Landlord DIY vs Hire Out: What to Handle Yourself

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The landlord DIY vs hire out decision is one you make constantly, usually in the worst possible moment. Something breaks. You are standing there with your phone in one hand and a YouTube tutorial in the other, running the math on whether you can handle this yourself. I have run that math wrong more than once. Sometimes it cost me a Saturday. Once it cost a whole lot more than a Saturday.

The idea for this episode came straight from one of you. A listener wrote in and asked, basically, what should I be doing myself and what should I be paying somebody else to do? I will be honest; it was a vague question. Kevin said so out loud. But that vagueness is exactly what makes it worth an episode, because it is not one question at all. It is a maintenance question, a legal question, a bookkeeping question, and underneath all of it, a question about whether you want to be a property manager in the first place.

Kevin starts with the filter we actually use, four questions that take about ten seconds to run. The first one is a hard stop that ends the debate before it starts. The fourth one is the interesting one, because it pushes back against the first three, and it is the reason we still do plenty of things ourselves that we could easily pay someone else to handle.

Then I go through the five things we keep under our own umbrella no matter how buried we get. One of them is not really a task at all, and it is the one I would fight hardest to protect. Kevin follows with his list, and his is simpler: spend the money. Licensed work, life-safety work, and anything where doing it wrong shows up months later instead of the same week. He also gets into evictions, a 2025 change to California’s process that caught a lot of landlords off guard, and something about holding property in an LLC that removes an option you might assume you have.

Finally, the piece our listener did not quite ask about. Whether you should be self-managing at all. There is a middle lane between doing everything and handing over the keys, and most landlords have no idea it exists. I walk through how to buy management in pieces, why a lot of companies will push back when you ask, and what our own team actually looks like, including the hourly rate that keeps us honest about how much we DIY.

By the end you will have a filter you can run on the very next thing that breaks, instead of a rule you have to keep second-guessing.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

• The four-question filter we run before every DIY vs hire out decision
• Why “can I figure this out on YouTube” was never the right question to ask
• The permit rule that ends the debate instantly, and the one exception to it
• How to weigh downside risk instead of comparing price tags
• The five jobs we keep in-house no matter how busy life gets
• Why the approve-or-decline decision on a tenant should never leave your hands
• How not knowing your numbers makes the hire-out question impossible to answer
• What we always pay for, and the insurance exposure when you DIY it instead
• The 2025 California change that doubled a tenant’s response window
• Why an LLC removes your option to represent yourself in court
• How to hire property management à la carte, and why managers resist it
• What our team costs us, and why that makes us better DIYers

Key Takeaways

1. Landlord DIY vs Hire Out Starts with One Hard Stop

Does the job need a permit or a licensed trade? If yes to either, you are done deciding. Permitted work gets inspected, and it follows the property. It surfaces in an insurance claim, in an appraisal, and eventually at the closing table when you sell. Do not create a paper problem to save a few hundred dollars. If you are not sure whether something needs a permit, one call to your local building department settles it before you start rather than after. Naturally, if you are a licensed contractor who owns rentals, this is a different conversation entirely.

2. Ask What It Costs to Get It Wrong, Not What It Costs to Hire

Most of us compare the invoice to our Saturday. That is the wrong comparison. Look at the downside instead. A switch plate you install crooked costs you nothing but your pride. A water heater you strap wrong costs you a flooded downstairs unit and an insurance claim. Same afternoon, wildly different risk.

3. Some Jobs Are Cheap to Hand Off and You Still Should Not

Kevin’s fourth question pushes back against the first three: would hiring this out put a stranger between you and your tenant, or between you and your money? Who gets approved to live in your property. Who your tenant calls when the sink backs up. Whose account the rent lands in first. In Idaho we are lucky to see our rent by the tenth, and often it is closer to the fifteenth. That is the cost nobody quotes you up front.

4. Your LLC Changes What You Can Do in Court

This one catches people who did the smart thing and put their property into an entity. In California, an LLC or corporation cannot represent itself in a court of record. It has to appear through a licensed attorney, and that has been settled law since 1978. Our Sacramento six-plex is held in an LLC, so if we ever have to file, our first call is our lawyer whether we feel like it or not. Add to that Assembly Bill 2347, effective January 1, 2025, which extended a tenant’s response window from five days to ten court days. Weekends and court holidays do not count toward that. One defective notice and you start over, having already lost weeks of rent.

5. Self-Managing Is Not All or Nothing

There is a middle lane. Some companies will do tenant placement only, marketing and showing and screening, then hand you a signed lease while you take over day to day. Or flip it: place your own tenant because nobody is pickier than you are and pay someone to handle rent collection and the after-hours line. That version works beautifully for out-of-state owners. Expect pushback though, and expect to pay a premium, because a manager who did not screen your tenant cannot really stand behind them.

Links & References Mentioned in This Episode

Episode 3: Spring Maintenance Checklist

Episode 109: Fall Maintenance Recap

Episode 14: Building Your Maintenance Team, Pt 1

Episode 15: Your Office Operations & Business Team, Pt 2

Episode 16: Is Holding Your Rental Property in an LLC Right for You?

Episodes 39–40: 50+ Must Ask Questions When Hiring a Property Manager

Episode 88: Should Landlords Get Their Real Estate License?

Episode 96: Tips from Our Contractor

Episode 137: Emergency Maintenance vs Routine Repairs

DoorLoop: Landlord software for larger portfolios

TurboTenant: Landlord software for newer landlords

EZ Landlord Forms: State-specific lease and notice forms

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Legal Disclaimer: Nothing in this episode constitutes personalized legal or financial advice. Always consult a licensed real estate attorney or CPA for guidance specific to your state, city, and situation.