Cut maintenance spend by 38% across a three-property portfolio.
3
Properties transferred
$1,850
Year-one saving
38%
Maintenance spend reduction
Case proof.
- Suburb
- Kelvin Grove
- Landlord type
- Three-property portfolio owner
- Problem
- Maintenance was being handled without preferred rates or approval controls, creating above-market invoices.
- Action
- Toohey PM onboarded the portfolio to preferred trades, set approval thresholds and standardised maintenance requests.
- Result
- Year-one maintenance spend fell by $1,850, a 38% reduction across the portfolio.
- Primary metric
- 38% reduction in maintenance spend
The situation
A new owner client transferred three properties from a larger agency. The previous management approach had no preferred trades panel, so whichever tradesperson the tenant contacted first often completed the work at full retail.
Annual maintenance spend across the portfolio was $4,800, with several invoices clearly above market, including $380 to replace a single power point.
What we did
We onboarded all three properties to our preferred trades panel with pre-negotiated rates.
We also implemented written maintenance approval thresholds: $300 for minor works and $500 for like-for-like replacements. Anything above $1,000 required two quotes, and all tenant maintenance requests were standardised through our portal so no work could be scheduled without a written job number.
The outcome
Annual maintenance spend dropped from $4,800 to $2,950 in the first year, with no reduction in tenant response time and no additional unbudgeted callouts.
Result: a $1,850 year-one saving and a 38% reduction in maintenance spend across the portfolio.
“I never realised how much I was bleeding on small invoices until someone actually looked at them. The savings in year one alone are paying for the management fees on one of the properties.”
Robert Castellanos
