Maintaining a second home

STEAMBOAT PILOT & TODAY

Owning a home away from home can pose unique challenges. Lawns need to be mowed, snow piles up and pipes can break while homeowners are not there.

David Baldinger Jr., managing broker of Steamboat Village Brokers, advises homeowners to find a reputable property management company or caretaker.

“If you leave your house vacant, all kind of things can go wrong,” Baldinger said. “The benefits will outweigh the costs.”

A management company can provide the minimum service of maintenance, landscaping and snow removal or go as far as providing shuttles at the airport when homeowners arrive and making sure the refrigerator is stocked.

Regardless of the level of service, Baldinger said one of the most important tasks is to ask for references when looking at property management companies. And finding the right property management company also means knowing the level of service the homeowners want and if they want to rent their homes when they are not there.

“If the number one goal is rental income, you are really looking at how successful are they at renting a home, how much income can they provide and what is the business arrangement between you and the rental agency,” Baldinger said.

He said fees for property management companies can run from $200 a month to thousands of dollars.

Randall Hannaway, an owner of Colorado Group Realty, also recommends hiring someone to check in on homes. He said the people homeowners hire to look after their homes are useful in creating connections to the community.

“The key thing is really making a relationship with the local people,” Hannaway said. “Locals know who to call, who mows lawns, who plows snow, who needs to come in and treat the decks.”

Hannaway’s company started a separate division - Mountain Lifestyles - just to provide extra services to second-home owners. He said clients used to give them a spare set of keys in case anything would happen and asked them to do extra tasks from getting tires changed on their vehicles to finding a nice Christmas tree.

Hannaway estimates that about 70 percent of the second-home owners in homes worth more than $500,000 have a caretaker or property management company looking over the homes.

“Things are going to happen,” Hannaway said. “Things are going to break. The difference between a small problem and a large problem is the passage of time.”

He also has another piece of advice: getting a good alarm system. An alarm system is not just for theft he said. Such a system also can set the temperature and lighting in the house.

“It is the most important thing, at least in my experience,” he said.

Hannaway said surveillance cameras can be useful for second-home owners. Cameras can allow homeowners in Texas to monitor what is going on at their Steamboat homes.

Baldinger tells clients to think about when they are going to use the property the most. He said a family that is going to vacation mainly in the winter for the ski season might not want to get a house in the country a good distance away from Steamboat.

“Sometimes they don’t realize how different things are in the summer and how different it is going to be in the winter,” Baldinger said.