How to Stay on Track with Unit Turnovers

The end of summer brings new residents to apartments, especially for off-campus college housing; however, there are countless year-long leases coming to an end as well. Understanding your unit turnover rate is important as it allows you to determine how much time and money you will need to invest during these turnover periods.

Consecutive turnovers are inevitable, so how can you prepare for them and stay on track with all your unit turnover tasks?

These questions may be overwhelming, but there’s good news—Rent Manager Express makes handling unit turnovers easier and more organized for your team!

Insight on Unit Turnovers

The cost associated with unit turnovers includes maintenance repairs, improvements, and cleaning fees. Taking these into account, it’s crucial to have a plan in place to cover all expenses. At the same time, you need to determine a proper timeline for turnovers to save on costs associated with the vacancy period between residents. One short vacancy may not be a big problem, but several at once can affect your bottom line. According to Zego—Rent Manager’s built-in payment provider—in 2023, “the average resident retention rate was 56% and the costs associated with resident turnover were $4,000 per unit.”

Although the cost of unit turnovers may be nerve-wracking, there are ways to decrease the turnover time between each resident to get your units back on the market faster:

Provide Clear Communication

Keeping renters informed about updates to their leases or units will make for a happier community.

Complete Work Orders and Improve Response Times

Resolving service issues in a timely manner throughout the leasing period will help create a relationship of trust with your tenants. Accordingly, they will be more likely to pursue lease renewals instead of move-outs.

Give Your Tenants a Time Frame

Creating a schedule for move-outs over a set number of days can help you plan out your turnover processes, making your timeline for potential move-ins seamless and controlled.

Attract New Prospects

In the event that move-outs are expected, you’ll need to attract prospects. Whether that’s through Internet Listing Service (ILS) advertising or via listings on your website, you’ll have new residents lined up when the previous renters leave.

Reducing turnover periods can be a challenge, so Rent Manager provides a Make Ready feature to help streamline the turnover process and make your business more efficient.

Rent Manager’s Make Ready Process

Substantial amounts of time, money, and effort are exerted after move-outs to make units ready and available for new residents. What if there’s an easier way to check off your to-do’s and prepare for an organized transition? Make Ready resources in Rent Manager Express can help flip vacant units and provide a real-time visual representation of your turnover process. The Make Ready feature includes three main components: Make Ready Actions, Make Ready Templates, and the Make Ready Board.

Make Ready Actions

Make Ready Actions classify and determine the order in which service issues and inspections appear on a Make Ready Template. Service issues are organized based on urgency, maintenance availability, work order, and service order forms from your operational tasks.

To view the Make Ready Actions, go to the Hamburger Menu Icon -> Services -> Service Setup -> Make Ready -> Make Ready Actions

Make Ready Templates

Make Ready Templates contain the service issues and inspections from your Make Ready Actions. Create templates can for each property or unit as desired to define a workflow that quickly starts the Make Ready Process. Templates can be created for each property or unit as desired . Furthermore, you can utilize Rent Manager Express Inspection Templates to ensure an inspection follows your standard guidelines when creating your Make Ready Process. Both of these template resources will equip your team with the tools necessary to better prepare for move-ins/-outs and all the steps in between.

Once the Make Ready Process is kicked off, each service issue or inspection on the Make Ready Template is generated as a column on the Make Ready Board to easily track your progress.

To view the Make Ready Templates, go to the Hamburger Menu Icon -> Services -> Make Ready -> Make Ready Templates

Make Ready Board

The Make Ready Board displays units that have a Make Ready Process assigned to them with color-coded statuses for the associated service issues, inspections, and unit turnover tasks. These colors show the current state of each task: Scheduled, In Progress, or Complete. Having a tool to track your operation’s unit turnover steps not only helps fast-track the process, but it also makes the effort easier and more organized for the staff involved.

From the Make Ready Board, simply click the issue or inspection name to open and edit the associated task.

To view the Make Ready Board, go to the Hamburger Menu Icon -> Services -> Make Ready -> Make Ready Board

Additional Resources

The Rent Manager Integrations Program offers services to support all your property needs. To further enhance the turnover process, consider working with one of our integrated technology providers to elevate your maintenance or inspection practices. Expand your capabilities, filter through our providers, and find the right fit for your unit turnover tasks!

With Rent Manager Express’ Make Ready solutions, you can boost your existing move-in/move-out processes and keep your unit turnovers on track today!

By Victoria Mrofchak