When it’s time to bid a job, many property management companies simply open the door to bids and wait to see what happens.

Castle doesn’t think that’s very smart. First of all, it’s time consuming; every contractor will have a different perspective on the work. And that low bid may be from someone who doesn’t understand the project—or worse, misrepresents the work in order to get ahead.

After decades in the business, Castle knows who to trust. So we walk the job with a reliable contractor before accepting bids. This helps us determine the exact scope of work, pricing, and how to prevent costly maintenance in the future. Then it’s easy for us to identify honest bids from contractors who will get the job done.

Over the next few weeks, we’ll discuss how Castle deals with specific maintenance situations. You’ll see that we ask the right questions of contractors, and we know when to demand more. 

Most residents prefer the security of term leases. However, your attorney may recommend month-to-month or six-month leases, since they give you more flexibility in case of problem tenants. Through our rigorous screening process, Castle builds stable and responsible communities around year-long leases. But we stagger the terms, keeping your vacancy rate as low as possible.

For example, we know that Napa’s vacancy rate spikes after the autumn grape harvest. Through careful planning, we can guarantee that our Napa properties will keep a normal and steady vacancy rate through the slow season.

Castle balances the marketing advantage of term leases with a healthy business flow throughout the year. Additionally, term leases allow us to deepen relationships, turning new tenants into long-term residents.

Earthquakes are a fact of life in California. In recent years we’ve been lucky to escape lightly, but after the recent quakes in New Zealand and Japan homeowners are once again rushing to shore up foundations and stockpile emergency supplies. This makes sense, but most of us lack the ultimate protection: earthquake insurance.

State officials say that only 12% of California homeowners carry earthquake coverage. Policies are expensive—over $1,000 annually—and impose huge deductibles, meaning that owners aren’t reimbursed unless 10-15% of a building’s value is destroyed. An average insured homeowner would be still liable for the first $30,000 in losses.

Premiums are high because the California Earthquake Authority (CEA), the state insurance agency, is required to hold a reserve fund large enough to pay claims on a disaster bigger than California has ever seen. It will come one day, though, so the authority has nearly $4 billion in assets—but even that’s not enough. So it spends more than $220 million per year buying extra insurance elsewhere.

Of course, what’s prohibitive for single-family owners may be more so for landlords of larger, multi-family properties, but lack of coverage is a significant risk; with loss of income and tenant liability issues, could your business survive even a partial loss?

A bill introduced by US Senators Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer would lower premiums if it becomes law. If a severe earthquake exhausted the CEA’s reserves, the bill authorizes the state to issue low-interest, federally-backed recovery bonds to help the uninsured. The bill's fate, however, is currently unclear.

At Castle, we leave the decision to purchase earthquake insurance up to our clients. The cost is usually prohibitive, and most of our clients only get insured if their lender requires it.