As a landlord or property manager you lead a busy life. Some days you may only have a few things on your plate, but at other times you will be running around trying to solve problem after problem. One thing that you never want to hear from a tenant is ?I have an emergency.? As you can imagine, this is usually a problem that needs your immediate attention. Even though dealing with emergencies can be difficult, it goes along with being a property manager.

Is it truly an emergency? Some tenants have the tendency to exaggerate just a bit. In other words, they will tell you they have an emergency just to get you to the house so they can get what they want. A true emergency is a situation that is going to cause further damage or bodily injury, or anything else along those lines. For instance, if it is the dead of winter and the furnace dies this is an emergency because your tenants need heat. In this case you will need to solve the problem as quickly as possible.

It is important to prioritize. This is especially true if you manage more than one property. If you only manage one home it is easy enough to deal with everything that comes up. But if you manage several properties you need to know which problems, most often times the emergencies, to take care of first. For example, cutting the grass at one property is not as important as fixing a broken pipe that is flooding another.

Finally, make sure you always have professionals to call on if need be. You may be able to handle many situations on your own, but this is not always the case. If an emergency comes up it is important to know who you can call for immediate help. Can you fix that broken pipe on your own?

Once you deal with a few emergencies as a landlord you will have a good feel for what works and what you should avoid the next time around.