New Landlord Maintenance Tracking Mistakes

When I bought my first rental property in 2021, I had zero plan for maintenance tracking. I figured I'd just fix things when tenants called.

That approach lasted about 4 months before it cost me $400 on a single repair that should have been $80.

Here are the mistakes I made so you can skip them.

Mistake 1: Not Logging Requests Immediately

A tenant texts you about a dripping faucet while you're at dinner. You read it, think "I'll deal with that tomorrow," and go back to your meal.

Tomorrow comes and you've forgotten. A week later the tenant texts again. Now they're annoyed and the drip has gotten worse.

I did this 3 times in my first year. The fix is stupid simple. When a request comes in, open your tracker and add a row. Before you respond to the tenant. Before you do anything else. 30 seconds.

If you don't log it immediately, there's about a 40% chance you'll forget. I didn't make that number up. I went back and counted my first year's requests. 4 out of 10 that I didn't log immediately fell through the cracks.

Mistake 2: Using Text Messages as Your Tracking System

For my first 6 months, maintenance requests lived in text conversations. I'd scroll through my messages to figure out what was outstanding.

This is insane. I see that now. But at the time it seemed reasonable because I only had 3 units.

The problem with text messages as a tracking system: you can't sort them by status. You can't see all open requests at once. You can't see how long something has been open. And when a tenant texts you about something else, the maintenance request gets buried.

Use a spreadsheet (I share mine in my free maintenance tracker spreadsheet post). Use a notebook. Use a sticky note on your desk. Anything is better than text messages.

Mistake 3: Not Setting Priority Levels

My first year, every request felt equally urgent. Leaky faucet? Urgent. Squeaky door? Urgent. Everything was "I need to fix that."

When everything is urgent, nothing is. You get overwhelmed and start procrastinating on all of it.

Once I started using High/Medium/Low priorities, things calmed down. High priority gets handled in 48 hours. Medium gets a week. Low gets done when it's convenient.

A squeaky door is not a 48-hour emergency. Treating it like one just burns you out.

Mistake 4: Not Following Up on Vendors

I'd call a handyman, describe the issue, and assume it would get done. Wrong.

Vendors forget. Vendors get busy. Vendors say "I'll be there Thursday" and then Thursday comes and goes. If you don't follow up, you'll find out 2 weeks later that the repair never happened.

Now I have a simple rule: if a vendor says they'll do something by a certain date, I put a follow-up in my calendar for the day after. "Did handyman fix Unit 6 faucet?" If yes, mark it done. If no, call them.

Mistake 5: Not Tracking Costs

My first year, I had no idea what I spent on maintenance. Tax time was a nightmare of scrolling through bank statements and trying to match charges to properties.

Now I log the cost on every completed repair. At year end, I filter by property and have my total maintenance expense in 10 seconds. My accountant loves me for it.

It also helps me spot money pits. If one unit costs $3,000/year in maintenance and another costs $400, I know where to focus capital improvements.

Mistake 6: Not Having a System for Aging Requests

This is the one that bit me hardest. I had a maintenance spreadsheet. I logged things. But I didn't have any way to know when a request was getting old.

A High priority request that's been open for 12 days? That should be screaming at me. But in a plain spreadsheet, it looks exactly the same as a request that was logged yesterday.

I added conditional formatting that turns rows red when they age past their priority threshold. That helped. But I still had to open the sheet to see it.

Eventually I added RentGuard, which monitors the sheet and emails me when requests are aging. That was the final piece. Now I can't miss an aging request even if I forget to check the sheet.

The Simple System That Works

Log immediately. Set a priority. Track status. Follow up on vendors. Record costs. Get alerts when things age.

That's the whole system. It's not complicated. It just requires consistency. I go into more detail in my simple maintenance tracking system post.

If you want the "get alerts when things age" part without building scripts or buying PM software, descoshop.com does exactly that. Connects to your spreadsheet and monitors it for you.