Managing two-, three- and four-family properties

One boiler serving three units is one failure that vacates a building rather than a unit. One roof and one water service mean a deferred capital item is a building-wide risk, not a single tenancy’s inconvenience. The maintenance plan for a triple-decker has to be built around that, which mostly means servicing the shared systems on a schedule instead of waiting for the call.

Where heat is shared and not separately metered, how it is allocated has to be settled and documented at the lease, not argued about in February.

A three-family whose leases all end on August 31 is a building that can go entirely vacant in one month, in the same week every competing unit in the city is on the market, with three simultaneous turnovers to pay for. It is the most common self-inflicted problem in small multifamily ownership around here, and the September 1 calendar makes it worse.

Staggering takes a cycle or two to arrange — usually a short lease or an off-cycle renewal — and it permanently reduces both the vacancy risk and the peak cost of turnover.

Owner-occupied two- and three-families are extremely common here, and having a manager in between changes the dynamic for the better. The tenant raises maintenance with us rather than knocking on your door at nine on a Sunday, rent conversations stop being a conversation between neighbours, and the awkward part of the relationship is handled by somebody whose job it is.

Note that some rules differ for owner-occupied buildings of certain sizes, so it is worth establishing at the outset which apply to yours.