Written for The HMO Roadmap - Click here to view their blog.
If you type into Google ‘Are contractors unreliable?’ there’s a Reddit thread with 200+ comments saying basically ‘hell yes’, an article titled ‘Bad Contractors – 5 ways they cheat you’ and a series of excerpts from blogs supporting this stereotype. Within the property community it’s also a common narrative and from personal experience it’s easy to say yes it’s true.
Something recently caused me to question whether this was in fact entirely true, and that was a conversation with Karen, a property manager VA on our team who has been supporting our clients for 5 years..
Karen was recently dealing with a major leak at a property belonging to our client. She rang one of the regular contractors and he answered the phone with, “Hello, trouble.”
It was a throwaway comment, but it said a lot. He knew Karen and she knew him. They had worked together repeatedly. She wasn’t simply another unknown number ringing because something had gone wrong.
This contractor assured Karen he would go straight to look at this leak for our client, and he did.
Now, you might not particularly want a contractor answering the phone to you with, “Hello, trouble”, but I’m fairly sure most HMO investors would appreciate having a contractor who is prepared to prioritise them when something urgent happens.
That kind of response does not come pre-formed and ready-baked. A good working relationship with a plumber, electrician, handyman or any of the other trades an HMO investor might reasonably call upon for essential, emergency or periodic works develops over time.
When you first call a contractor, they are largely an unknown quantity. You don’t yet know how reliable they are, whether they will turn up when they say they will, how they communicate, how quickly they respond in an emergency or whether the quality of their work will live up to expectations. But the same is true in reverse. They don’t know you either.
For us, this matters particularly because, as virtual property managers, we are remotely coordinating all the moving parts involved in successfully managing multiple portfolios. We are on the clock, so we need to solve problems well and as efficiently as possible. Strong working relationships with contractors help us do that. The quicker we can get from a reported problem to a successful outcome, the better for the landlord, the tenant and everyone involved.
Of course, you may not have the time, the need or even the desire to build that kind of relationship with contractors yourself. So how do you start creating the same level of trust and buy-in from the people you rely on when you need them?
Make yourself a good client
Many tradespeople work as sole traders or very small businesses. They may be great at plumbing, electrics, roofing or whatever their particular trade happens to be, without necessarily being quite as good at paperwork, invoicing or diary management. If they are great at what they do, as a consequence, they may be constantly in demand.
Note: Of course, genuinely unreliable contractors exist too.
One thing most sole-trader contractors have in common is that they appreciate being paid promptly once they’ve completed the job (assuming it’s done well). When you work for yourself, cash flow can either keep your business moving or become the handbrake that makes everything harder. Understanding that, and paying them promptly when they have completed a job, probably elevates you in their mind more than you realise.
Imagine two landlords call the same plumber with work. One has used them several times, pays their invoices promptly and is straightforward to deal with. The other still hasn’t paid a £90 plus VAT invoice from the last job over a month ago. The plumber, or perhaps their partner who helps with the admin, has already had to chase payment, while simultaneously trying to get on with the actual day job.
Now both landlords have an emergency. Whose job do you think is easier for that contractor to choose?
This isn’t about buying preferential treatment. It is simply recognising that contractors are running businesses too. If working for you is easy, communication is smooth and they know they will be paid without having to chase, you become a better customer. And better customers are easier to prioritise.
Sounds like effort? The relationship does not have to sit with you
The landlord does not necessarily need to be the person building every one of these relationships. In fact, in a well-run portfolio, they probably shouldn’t be. This is where having a good property manager VA, like Karen, can become surprisingly valuable.
If your VA is the person regularly speaking to your contractors, booking jobs, chasing access, checking progress, receiving invoices and making sure those invoices reach the right person for speedy payment, then over time they become the consistent point of contact. And that consistency matters.
There is a human element technology cannot replace
Karen picks up the phone, communicates properly, sometimes laughs with them and makes sure invoices are processed and paid promptly. So when something genuinely urgent happens, there is a bit of goodwill, some give and take, and the contractor is more inclined to try to help.
That does not mean they will cancel every other job because your boiler has stopped working. It does mean your portfolio is no longer completely anonymous to them.
There is a lot happening in property right now around AI, automation and better property management systems, and we are enthusiastic about all of it. There are plenty of repetitive tasks that technology can handle faster and more consistently than a person. But I can’t see AI building that bond with Dave the Sparkie quite as well as a familiar voice on the phone.
There is the power of reciprocity. There has been humour and give and take. Somebody has remembered the favour from last time. Somebody understands that this contractor has had a nightmare week and might need an extra day. Somebody knows when to push and when not to. And somebody has built enough credibility that when they say, “I really need your help with this one,” it carries some weight.
That is not sentimentality. It has operational value.
Goodwill is built in the boring moments
The valuable part of a contractor relationship usually isn’t created during an emergency. It is created in the months before it.
It happens when access has been organised properly and they are not left standing outside a property, and when they are given enough information to understand the job and bottlenecks are removed. It happens when somebody acknowledges that they have fitted you in at short notice, when the invoice gets paid without them having to ask three times, and when they do you a favour and somebody actually says thank you.
None of those things is particularly sophisticated, but collectively they change the nature of the relationship. Your VA can build this over dozens of small interactions.
Because they are usually dealing with the same contractors repeatedly, they also start learning things that are enormously useful operationally. They know which electrician is excellent but hopeless at replying to WhatsApps. They know which plumber will try to squeeze in an emergency if you phone rather than email. They know who is good for a quick repair, who they would trust with something more complicated and who has helped you out before.
Just as importantly, the contractor learns how your VA works. They know she will get them access, that she will answer if they have a question, that she won’t disappear once the job is finished and that they will get paid. That is how an unknown contractor slowly becomes part of the infrastructure around your portfolio.
Finding a contractor is only the beginning
We often talk about the challenge of finding good contractors, but perhaps finding them is only part of the job. The other part is turning the good ones you find into people who want to continue working with you.
That means paying promptly, being organised, treating their time with respect and communicating properly. It means allowing a relationship to develop beyond, “Can you fix this?”, “How much?” and “When can you get there?”
If you have a VA managing your portfolio, they can become the person who does that consistently on your behalf. Over time, you are not simply building a contractor list. You are building a network of people who know your portfolio, know how your team works and, when you genuinely need them, are more likely to make the effort to help.
That mutual advantage is where the real value sits. The contractor gets a client who is organised, respectful and pays them promptly. The HMO investor gets a contractor who increasingly understands the portfolio and is more inclined to accommodate them when it matters. And your VA becomes the relationship in the middle that keeps the whole thing working.
Because contractors are not just resources in a system. They are people. And property, however sophisticated the technology becomes, is still a people business.
If you’d rather not be the person holding all of this together, that’s exactly the gap a good property manager VA can fill. Contact us here to explore how our team can help take this off your plate.
