The owner pays for repairs. The property manager coordinates them. The manager schedules the technician, sources the part and verifies the work - but the repair is your expense, and in a well-written agreement it is billed to you at cost with no markup.
That is the standard structure across western Michigan, and it is our own policy at Simple Lyfe Stays: every maintenance line item passes through to the owner statement at cost. There is no threshold below which the manager absorbs a repair - one who does has priced that risk into the fee somewhere you cannot see.
What does the management fee cover, if not repairs?
The fee covers coordination, not parts. You own the asset, so you own its physical condition: the water heater, the roof, the septic tank, the furnace. What the fee buys is the 9pm phone call, a technician who already works your county, and the call on whether this is an emergency or a Tuesday job.
Across the 44 doors Simple Lyfe Stays manages in Newaygo, Lake, Mason, Oceana, Mecosta, Muskegon and Ottawa counties, that dispatch runs through a two-person field team split geographically - one technician north and west of M-20, one south and east. A failure in Baldwin and one in Big Rapids get two different people, each already working that territory.
What does routine maintenance actually cost per year?
Budget roughly $1,200 to $1,900 per property per year for recurring maintenance alone, before anything breaks. That range comes from our own recurring-task library: about $400 to $650 in materials, 18 to 28 hours of field-staff time, and four to eight vendor visits at $120 to $180 each.
Amenities add to it predictably:
| Feature | Added annual cost |
|---|---|
| Hot tub | ~$300 in chemicals, plus ~14 field hours (monthly, year-round - not a summer item) |
| Septic | ~$100/yr in additive, plus a $300-$500 pump-out every two to three years |
| Well water | ~$80/yr lab test, ~$80/yr softener salt |
A typical hot-tub property in our portfolio runs $2,400 to $3,200 a year in recurring maintenance. That is the number to put in a pro forma - not zero, and not a vague "maintenance reserve."
Reactive repairs sit on top of that, and they are the ones a real calendar shrinks. Most of the refrigerator service calls we see trace back to dust-clogged condenser coils: a ten-minute wipe-down that prevents a compressor replacement. Compressor seizures, septic backups, sump failures during snowmelt and grout cracks that let water under tile get caught at a quarterly inspection, or not at all.
What should you get in writing before you sign?
Four things:
- The spending threshold. What can the manager approve without calling you? Get the figure in the agreement.
- Markup. Is a repair billed at cost, or at cost plus a coordination percentage?
- Who does the work. In-house field staff or a subcontracted vendor, and who insures them.
- Maintenance versus capital. A furnace repair and a furnace replacement are different conversations. Know where that line sits.
Simple Lyfe Stays manages 44 doors across western Michigan, from Hart Lake House with Hot Tub in Oceana County to cabins in the Manistee National Forest corridor. For a straight answer on how repairs would be handled at your property, see our property management page.
Cost ranges are portfolio-level averages as of 2026 and vary by property age, systems and county. Management agreements differ - read yours. Not tax or legal advice.