I started buying homes in our area of the Northwest about 20 years ago. The housing market was very depressed so it was a good time to buy property. I would check the paper or even the city auctions for abandoned or foreclosed homes and slowly amassed a good number of properties to rent out. Many needed work and I started to build a nice group of contractors who could do specific repairs on my rental units. I had especially good luck with the HVAC contractor who often gave me a discount because I kept calling him to service my many furnaces or air conditioning units. It seemed like everyday that one tenant or another had some sort of emergency. If it was for a HVAC issue I would call the company and they would send a service technician out quickly to repair the units. The worst one I remember was a day in the Fall when it was just between needing air conditioning and the furnace. A long time tenant called me and reported her AC was not working. I had my HVAC company on speed dial and they came quickly to check on the air conditioning unit. After a few hours, I received a call from the service man saying that the unit was most likely shot and would need to be replaced. This is never good news from a landlord viewpoint but what can you do. I said go ahead. He called me back in a few minutes and let me know that they were having a special deal of heating and AC units if installed at the same time. The furnace in that unit was very old so I decided to spend even more money but figured it would offset another emergency down the road. The new HVAC was installed the next day. When I received the bill I was happy to see an additional discount for being a good customer. Later that day my tenant stopped by my house with a big plate of homemade cookies to show her appreciation for her new AC and heating.