Make your make ready process less complicated with our tips and bonus turnover checklist!
As a property manager, rental turnover is inevitable. There will always be reasons why your residents decide to move out of your property and not renew their lease. While the turnover process is time-consuming, creating a rental turnover checklist can help make the process smoother for you and your residents.
What is Rental Turnover?
Rental turnover occurs when a resident decides they do not wish to renew their lease and plans to move out. Since a new renter will be moving into the property, you must schedule maintenance tasks to take care of any wear and tear that occurred during the lease period. A turn aims to get the property in great shape quickly so the unit doesn’t stay vacant for too long.
What is Included in a Rental Turnover Checklist
A rental turnover checklist outlines all the components of a successful turn. With this checklist, you can ensure everything gets noticed, and turns are completed efficiently. If you want a better way to manage turnover, consider investing in maintenance software. With dedicated property maintenance software, you can track all your turnovers and schedule tasks with vendors and maintenance technicians as soon as you know a unit will become vacant. This way, nothing falls through the cracks, and turns can go faster.
1: Resident gives move-out notice
The turnover process begins as soon as a resident gives notice to move out.
2: Schedule an inspection
Inspect the property with the current resident to identify any damages.
3. Begin advertising the property
List the property to start generating interest with new renters. Make sure to use high-quality images and descriptions of the property.
4. Schedule any maintenance
Schedule any necessary maintenance with vendors. This may include replacing flooring, repainting, fixing appliances, and any other damage that occurred during the lease term.
5. Collect keys and last rent payment
Once you have set a specific move-out day with your resident, set up a time to meet with them to collect their keys. If rent is due, collect at this time.
6. Move-out inspection
Conduct a move-out inspection to make sure the resident didn’t leave any personal belongings, and they completed their move-out checklist (if applicable).
7. Change the locks
For security reasons, many property managers will change the locks between residents to ensure the previous resident doesn’t have a key.
8. Begin showing the property
Schedule showings with potential residents once the property looks new again.
9. Screen and choose resident
Screen potential candidates with a background and credit check. Look into their job and rental history to ensure they fit your community well.
10. Collect the security deposit and first month’s rent
Once you have reviewed and signed the lease with your new resident, you should collect the first month’s rent. (This may vary depending on what is outlined in the lease agreement.)
11. Conduct Move-In Inspection
Once your new resident has moved in, you should conduct a move-in inspection. This is a walkthrough with you and your resident to identify any issues with the property. By outlining this at the beginning of the lease, a resident can’t be charged for these issues.
Common Rental Turnover Services
Many rental turnover services are part of the normal wear-and-tear that occurs in a property. Some, however, are more significant damage. Below is a list of tasks commonly associated with the turnover process.
- Patch any holes in the wall and repaint
- Look for any leaks or cracks
- Repair or replace any broken appliances
- Replace or deep clean the carpet
- Replace batteries in smoke detectors and carbon monoxide detectors
- Deep-clean the entire property
- Complete any necessary landscaping
1. Extensive Printable Turnover Checklist
Your free, printable, make-ready turnover checklist helps you manually keep track of the maintenance tasks to complete before your next resident moves in. Get to printing!
2. Digital Unit Turnover Spreadsheet
Are you more comfortable with spreadsheets? Stocking up on printer paper is so 1990 and digital files are your thing anyway. This make-ready checklist Excel spreadsheet will give you a simple starting point for collecting project information.
3. Web-based Turnover Software Solution
Are you ready for something better than a checklist or spreadsheet? It’s time to finally ditch the make-ready boards, save paper, and dump the spreadsheets.
An efficient turnover time for each unit while minimizing costs may seem unrealistic when you’re managing an extensive portfolio of units. In addition to intelligent maintenance coordination, you can shift your turnover process into a web-based solution and place your company ahead of the market.
But what if you are already using property management software? Project transparency can be difficult without highly specialized features within these platforms. At Property Meld, our dedicated Projects feature will help you save time and optimize your make-readies:
1. Improve Efficiency
Easily coordinate maintenance responsibilities among your internal staff and assign vendors to work orders that need attention. You get a work order, and you get a work order!
2. Improve Oversight
Get insights into top-of-the-line reporting and gain transparency into your maintenance process. You can easily track each maintenance task from work order submission to completion.
3. Real-Time Communication
Review real-time communication between your internal staff and vendors to ensure repairs and turnover requests are completed promptly. Keep each staff member and vendor accountable for their work order.
A make ready board template only solves a portion of the issue. Are you interested in taking the guesswork out of your turnover process and automating your work orders with a web-based platform? It takes a team to tackle turns, and our software can help! Request a demo and one of our maintenance rockstars will arrange a customized demonstration of Property Meld. See how we can help maximize efficiency and decrease the cost of turns.
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