While you might not spend too much time thinking about zoning, studies have found a correlation between commercial zoning and crime. If you don't have a safe and secure commercial building, you'll have a tough time renting out to tenants. You need to fix and repair issues in your buildings or else face the ramification of vacancies and angry tenants.
Here are five of the most important things that you need to fix as soon as you see an issue.
If there's a water leak in your commercial building, you might think you could throw a bucket underneath and get to it when you get to it. Little do you realise that with every drip, you're inviting a whole host of problems that are racking up costs by the minute.
If your leak is on the 3rd floor, you might have an unseen leak on the 4th, 5th, and all the way up to the roof. If a leak in your roof has gotten bad enough to be seen on lower floors, it means that you've got water running all the way down, leaving rot and mildew behind. As the water leaks, it leaves the structure of your building weaker as it rusks and rots your building from the inside.
A leaky roof is serious business.
If your leak is contained, it still needs to be addressed as soon as possible. A leak that runs through the wall or through the ceiling tiles will break down the pipe it originates from and any material that it's dripping through.
If you end up with a leaky toilet, you need to get on top of that immediately. The kinds of bacteria and microbes that run from your toilet could be a health hazard. If that gets in your walls or floorboards, it will eat away at the material and could cost you thousands to fix.
A gas leak is an immediate call for alarm. If someone in your building reports the smell of gas, you should rush over and call someone immediately. If you don't have your own gas tester, you should call the gas company to come and check things out.
Gas leaks can cause all sorts of problems. If one of your tenants services children or elderly customers, their clients could become seriously ill. It doesn't bode well for you if your negligence causes people to get sick when they come to your building.
If someone in your building runs a small jewellery business, they could be using a handheld torch. Even a small candle shop could become a huge liability if you don't monitor the gas lines in your building.
A passing smoker could set your building on fire if you're not careful.
Pests aren't a serious problem in all commercial buildings but if there's one thing that your tenants will expect you to take care of, it's bugs and rodents. If one of their customers or clients sees a roach crawling across the floor while they discuss high-end services, your tenant will lose that customer.
The credibility of the people working out of your commercial building will be compromised if they are subject to pests.
Someone in your commercial building could be running an e-commerce website. Imagine if they send out products that have been chewed by rodents. They'll lose clients left and right if there are mouse droppings found in their shipments.
Your elevators and stairways are important to keep clean, clear, and functioning smoothly. If you don't take care of your elevator, you'll get lots of complaints from tenants and from their customers who are troubled by it. When someone with disabilities comes to one of your buildings, they rely on a working elevator to ensure that they can get around.
If you don't take care of your stairwells, they can become covered in trash, spiderwebs, and pests. Stairs that are broken or damaged need to be replaced. Stairways are also a huge liability as they need to be kept up to code for the local fire department. If there's an emergency in your building and people can't use the stairs, get ready for a massive lawsuit.
Working elevators are also a big plus if you're renting out space in your building. People don't want to rent an office in a building where the elevator is slow, old, or constantly in disrepair.
Making sure your building is secure is an absolute must when you own a commercial building. In residential buildings, people come in and out all the time and a potential thief would be seen. In a commercial building, there's a safe bet the building is all but empty after 5 PM and on weekends.
If the front door of your building isn't secure, you need to have some kind of security measures in place. You should put cameras around your building so that you'll know if someone breaches the entrance who shouldn't be there.
Every major door or individual office should have a strong working lock. If the locks on your building fail, you could be liable for every single office that gets robbed. Since you don't know what kind of valuables your tenants could have hidden in their desks, you're better off being safe than sorry.
If you don't fix and repair things as they're brought to your attention, you risk upsetting your tenants. Since you rely on them to pay your bills, every commercial tenant should take the complaints of their tenants seriously. It takes a high degree of annoyance to go through the trouble of contacting you, so you can rest assured that if you hear about it, it's probably an issue.
If you suspect you've got an HVAC issue plaguing you, check out our guide to find out what you should do.
