Associated Estates Realty Corp. and Equity Residential were among the apartment companies hip to Robertson’s value-added sell, and by year’s end he was leveraging 35 men and 10 trucks into approximately $500,000 in business. Most of Robertson’s clients aim for a five-day turn, but he can sometimes turn a unit in as little as 24 hours, including punch-out maintenance, carpet cleaning, repainting, and basic janitorial. “I also stay in my niche,” he says. “I don’t clean common areas, I don’t paint club houses, just give me your vacants.”
Finally, if your company opts to use outside subcontractors instead of in-house unit turners, save time by fostering strong relationships with select service providers who understand everything from your quality expectations to your floor plans.
“Having close relationships with key vendors is a must,” says Lynd. “You need vendors who respond quickly, do excellent work and have capacity to do volume if necessary. You can never lose a lease over a make-ready. That is a cardinal sin in management.”
Resident Files: Uncommon Sense Take care of new, renewing, and departing residents alike.
The best strategy for speeding your turns? Work to retain as many residents as you can, from the very day they move in.
It may sound counterintuitive, but think it through: Maintaining high levels of customer satisfaction during a resident’s first few weeks at your property can go a long way towards retaining renters when lease renewals roll around.
“We have found out through satisfaction surveys that the decision to renew or not happens when a tenant first moves in, and we subscribe to that,” says Jim Collins, who covers Georgia and Tennessee as a regional vice president for Atlanta-based Lane Management Co. “We talk to the residents 120 days out, but the whole process starts with them getting a perfect unit. If we catch them at 120 days, we still have a chance to make a good recovery if we have fumbled the ball when they moved in.”
Jeff Adler, executive vice president of operations at Denver-based AIMCO, agrees. “Most tenants already have an idea if they are going to stay or leave at the 120-day mark,” he says. “By communicating with them at that time, you can remediate any service issues that might be driving them away and also begin the process of preparing the unit to be turned.”
In addition to the typical 120-day communiqué, property managers for San Antonio, Texas-based Lynd Co. make near-weekly contact with residents until lease expiration. “Lower turnover creates fewer new leases to obtain,” says COO A. David Lynd. “It also means lower advertising costs and lower makeready costs.”
