The High Cost of Deferred Maintenance
Wikipedia defines deferred maintenance as “the practice of postponing maintenance activities such as repairs on…property in order to save costs, meet budget funding levels, or realign available budget monies.”
To put it in simpler terms, any time that you delay repairs, replacements, or other types of maintenance on your home, car, or other properties for financial reasons, you are participating in the practice of deferred maintenance. In some cases, deferred maintenance is justified, and really constitutes the smartest economic decision. In most cases, however, the cost of deferred maintenance ends up being much higher, as it necessitates more-expensive repairs down the road that dwarf the cost of dealing with a problem immediately.
As a general rule, problems breed problems — and the longer you allow property damage to remain untreated, the more expensive those problems will become.
Here are a few of the most important costs associated with deferred maintenance.
- Higher maintenance expenses. To explain how deferred maintenance leads to higher expenses, we will use a really simple example: a cracked window frame. At first, the window frame might cost, say, $200 to repair, in a procedure that could be completed in three hours of work. If ignored, however, the broken window frame could eventually cause the glass itself to break — thus leading to a $400 repair and five hours of work. If this problem were ignored further, rain water would eventually enter the house through the window, damaging the carpet and floor, thus requiring $2000 and 12 hours of work to repair.
- Higher utility costs. Deferred maintenance also tends to create higher utility costs. Returning to the example of the broken window frame, for instance, it isn’t difficult to realize that your air conditioning bill would be higher unless the frame was repaired.
- Quality of Living/Home Experience. In addition to the hefty financial costs that deferred maintenance entails, it is also worth considering the fact that deferred maintenance oftentimes detracts from your own quality of living, degrading the home experience that you are paying for through your mortgage. That broken window frame could cause your bedroom to become drafty and uncomfortably humid, for example — or it could even lead to a potentially unhealthy mold infestation.
- Inability to Sell Property. Last but not least, deferred maintenance can make it all but impossible to sell your home — at least not without making some serious last-minute investments in renovations. Putting of important home repairs can even cause your house to lose value, which will be difficult and costly to reclaim as time passes
Problems with deferred maintenance? If you are unable to perform needed maintenance and repairs on your home due to financial constraints, you may feel trapped in a Catch 22. Selling your home may appear to be the best solution to the financial trouble — but, without the finances to perform repairs, selling your home is difficult.
In these kinds of situations, a cash-only buyer may be able to save the day. To learn more about selling your home to a cash buyer, visit Blue Marble Properties online today!