Building a Maintenance Vendor Network in San Antonio: A Landlord's Playbook

A vendor network is the single biggest operational lever a self-managing San Antonio landlord has. It decides whether a burst supply line on a 104-degree July evening costs you $180 and a happy tenant or $900, a two-star review, and a rent concession. Most first-time landlords don't build a network — they build a list of Google search results, call them once in a crisis, pay retail, and start over next time.

Here is how the landlords who own 5, 15, 50 doors in Bexar County actually do it. None of this requires a property manager. It does require treating vendors like a supply chain, not a rolodex.

What a real vendor bench looks like

You do not need one handyman. You need a tiered bench. At minimum:

• One licensed plumber (TSBPE Responsible Master Plumber on staff) for water heaters, sewer line camera work, and anything involving a permit.
• One licensed HVAC company (TDLR-licensed). San Antonio runs AC 8–9 months a year; this is your most-used trade.
• One licensed electrician (TDLR) for panel work, outlet replacements in kitchens/baths, and anything you'd rather not sign your name on.
• A roofer you trust — not the door-knocker who showed up after the last hail event.
• An appliance repair tech who will actually come out for a $110 diagnostic instead of pushing replacement.
• Two or three general handymen at different price points and skill levels. One of them should do drywall and paint well. The other should be fast and cheap for turn work.
• A pest control operator with a TDA license. German roaches and subterranean termites are both real problems here, and they are different calls.
• A lawn/landscape crew if your lease makes it the landlord's responsibility, which it shouldn't for single-family unless you're in an HOA that fines.
• A locksmith who can rekey a Kwikset SmartKey in 20 minutes for under $75.

That's 8–10 vendors. You will not find them all at once. You build the bench over 12–18 months.

Where to actually find them

Skip the top three Google results — those are ad spend, not quality. The landlords with the best networks source from four places:

• Real Estate Investor Associations. The Alamo Real Estate Investors Association (Alamo REIA) and the local chapter meetups are where the same 40 plumbers and roofers show up because investors are repeat buyers. Ask the room, not the speaker.
• Private landlord groups. Bexar County landlord Facebook groups and the SABOR property management subgroup. Ask for referrals by trade and ZIP, not by name.
• Supply house parking lots. Ferguson on I-10, Morrison Supply, Lowe's pro desk at 6 a.m. The tradespeople buying parts before the first job are the ones running their own trucks. Tape your card to the pro counter corkboard and you will get calls.
• Your current tenants' referrals. A tenant who tells you "the AC guy my last landlord used was great" just handed you a pre-vetted vendor who already knows rentals are not custom remodels.

Avoid the national lead-gen apps (HomeAdvisor, Thumbtack, Angi). The vendors on them are paying per lead and have to price that in. You will pay the markup.

How to vet before the first job

Before you hand anyone a key or a work order, confirm three things:

1. License status. Plumbers at tsbpe.texas.gov, HVAC and electricians at tdlr.texas.gov. Type the license number in. Thirty seconds.
2. General liability insurance. Ask for a COI (certificate of insurance) naming you or your LLC as certificate holder. A real vendor can email this in an hour. A fake one will go silent.
3. A W-9. If you're going to pay them more than $600 in a year, you need one anyway for the 1099-NEC. Asking up front weeds out the ones who operate entirely in cash and won't be around next February.

Then give them a small test job — a water heater flush, a disposal swap, a single outlet — before you trust them with a $4,000 condenser coil replacement.

The pricing conversation most landlords never have

Seasoned landlords negotiate three things on the front end, before the first invoice:

• A flat trip/diagnostic fee for your properties. $75–$95 is market in San Antonio as of recent cycles. Get it in writing.
• A discount off retail hourly in exchange for volume and prompt payment. 10–15% is reasonable if you actually have volume. Don't ask for it if you own one duplex.
• Net-7 or net-14 payment terms with direct ACH. You pay fast; they prioritize your calls. This is the single most underused lever. Vendors chase money from homeowners for 45 days. If you Zelle them the day the invoice hits, you go to the top of tomorrow's route.

Put it in a one-page vendor agreement. Nothing fancy — scope, rates, response time expectation (same-day for no-AC, no-water, no-working-toilet; next business day for everything else), insurance requirement, and payment terms.

Response-time tiers and after-hours

Texas Property Code § 92.052 requires a landlord to make a diligent effort to repair conditions that materially affect health or safety after proper written notice. "Diligent" is not defined in hours, but in Bexar County JP courts, a week without AC in August is not diligent. Build your vendor expectations around that reality.

Tier your work orders and tell your vendors which tier triggers which response:

Tier	Examples	Target response
Emergency	Active leak, no AC over 85°F indoor, no heat under 50°F, gas smell, sewage backup, lockout	Same day, including weekends
Urgent	Partial AC failure, single non-working toilet when there's another, refrigerator out	24–48 hours
Routine	Cosmetic, slow drain, squeaky door, screen repair	Within 7 days

Have a second-string vendor in every trade for when your primary is booked. San Antonio summer HVAC queues run 3–5 days deep in July. Your tenant does not care that your guy is backed up.

What most people get wrong

• Using one handyman for everything. He'll do a passable job on drywall, a mediocre job on plumbing, and a dangerous job on electrical. When the buyer's inspector flags his work at resale, you pay twice. Correct move: specialize by trade, even if it means more phone numbers.
• Not separating turn work from occupied-unit work. The vendor who is great at a fast vacant turn — paint, clean, re-key, minor repairs in 5 days — is usually not the same vendor you want interacting with a tenant at 7 p.m. Keep them on separate tracks.
• Paying slow. Landlords who pay in 30–45 days get deprioritized, then dropped. Pay in 3 days and you become the favorite customer.
• Hiring the roofer who knocked on the door after a storm. Out-of-state storm chasers are a known pattern in Bexar County after every hail event. Use a roofer with a permanent San Antonio address, a TDI-registered adjuster relationship if you want one, and a workmanship warranty longer than the truck's lease.
• Skipping permits to save $200. Water heater replacements and panel work require City of San Antonio Development Services permits. Unpermitted work shows up on the seller's disclosure (TREC OP-H) at resale and kills deals. It also voids your insurance carrier's willingness to pay on a resulting loss.
• Never visiting the property with the vendor the first time. Meet your key vendors at the house once. They remember the layout, the shutoff location, the panel, the attic access. That five minutes saves an hour on every future call.

Tools that keep the network working

You do not need enterprise PM software to run 1–10 doors. You need:

• A shared Google Sheet or Airtable with vendor name, trade, license #, COI expiration, rate, W-9 on file (Y/N), and notes.
• A single tenant maintenance request channel — a Google Form, a dedicated email, or a lightweight tool like Turbo Tenant or Innago. Do not take requests by text across three phone numbers. You will miss one, and "I told you about the leak" becomes a § 92.0563 repair-and-deduct problem.
• A photo requirement on every tenant request. "Send a photo and a short video" cuts unnecessary trips by roughly a third in practice.
• Written work orders to vendors, even if it's a one-line email. Scope in writing prevents the "while I was there I also replaced…" surprise invoice.

Keep them, don't re-hire them

Vendors leave landlords for two reasons: slow pay and scope creep. If you pay within a week, communicate clearly, don't haggle after the work is done, and send them a $50 H-E-B gift card at Christmas, you will keep a bench for a decade. That bench is worth more than any single property in your portfolio, because it is what lets you buy the next one without fear.

If you'd rather hand the whole operation off, browse vetted managers on /agents or read the rest of the landlord playbook at /resources. If you're building toward more doors, you can list a vacant unit free at /list-your-home and start filling the pipeline your vendor bench is ready for.