Rental Property Repair Red Flags Every Real Estate Investor Should Know | The Handyman Doctor

The Handyman Doctor (00:00)
As a business, so as a property investor, you’re running your own business. You’re maybe moving from a different business into this business. You have a decision tree every time. Your top three things that are the most important, and they have to fit every time you pick somebody, has to fit all three. Is it good for the house?

Does it work with your timing and does it work with your budget? Because we’ve met a lot of property investors that have wanted to do full make ready transition, top to bottom, left to right, but it’s not worth the ROI. And so we’re very happy to say that no, you don’t need that.

Cody Crabb (02:11)
Welcome back to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I’m Cody Crabb with Investor Fuel. And today I’m joined by Galen Brueggen and Richard Rodriguez from The Handyman Doctor. They work with homeowners, property managers, and rental properties on repairs, turns, and make-readies. And they bring a unique mix of construction experience and real problem solving to the table. Guys, it’s great to have you on.

The Handyman Doctor (02:33)
Great to be here. How are you today, Cody?

Cody Crabb (02:36)
I’m doing swell, doing so great. ⁓ Yeah, it’s a great day. ⁓ So for somebody in real estate that’s hearing about you for the first time, give us a little quick overview. Like what do you actually do and where do you fit into the life of a property?

The Handyman Doctor (02:55)
I’ll take this one. So we’re usually the homeowner, property manager, or property investors first call. They call us with questions. We go out. We look. We do make ready and tenant turn inspections. And then we come back with advice on what needs to happen. We’re really truly the boots on the ground. And most of the time, we’re a brand extension of whoever your property manager is.

or your home. We treat every home just like it’s ours. same, we have our three pillars just like everybody. Like it has to match the budget, the timing and the home needs because the home is how you’re making your money. So we’re really a partner and we really want to help homeowners and investors get return on their investment. And if you don’t know that there’s a problem, if nobody’s looking, nobody’s asking questions, then you don’t know if you have a problem or not. So.

That’s really kind of where we fall.

Cody Crabb (03:46)
sure. Yeah

and so ⁓ I guess that my very first question would be you’re around a lot of homeowners but also investors as well. A lot of repairs, a lot of issues that should have been caught earlier. I’d be curious if you can give me like I always ask this whenever we’ve got somebody who’s like in a contractor or something like does repairs I’m always like what is the first couple of things that’s like check this now because if you don’t

it’s gonna be really bad later. The answer I usually get is roofs. But I’m curious if you have anything besides roofing.

The Handyman Doctor (04:20)
I

do, I do. I’m in the middle of ⁓ just now repairing a leak from upstairs home that was, ⁓ they claim it’s been about six months already leaking. Well, they had the restoration company come out and do the work on it. They assumed the leak was done. I won’t touch anything until I’m guaranteed myself that it’s done. So what I do is I set up paper.

and are usually a newspaper or just ⁓ any type of paper that will soak the water just to drop. And it just so happens that I found another leak. And then I went and I went ahead and put everything back together again, sheetrock first, and was about to do the texture. And I heard the upstairs shower moving around and then I heard a drip. So I found a third leak. So.

That just happened. I didn’t do the plumbing. I only did the repair, the sheetrock. So I told the customer, homeowner, said, look, let’s give it three days. If there’s no wet surfaces, no problems at all, then I’ll come back and I’ll finish the work, but I’m not touching that work. And it wasn’t in a bad light, he understood. I just don’t want him to have to pay me three times.

Cody Crabb (05:43)
Yeah, I’m pretty sure he would appreciate that as well. So yeah, I don’t

think anyone’s complaining.

The Handyman Doctor (05:47)
Yeah, he understood.

mean, there’s, we run into that. I’ve run into issues like that. I’m very, ⁓ what’s the word I want to use? I take seriously with water, electricity, anything I touch, it’s got to be perfect. He’s not kidding. Yeah. I have a hard time not doing that. Yeah.

Cody Crabb (06:10)
There’s worse problems than that, I suppose. Yeah, that’s pretty good. ⁓ Well, yeah, that’s

a really good example, because a lot of people think something is fixed just because they kind of put a bandaid over it. ⁓ So I’d be curious, how often do you see owners fix the symptoms instead of actually going to the source and fixing it right? Is that something you see all the time?

The Handyman Doctor (07:18)
I would say with water and with plumbing, you like, there’s so many different things that we’ve unfortunately seen some of the builds in the TCU area. Unfortunately, there’ve been some errors. And so there are a couple of properties that just have ongoing leaks. Every time there’s a turn, then

Cody Crabb (07:22)
I mean, there’s no real band-aids are there? Yeah, I suppose that’s true.

The Handyman Doctor (07:40)
there’s extra work that needs to be done. So I would 100 % say water is something that should always be checked. Checked at the meter. Richard does this. He taught me this as well. Check out the meter. We’re watching a clock for 10 minutes to make sure nothing is moving. He just said 15 minutes. That’s okay. It’s 100%. So.

Cody Crabb (07:51)
Hmm.

It’s gotta be perfect. It’s gotta be perfect.

The Handyman Doctor (08:04)
The water is number one. Yeah, we look at the roof before we go in. We look at the fascia, all the stuff on the exterior. But water is the one that you really gotta pay attention to. At least here.

Cody Crabb (08:15)
Yeah, that’s, mean that,

yeah, well no, it’s, mean, pretty much anywhere, but especially in places where you, I mean, it’s, that’s the gateway to mold and all kinds of horrible stuff you don’t wanna deal with. yeah, yeah, that’s, mean, as soon as you start getting mold, that’s a whole other, that’s a whole other thing.

The Handyman Doctor (08:30)
It’s

water is not prejudice. It’ll go anywhere. It will find a way.

Cody Crabb (08:33)
Yeah, yeah,

so determined. Yeah, but the thing so the thing that I always The thing that I always think about is so okay Let’s say I’m an investor and I’m going into a property and I have no idea what I’m doing I’m just gonna I’m getting in here and I’m like, alright, there’s gonna be I’m gonna invest in this property What is a red flag? That shows that maybe this was not super well taken care of or maybe this is like a dangerous purchase even if everything kind of

pretty much looks okay on the outside, what’s something that you would flag as like, mm, careful there, because that could be bad.

The Handyman Doctor (09:09)
I would tell you, look at the walls and if it’s got texture on it, the texture wall, you know, it be either orange peel, knock down, different types of See if there’s been any type of, you can tell if other people’s work once the texture’s been reworked. You know, the idea of it is trying to hide it, but if you look around the walls first, that’s going to tell you a lot. Maybe somebody read it out.

Cody Crabb (09:29)
Mm-hmm.

The Handyman Doctor (09:37)
and somebody decided to punch holes in it all day long. You you look at the walls first, then you go to the faucets, turn the faucets wide open, let them run, see how they act. Do you hear any knocking noises? Well, that could be, you know, that could be a loose pipe, especially with pecs, the way they run pecs nowadays. Open the cabinet doors, look under, see if there’s any, any signs of layers of paint covering up old leaks, old issues. As you’ve got your water opened up.

Cody Crabb (09:50)
that’s a good one.

The Handyman Doctor (10:08)
Just keep an eye on it for a minute. You can put a paper towel underneath it while you’re going through the others and see if it fails the paper test. See if you’ve got a water issue there. Smell the water too.

Cody Crabb (10:15)
Yeah. I imagine also like warping would

be another one of the cabinets and kind of surrounding, you know, because that seems like that’s a pretty big hint that, maybe some water’s getting in here.

The Handyman Doctor (10:22)
And.

Yeah, and check your ceiling. know, look around your ceiling when you walk in. Look at your switch lights on and off. See if you got a bad switches on already. You look at things like that because the ceiling is going to tell you if it’s a leak right away. It’s going to turn brown. It’s like a stained brown, like a light stain. And then the last thing, which most people won’t do, they won’t go out to the meter and just have everything turned off and see if that meter number is moving.

I don’t know if anybody else that does it decides me.

Cody Crabb (10:58)
It seems pretty

now that you say that I’m like well Yeah, that seems like a great way to know because it’s there’s no other possible way that it could you know That’s a pretty that’s pretty brilliant

The Handyman Doctor (11:05)
But yeah, because you, because if

a person has a water sprinkler system outside, doesn’t mean that thing isn’t dripping over time. You know, you if you got to look at all those little avenues because your bill could be a water bill, it be high. You know, your installation in your attic, what does that look like? know, foliage on the exterior.

Cody Crabb (11:16)
True, yeah.

The Handyman Doctor (11:28)
trees, bushes, those kinds of things. It may look beautiful from the curb, but see if it’s up on the house. See if it’s causing problems that become larger. What kind of trees do you have in the yard? Are those trees that have really strong roots that are strangling your water lines? Those are, I mean, you can’t solve all the tree problems, but being aware of it.

Cody Crabb (11:44)
Yeah.

The Handyman Doctor (11:51)
is super helpful. So when we walk through those are things that we look at. You might want to take care of this tree. It looks like it’s about to fall in your house. A lot of people don’t look at that, but we have a lot of really big old trees around here. we and then check also check your air condition because it’s going to be one of your most expensive things. The quality. Yeah, yeah, you may get one with 18 years old. You don’t want that.

Cody Crabb (11:58)
Mmm. Yeah.

Yeah.

Those are some great tips for sure. ⁓ And let’s say just.

Yeah, yeah,

yeah, exactly. Or at least plan, you can plan for it at the very least. So let’s just say, this is purely a hypothetical, that you’re super not handy at all and you are not the kind of person that knows anything about what they’re talking about when it comes to home repair. This isn’t about me, of course. This is just a random example. So let’s say ⁓ you start to see things like, you know, patch.

patches and repairs and things like that, like all these things you mentioned. But how do you know if it’s a cosmetic fix versus like something we need to really dig into and look at? Because I’ve seen some stuff on walls that I’m like, I don’t know if this is anything or if it’s just kind of ugly and I can deal with it. So how do you tell?

The Handyman Doctor (13:35)
I can tell by standing, if I can get next to the wall and look down the wall, I can tell you right away. it’s usually. Yeah, how do you teach somebody to look for? Basically, mean. It’s really hard to tell to tell somebody because when I came from the world of distribution and management of company, the first thing I was taught by the ⁓ group of Albertsons people that showed me that.

Cody Crabb (13:42)
Well of course you can, how do we do it?

The Handyman Doctor (14:01)
⁓ Go to the bathroom. Bathroom tells you everything. What’s the water temperature on it? Look at the corners. Are they clean? Nasty? Dirty? Has it been swept? You look for those things. ⁓ Mine just came from experience from an individual that doesn’t really know. I mean, I couldn’t really tell them. They could call me and ask me. Yeah, but other than that, most people won’t look for those things.

Cody Crabb (14:28)
Well, and

even that’s important to bring up too because you might not even be able to tell. You do need to kind of get an expert looking at this because there may not be a way to tell.

The Handyman Doctor (14:31)
work.

Yeah, having a trusted partner there are others like us out there I know that there are that you can call you can build a relationship, you know Cheap partners aren’t great and great partners aren’t cheap You’ve got to have someone that is looking at your stuff like it’s

He’s right, we can’t teach all the experience that we have, the things that we found. But if you’re a first time investor and you’re trying to figure out how to look down the wall, it’s kind of like topography. It’s going to have texture, it’ll have bumps, it’ll have studs that are kind of moving. It’s not going to be a straight level wall. You’ll be able to see a difference in. let’s all go back to when we were teenagers. You know when you have acne and your face is all textured in one spot?

you’ll see that there’s the natural texture and then there’s a whole nother texture. That’s something you’re just gonna wanna look into and you’re gonna wanna have somebody, a partner that does understand that. So if you don’t have a handy person or a handy company that’s a partner that has a variety of skill sets, then you’re gonna probably want to have some partners that are specialized skills. So a partner plumber, a partner electrician, a partner.

here and there that does have some of that knowledge. There’s a lot of mentoring, there’s a lot of communications out in the trades. I know sometimes there’s a bad rap related to it, but we all are really just trying to do our best and help serve everyone. And we’ve met a ton of really great tradespeople. So there are resources out there that can help you.

Cody Crabb (16:12)
Mm-hmm.

So

that brings me to my next question, which is, let’s say I’m trying to find somebody that I can build that relationship with. Am I just opening the, well, I’m not opening the phone book at all, because it’s 2026, but if I was opening the phone book, do I just find a random person? How do I find these people?

The Handyman Doctor (16:35)
⁓ this is a fun question. So I’m a connector by nature. So a lot of our customers do use me as a connector. We have a lot of customers. Again, we work with TCU. So we do a lot of white glove concierge move in here, but that’s for out of state. So those conversations where we’re helping their kids then turn into conversations where, well, I think I have a problem with this at my house in California. Who do I call? And I’m like, well,

We’re not coming to California this month. However, I can build a referral list. Here are the people that I would call based on my research, based on your budget, based on your investment, based on your location. This is who I would call. So that’s a service that we do provide. Happy to do that. If you’re on your own and you want to do it on your own, I get it. You want to chat GPT or Gemini or Google it, go ahead and Google it. But look at the reviews. Look at the ratings.

Cody Crabb (17:20)
wow.

The Handyman Doctor (17:32)
If there are none, but you really like somebody, then see if they have any references that you can talk to that they’ve done work with before. Those will give you the biggest telltales of if you want to partner with them or not. And then if somebody says, if I send you a referral list and you’re like, I talked to all three of them and they were awful, I can’t work with any of them. OK.

Let’s rebuild another list because you as a human have to be able to connect and communicate with the human that you’re trusting. If that communication does not work, that is not your partner. And that’s okay. There’ll be another one. You’ll find somebody. They’re out there. Yeah. Yeah. think the other.

Cody Crabb (18:03)
Yeah.

Yeah, it’s kind of like dating. There’s plenty of fish in the sea. And you know

what? Somebody might be a great, somebody might be great, but they’re just not for you. They just, for whatever reason, you don’t vibe and it doesn’t work and that’s fine. And so ⁓ that’s, again, that’s a great segue into what I was gonna ask you next, is, I have a, let’s say we have a list of qualities, right? What’s their dating profile for finding a partner to work with. It’s basically like we got.

The Handyman Doctor (18:18)
I’m

Cody Crabb (18:36)
⁓ We like you said trust trust is on that list obviously price is on that list, but I’d be curious What else is on that list like a location is obviously important too, but what?

The Handyman Doctor (18:46)
Quality

and dependability. If they say they’re coming, are they going to show up? You’ve got to know that. I’ll let you go this time. be on time. You tell somebody you’re going be there at 9 o’clock, you’re there at 8.59 or even a few minutes earlier. You text them, the younger generation you text, but the older folks that are 80 and 90 years old, if I’m there at 9, they automatically… Were you in the military? like,

Cody Crabb (19:13)
You

The Handyman Doctor (19:57)
wondering because the fact that you’re so functional.

I said, well, I was taught that by my grandfather and my dad. They were the same way. were punctual. Unless I got into a car accident, you’re going to know I’m going be there at nine o’clock. It’s not, you know, that’s, that’s using my start time every day. And then I’ll tell you, I’m going to leave at three and that’s what happens. You know, and I’ll leave at three, but I, clean my mess up. I make it look like nothing’s been there and I know that I’m done for the day. And this is what I’m doing tomorrow.

Cody Crabb (20:00)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah

Yeah.

The Handyman Doctor (20:27)
I’ll be back tomorrow for another part of that job.

Cody Crabb (20:30)
Yeah, and I suppose that’s really

important in that kind of situation because you’re like, here’s the work I’m going to do tomorrow. If I have no idea if that’s accurate or not, how am I supposed to plan anything? Because I know what you mean. I’ve seen contractors and stuff, they come through and I’m just like, oh yeah, it’ll be another couple days. Is being able to estimate the time, I I imagine that’s a really good quality as well.

The Handyman Doctor (20:53)
Yeah, I think are you also asking like if I’m a property investor What’s my decision my decision tree to try to find a partner? Is that kind of what you’re?

Cody Crabb (21:03)
I suppose

it could be, yeah. was like, what are the qualities of a good, who would be good to work with? But that’s kind of right in line with that, yeah.

The Handyman Doctor (21:12)
Also the feedback, you know, and just before we go somewhere else, but also the feedback. If I did work for you today and say, I put it in a brand new front door and then I’d call you three months from now and you answer your phone and say, I don’t have anything else right now because I get that. no, I’m not looking for anything else. I just want to make sure the door is still doing what it’s supposed to be doing.

Is there any gaps? Does it have any leaks? you heard any air go through it? You know, strong winds. Does it got any water coming through it? Things like that.

Cody Crabb (21:43)
As a customer, that would

really stand out to me, as, after all this time, like he just was checking to see if the door was still working, yeah.

The Handyman Doctor (21:49)
Yeah, yeah, you follow

up with folks care and out, you know, because it’s your it’s your work. It’s your hands that do the work. It’s your mind that does work. And I want to make sure it’s done right. You know, I prefer quality over quantity. One hundred percent. That’s my biggest thing. I don’t want to have ten thousand jobs.

Cody Crabb (21:57)
Yeah.

for sure.

The Handyman Doctor (22:07)
You know, and me and Russia everywhere, it’s half fixed and I’ll be back in five years. You know, just, I’m not going to do that. If not, I’ll put my hands up in there and I’m going to walk away from it. You know, I’ve had that. Yeah, I can put you on another month. I can’t put you tomorrow, but just things like that, it’s just not going to happen. You know, cause I believe in quality. So.

Cody Crabb (22:23)
Yeah. Gotcha.

Yeah.

I mean, that’s all that really mattered. Like the being able to have somebody that you go to. I’ve told this story before on the podcast, but it’s like, my mom had this really, really old car. was like, it was like 30 years old or so. And she was always, it was like, she only ever took it to work, which she lived with. She worked really close. ⁓ and her mechanic, ⁓ was, she would always bring it in and be like, okay, what do I need? It’s obviously needs some fixing and what does it need? And you’d always be like, you’re, you’re fine. Go home. It doesn’t need anything. Just go. It’s fine.

The Handyman Doctor (22:56)
Yeah.

Cody Crabb (22:57)
And I

after that I he’s he’s my mechanic now too because I’m like that guy if he could so easily my mom would have paid for anything that he said and the and the fact that he the fact that he could do that I’m like, yeah, I’ll trust him with with anything now. So I think the trust is a big thing. But also like you said like the integrity of like I’m going to be there when I say I’m going to do what I I’m going to do what I said I was going to do in the time that I was going to do it like

The Handyman Doctor (23:06)
Right?

Cody Crabb (23:25)
That seems really simple, but like you said, that’s pretty much the whole game, really.

The Handyman Doctor (23:30)
that and the trust of trusting the person to come into your home and be there. Yeah, we’re super grateful for all the trust. I’d say a big red flag, especially if you have zero references, you have zero reviews that you’ve seen online, is if someone asks for money straight up out of the gate. We are huge advocates. We’ll do estimates. We’ll come in. We’ll do all the things. But we do our work and we charge as we complete.

Cody Crabb (23:34)
I mean, there’s that too, yeah.

The Handyman Doctor (23:57)
We have our projected what’s next, that type of stuff, but we very much work from that standpoint. ⁓ But I’ve heard a lot of horror stories relating to they showed up, they needed money for materials, and then they never came back. So be very cautious of that one. ⁓

Cody Crabb (24:12)
Hmm.

The Handyman Doctor (24:16)
As a business, so as a property investor, you’re running your own business. You’re maybe moving from a different business into this business. You have a decision tree every time. Your top three things that are the most important, and they have to fit every time you pick somebody, has to fit all three. Is it good for the house?

Does it work with your timing and does it work with your budget? Because we’ve met a lot of property investors that have wanted to do full make ready transition, top to bottom, left to right, but it’s not worth the ROI. And so we’re very happy to say that no, you don’t need that.

And we’ve had some customers who like, I want to replace this sprinkler system on the wall. And we’re like,

You don’t need to. It’s fine. I sourced a new lock. Nobody can access it. You’re all good. You’re set. And he still wanted it. So he hired somebody else to do it. And that’s okay. We’re not bothered or offended. We work with him all the time still. But it’s being able to say no. Like you’re mechanic. Your mom’s mechanic. You want people that say no, that’s not me. That’s not going to be efficient or cost effective for you to use us. You need somebody else or

Cody Crabb (25:02)
Why? Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

The Handyman Doctor (25:31)
No, you don’t even need anything done. You can do whatever you want, but you don’t need anything done. That’s true. It’s been some mouth over to that. So that just come through.

Cody Crabb (25:36)
Yeah, yeah, just comes back to that, yeah, it really does.

And so, well, I think that’s actually a great place to land, because at the end of the day, real estate investors aren’t just looking for somebody who can technically do the work. This is like somebody that, it’s like they’re trusting them with their investment and their time, and this is a big deal. So it’s not just like, man, they messed up the paint. That could affect how much you sell it for. So it’s a really big deal.

The Handyman Doctor (26:04)
One.

Cody Crabb (26:05)
Yeah, and so I think this is all really, really helpful. Thank you so much, Galen, Richard, for being here. This was really practical and helpful. I love episodes like this. And to you, the listeners, if you got something out of this, which I know you did, go ahead and hit like, subscribe, comment, all the things, and then we will see you on the next episode. Galen, Richard, thank you so much for joining us one more time, and have a good one.

The Handyman Doctor (26:27)
Thank you.

You too. Thanks, Cody.