Make-ready and turnover: getting a unit rent-ready between tenants

A make-ready is every job between one tenant’s keys coming back and the next tenant’s move-in: the walk, the repairs, the paint, the cleaning and the checks. Each day it takes is a day the unit earns nothing, and most of those days are lost waiting: for a vendor to confirm, for the painter to finish so the flooring can start, for someone to notice the cleaner never came.

This guide runs a turnover in six steps. It pairs with the make-ready checklist, which lists the room-by-room items to tick.

1. Plan before the keys come back

Most of a turnover can be booked before move-out day. When the notice to vacate arrives, pull the move-in photos and the unit’s maintenance history, note anything that was deferred during the tenancy, and pencil in your usual trades for the days after move-out. Ask the outgoing tenant for a time to hand back keys, and remind them in writing what “clean” means in their lease.

2. Walk the unit on move-out day

• Take dated photos of every room, wall to wall, before any work starts
• Compare them with the move-in photos, and note damage beyond normal wear for the deposit
• Collect every key, fob, remote and mailbox key, and read the meters
• Test each appliance, faucet, toilet, light and outlet as you go

Your state sets how long you have to return the deposit and what you must itemize, and each state’s rules differ. Keep the photos and the vendor invoices together, because a deduction is only as good as its evidence. A charge to the outgoing tenant is a chargeback.

3. Write the scope

Turn the walk into one list of jobs, each with a trade, a rough cost and the property owner’s approval where it is above their limit. Split it in two: what must be done before the next tenant (safety, function, cleanliness) and what can wait for a planned project. The owner approval limits template helps set where approvals start.

4. Book the trades in order

The order matters more than the speed of any one trade. Each step should only start once the one before it is done, or the painter undoes the cleaner’s work.

Give every trade a date and a backup, and confirm each booking the day before. A vendor who goes quiet on a turnover costs a vacant day for every day nobody follows up. Our post on following up with a quiet vendor has a cadence you can reuse, and your own technicians often take the repairs and the punch list.

5. Do the safety checks

• Test every smoke alarm and CO alarm, check each manufacture date and replace alarms at the end of their life
• Rekey or change the locks
• Check the water heater for leaks and its temperature setting
• Check the range’s anti-tip bracket and the dryer vent, as the appliance repairs post describes
• Built before 1978? Sanding, scraping and window work go to a lead-safe certified firm

The EPA’s Renovation, Repair and Painting rule covers paint work in pre-1978 homes above small thresholds, and window replacement at any size. The lead paint post explains which turnover jobs it covers.

6. Walk it again, then list it

Walk the finished unit with the checklist in hand, and write every small item left on a punch list with the room. Close each item with a photo. Take the listing photos only once the punch list is closed, so they show the unit the next tenant will get.

Measure the turn

Track two numbers for every turnover: days from move-out to rent-ready, and how many of those days the unit waited on someone. The second one shows where to fix the process. The maintenance KPIs guide has more on counting them.

Where Now Ours fits

Ours offers each job to your technicians first and then your vendors, texts a quiet vendor up to 4 times before the case comes to you with the next step first, and books the visits. On Cautious, the default, it asks before it picks a vendor or spends money. Every message and booking is recorded on the case, so the turnover’s history is in one place.