurred and how it was addressed. We've also seen owners maximize tax deductions because they had clean documentation separating repairs from capital improvements. That level of record-keeping would take you hours per month to maintain yourself.
The Richmond Reality: Contractor Availability Matters
Richmond's contractor market has its challenges. We've dealt with our share of no-shows and quality issues even among licensed contractors. HVAC companies get slammed during summer heat waves. Good electricians stay booked weeks out.
Here's something else that's changed the landscape: the nationwide skilled trades shortage means contractors aren't desperate for work anymore. With plumber shortages expected to reach 550,000 workers nationally by 2027, and similar shortages across all trades, contractors can be selective about which jobs they take. They're charging more because they can, and they're prioritizing their established clients because they don't need to chase every phone call.
When you're a one-off customer calling from a Google search, you're at the back of the line. When we call as an established client with an ongoing business relationship, our properties get prioritized. During emergency situations or peak seasons, that access can mean the difference between a same-day repair and a week-long wait.
This shortage also means you need to be even more careful about quality. With high demand, some contractors cut corners or take on more work than they can handle well. Our established relationships mean we know which contractors consistently deliver quality work, show up on time, and stand behind their repairs—not just who picks up the phone.
We've also built relationships with contractors who understand rental property economics. They know we need fair pricing for routine work, they respond quickly, and they understand tenant communication matters. These relationships are worth far more than their weight in gold when you need someone at 7 PM on a Friday.
When We Don't Charge the Fee
Here's something important: we're reasonable about when this fee applies.
If your HVAC system dies and needs replacement, we're not going to charge you 10% on a $7,000 install when the "coordination" is a single phone call to a trusted vendor.
We also don't charge coordination fees for preventative maintenance. If you're scheduling annual HVAC service, gutter cleaning, or other proactive maintenance, there's no coordination fee. We never want a fee to stand between you and taking care of your property—preventative maintenance saves everyone money and headaches in the long run.
Our system automatically adds the coordination fee to all work orders, so we manually remove it for preventative maintenance. If you ever see a coordination fee on preventative work, just let us know and we'll correct it immediately.
The coordination fee is designed to compensate for actual coordination work—managing multiple service calls, troubleshooting with tenants, coordinating schedules, handling follow-up visits, and ensuring quality work. When a job doesn't require that level of involvement, we adjust accordingly.
While our management agreement technically allows us to charge the fee on all maintenance, we believe in being fair and transparent. We'd rather build long-term trust with our owners than nickel-and-dime you on straightforward big-ticket items. Frankly, we know you can choose to leave at renewal time, and we're not interested in the short-term benefit of maximizing one invoice at the cost of losing a good client relationship. Our goal is to manage your property for years, not months.
The Bottom Line
Our maintenance coordination fee isn't about adding costs—it's about accurately pricing the service we provide while keeping our base management fee competitive. It ensures fairness among all owners, funds genuine 24/7 human support, and pays for the troubleshooting expertise that prevents thousands of dollars in unnecessary vendor calls.
Most importantly, it means when something goes wrong at your property, you have experienced professionals managing the situation from start to finish—not an AI bot, not an insensitive offshore service, and not a property manager without a construction background trying to handle maintenance coordination as an afterthought while juggling dozens of other responsibilities.
Quality coordination protects your investment, keeps your tenants happy, and saves you money. That's worth paying for.
Have questions about maintenance coordination or how we handle specific situations? We're always happy to discuss our processes.
