A resident hands in the keys on a Friday. The unit sits until Tuesday because nobody ordered paint. The painter shows up Wednesday and finds the carpet cleaner is still booked. Everyone's busy, nobody's slacking, and the apartment is empty for three weeks.
This is how most vacancies get longer than they need to be. Not one big failure, but a string of small gaps: waiting on a person, a part, an inspection or a decision. A solid make ready process closes those gaps. It won't make a bad unit good, but it will make a good unit available sooner, and that's money in your pocket.
Here's how to build one.
Why vacant days are the real cost
Turn costs fall into two buckets: the money you spend on the unit and the money you don't collect while it's empty. Most owners watch the first and ignore the second. They shouldn't.
The National Apartment Association's look at turnover costs lists lost rent right alongside marketing, screening, cleaning and repairs. Of those, lost rent is the one a better process can shrink the fastest.
The math is simple. Say your unit rents for $1,500. That's about $50 a day. A 20-day turn costs you $1,000 in lost rent. A 10-day turn costs $500. Over a 60-unit building where 25 units turn a year, saving a week per turn is 175 vacant days, or roughly $8,750 a year in this example, without changing the rent or the quality of the work. (Those are illustrative numbers. Plug in your own.)
Every day a unit is empty, you're paying for it twice: once in rent you didn't collect and again in the work you didn't schedule.
So the goal of a make ready process isn't to cut corners. It's to remove waiting.
Start before the resident leaves
The best turns begin during the notice period, not on move-out day.
When a resident gives notice, your team already has valuable information: the date they're leaving and the time you have to prepare. Use it.
- Start marketing the unit right away when your lease allows it, so your leasing team can pre-lease it and you can aim for a move-in the day after the turn finishes.
- Do a pre-move-out walk if the resident is willing. You'll spot damage, estimate the scope and see whether the unit needs standard work or something bigger.
- Order materials and book vendors based on that scope. Paint, flooring, appliances and cleaners should be lined up before the keys come back.
- Sort the turn into a type. Light turn (clean, touch-up paint, small repairs), standard turn (full paint, carpet clean or replace, repairs) or heavy turn (flooring, cabinets, larger fixes). Each type gets its own target days and budget.
This one step, deciding the scope early, prevents most of the delays we see.
A day-by-day turn schedule
The sequence matters as much as the speed. Work done in the wrong order gets undone: you don't want to clean the carpet and then repaint the walls. Here's an example schedule for a standard turn, which you can adapt. The day numbers are working days after move-out.
| Day | Task | Who |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | Move-out inspection, photos, key and lock check, trash-out | Maintenance lead |
| 1 | Repairs: drywall, doors, plumbing, electrical, appliances | Maintenance team |
| 2 | Paint (walls, ceilings, trim as needed) | Painter |
| 3 | Flooring repair or replacement, hard-surface and carpet work | Flooring vendor |
| 4 | Deep clean, windows, blinds, appliances, fixtures | Cleaner |
| 4 | Final touches: lights, filters, smoke detector batteries, locks | Maintenance |
| 5 | Final inspection with checklist, photos, leasing walk-through | Manager |
A light turn might compress days 1 through 3 into a single day. A heavy turn stretches the middle. What stays constant is the order: repairs first, then paint, then floors, then clean, then inspect.
Two details save more time than you'd expect. First, give every vendor the next vendor's start time, so they know someone else is waiting. Second, build in the "last 10 percent." Most of the delay in a turn comes from the small stuff at the end: a missing blind, a light that doesn't work, a stain that shows up when the room is empty. A final-touch slot on day 4 prevents those from pushing the unit to the next week.
Coordinate vendors like a conductor
Vendors make or break your turn times. A painter who shows up two days late can push every other trade back with him. So treat vendor coordination as part of the process, not an afterthought.
A few habits help:
- Use a short list of reliable vendors. The cheapest bid isn't the cheapest if the job takes twice as long. Local relationships matter, especially in a market like Reno where good trades are often booked.
- Agree on pricing before the work. A price list per unit type, set once, saves back-and-forth on every turn.
- Give a clear scope and a due date for every job. A work order that says "paint unit 12 by Wednesday at 5" works better than one that says "paint when possible."
- Have a backup. For paint, flooring and cleaning, have a second vendor you can call when the first one's slammed.
- Pay on time. Vendors prioritize the customers who pay promptly. It's one of the cheapest ways to move up the list.
Use a shared schedule or a task board that everyone can see. A technician should know what's next without a phone call. When a task finishes, the next person gets a message. This is the kind of everyday technology that pays off: it doesn't do the work, but it removes the dead time between jobs.
Reuse your in-house team where it makes sense. Quick repairs, lock changes, filters and touch-ups are often faster when your own maintenance staff does them, without waiting on a vendor's calendar.
Inspect twice, so residents only see it once
Two inspections catch most problems: one at move-out and one at the end.
The move-out inspection documents the condition of the unit. It sets the scope for the turn and supports any deposit decisions. Take dated photos of every room, and note damage beyond normal wear. Your lease and Nevada law govern what you can deduct, so have your attorney confirm your process, and keep the paperwork consistent.
The final inspection is your quality gate. Use the same written checklist every time, with the same person or role doing the check. Walk the unit as a resident would, starting at the front door. Turn on every light and faucet. Open every window and drawer. Run the dishwasher, the disposal, the heat and the air conditioning. Flush the toilets. Check the smoke and carbon monoxide detectors. Test the locks and the keys.
Add a spot check for the things people notice first: a clean entry, no odors, bright lights, no scuffs on fresh paint. A single clear photo of a clean, working unit also helps your marketing and shows the resident what they should expect on move-in day.
If something fails, the vendor who did the work fixes it, and the unit isn't marked ready until it passes. That one rule keeps standards high without a lot of arguing.
Set standards and track the numbers
Standards keep turns consistent across buildings and teams. Write them down. What paint color and finish do you use? What counts as clean? Which fixtures get replaced instead of repaired? What level of damage becomes a charge to the departing resident? When the answers are written, no one has to guess, and your costs become predictable.
Then track the numbers. For each turn, record the days vacant, the days from move-out to ready, the cost, the vendor and whether the unit passed the first inspection. Review them monthly. You'll quickly see which vendor is slow, which unit type runs over budget and which step causes the most delay.
Look for patterns rather than blame. If every turn waits on flooring, you may need a second vendor or a stocked supply of common materials. If the cleaning always has to be redone, the scope may be unclear. The data points to the fix.
If you're renovating units over time, a construction management partner can fold the larger scopes into your turn plan so the work doesn't stall your leasing. And if your turn times are tied to how long residents stay in the first place, our guide to resident retention strategies covers the other half of the equation.
Fix the make ready process one gap at a time
You don't need a new system to start. Pick your last five turns and write down the date for each step: notice, move-out, first repair, paint, floors, clean, inspection, rent-ready. Look at where the days went. In most buildings, a few of those gaps are surprisingly big.
Fix the biggest one first. Book the vendor earlier, change the order, add the final-touch slot or put the checklist in writing. Then do it again next month. Small, steady fixes to your make ready process add up, and each one hands you back days of rent you used to lose.
