property managers new orleans

    Property Maintenance: We Catch Problems Others Walk Right Past

    I’ve crawled under houses most property managers won’t go near. I’ve climbed onto roofs after storms when contractors were already calling owners with repair quotes three times higher than the work warranted. I’ve stood in crawl spaces in August in New Orleans identifying the source of a moisture problem that had been misdiagnosed twice before I looked at it.

    This is what a construction background actually means in property management. Not that I carry a toolbox — I don’t do the repairs myself. It means I know what I’m looking at when I walk through a property, which means I know when a contractor is right, when they’re wrong, and when they’re taking advantage of an absentee owner who has no way to know the difference.

    Why This Matters

    Property maintenance in New Orleans is not like property maintenance anywhere else. The humidity, the soil conditions, the age of the housing stock, the way Entergy works, the way the HDLC operates in historic districts — all of it creates a maintenance landscape that requires real, local, experienced eyes.

    A property manager who doesn’t know construction is entirely dependent on what a contractor tells them. That’s a problem, because some contractors in this market know exactly who’s watching and act accordingly. We’ve seen invoices for work that wasn’t done, repairs that were done wrong, and emergencies that turned out to be routine maintenance someone wanted to charge emergency rates for.

    We don’t accept that. We check the work. We know what it should cost. And we use contractors who have earned their way onto our list.

    “The most expensive maintenance problem is the one that wasn’t caught early. We walk your property to find them before they find you.”

    How We Handle Maintenance

    • Tenant requests are reviewed, assessed, and dispatched to appropriate contractors
    • We inspect the work when it’s completed — not just take the contractor’s word for it
    • We use a vetted network of licensed contractors built over forty years in this market
    • Emergency repairs are handled immediately, with owner notification
    • Non-emergency repairs are batched and scheduled to minimize disruption and cost
    • All work is documented with invoices, photos, and descriptions

    The $2,500 Rule

    Our management agreement authorizes us to approve repairs up to $2,500 without prior owner approval, so that genuine emergencies — a burst pipe at midnight, a failed HVAC in August — can be addressed without waiting for a callback. Anything above that threshold gets a call before the work is authorized.

    This is how it should work. You hired a professional to handle the day-to-day so you don’t have to, but it’s still your money and your property. We treat it that way.

    Want to know more about how we protect your investment? Call David at 504-232-1672.