A unit that rents for $1,500 a month loses about $50 in rent for every day it sits empty. Most small landlords take three to five weeks to turn a unit between tenants. They aren't slow workers. The problem is that the work isn't sequenced: the painter shows up before the drywall patch is dry, the carpet goes in before the baseboards are painted, and the cleaner comes twice because the first clean happened too early. A tight make-ready process can bring that down to 7–10 days, which is worth $700–$1,000 or more per turnover on a typical single-family rental.

This playbook covers the make-ready itself: the stretch between the old tenant handing back keys and the new tenant getting them. It assumes you've already documented the move-out condition and handled the deposit. What's left is getting the unit clean, repaired, and ready to show as fast as you can.

Start the Make-Ready Before the Tenant Leaves

The fastest turnovers start 30 days before move-out. When a tenant gives notice, schedule a pre-move-out walkthrough for two to three weeks before their last day. You're not inspecting for deposit deductions here. You're scoping the job. Walk every room and write down what will need attention once the furniture is gone:

  • Paint — full repaint, touch-up only, or specific walls? Note scuffs, nail holes, and any water stains.
  • Flooring — carpet you can clean or carpet you need to replace? Look at traffic lanes and pet damage.
  • Fixtures and appliances — test burners, run the dishwasher, check the fridge seals, flush every toilet.
  • Doors, blinds, and hardware — broken slats, sticking doors, loose cabinet hinges, missing outlet covers.
  • Systems — note the HVAC filter date, water heater age, and smoke detector expiration dates.

With that list, you can order materials and book trades before the unit is empty. Carpet often has a one to two week lead time. Painters and handymen book out a week or more in busy seasons. If you wait until move-out day to call anyone, you've already lost the first week.

A make-ready doesn't start on move-out day. It starts the day the tenant gives notice. Everything you book in advance is a vacant day you don't pay for.

Sequence the Work in the Right Order

Order matters more than speed. Most delays come from trades undoing each other's work or waiting on each other. Here's the sequence that works for most units:

  1. Day 1: Trash-out and final inspection — remove anything left behind, photograph everything, confirm the scope list, and change or rekey the locks right away.
  2. Days 1–2: Demo and rough repairs — pull damaged carpet, remove broken fixtures, patch drywall, and handle any plumbing or electrical fixes that need walls or floors open.
  3. Days 2–4: Paint — ceilings first, then walls, then trim and doors. Drywall mud needs 24 hours to dry before primer, so patching has to finish early.
  4. Days 4–5: Fixtures and hardware — install new light fixtures, faucets, blinds, outlet covers, cabinet hardware, and smoke detectors.
  5. Days 5–6: Flooring — new carpet or LVP goes in after the painting is done so it doesn't get dripped on or scraped by ladders.
  6. Days 6–7: Deep clean — one professional clean, after every trade is finished, including inside appliances, cabinets, and windows.
  7. Days 7–8: Final punch walk — walk the unit as if you were the applicant. Fix whatever you find, then take listing photos.

Flooring goes after paint, and cleaning goes after everything. If you break either rule, you'll pay for the same work twice. For light turnovers that need only touch-up paint and carpet cleaning, you can often compress the schedule into four or five days.

Standardize Your Finishes to Cut Time and Cost

The biggest hidden time cost in a make-ready is decision-making: choosing paint colors, finding a matching faucet, or hunting for the blind size that fits the bedroom window. Landlords who turn units quickly make those decisions once and reuse them everywhere.

  • One paint color, one sheen — pick a neutral like a warm white or light greige in eggshell for walls and semi-gloss for trim. Touch-ups then blend in without repainting the whole wall.
  • One flooring spec — LVP in a mid-tone wood look hides wear and survives pets. Buy an extra box per unit for future plank replacements.
  • Standard fixtures — one faucet model, one light fixture, one ceiling fan. Keep two of each in inventory.
  • A blind and filter list per unit — record every window size and HVAC filter size so you can order without measuring again.

Write the specs down: paint brand, color code, sheen, flooring SKU, and fixture model numbers. When a painter asks what color the unit is, you should be able to answer in ten seconds. KeyLoft lets you keep these notes attached to each property, so the spec sheet is on your phone even when you're standing in a basement with no signal.

Every finish you standardize is a decision you never have to make again, and a part you can replace in one trip to the hardware store.

Budget the Turnover Before You Swing a Hammer

Turnover costs vary widely, but for a two or three bedroom unit, these are reasonable planning ranges:

  • Light turn (tenant of 1–2 years, good condition): $400–$1,200 — touch-up paint, carpet cleaning, deep clean, minor hardware.
  • Standard turn (2–4 years, normal wear): $1,500–$4,000 — full repaint, partial flooring, fixture updates.
  • Heavy turn (long tenancy or damage): $5,000–$12,000+ — full flooring, appliance replacement, drywall repair, sometimes cabinets or counters.

Set a budget from your pre-move-out scope and track actual costs against it line by line. Separate what counts as a repair (deductible this year) from what counts as an improvement (depreciated over time), and flag anything you'll charge back to the old tenant's deposit. If you do a lot of the labor yourself, log your hours too. Landlords who self-manage often undercount how much time a turnover takes. If you already use Stintly to track hours for freelance or side work, the same habit shows you whether a weekend of DIY painting was worth it compared with hiring a $600 crew.

Once you've done a few turnovers, compare your numbers. If turnover costs keep climbing on one property, it may be time to upgrade its finishes to something more durable instead of patching the same problems every cycle.

Ready to put this into practice? Download KeyLoft for Free — it’s free and works offline.

Coordinate Contractors Like a Project, Not a Favor

Most make-ready delays come from coordination, not from the work itself. A painter who thinks the job starts "sometime next week" will fit you in behind a bigger client. To keep trades on schedule:

  • Give firm dates and written scopes — "Paint walls and ceilings in all rooms, color code X, start Tuesday, done Thursday" gets better results than "can you paint the unit?"
  • Use a lockbox — a $30 lockbox saves you from driving over to let people in. Change the code after each turnover.
  • Confirm the day before — one text the evening before each trade's start date catches most no-shows while you still have time to adjust.
  • Pay promptly — contractors put fast-paying landlords at the front of the line. Pay within 48 hours of a completed, inspected job.
  • Ask for photos at completion — you can check the work remotely and settle disputes before final payment.

For heavy turns involving multiple trades, change orders, and draw payments, it helps to treat the job like a small construction project. Contractors who use tools like TrestleBook to manage job schedules and billing tend to deliver clearer estimates and itemized invoices, which makes your bookkeeping easier and your deposit chargebacks easier to defend.

A contractor won't treat your job as urgent unless you do. Written scopes, firm dates, and fast payment get you to the front of the line.

Market the Unit While the Work Is Still Underway

Don't wait for the final clean to start marketing. Once paint and flooring are scheduled, you know roughly when the unit will be ready. Post the listing with photos from the last turnover (or good photos of a similar unit) and an honest "available on [date]" note. Start showings once the painting is done, around day 4 or 5. By then, the unit looks close enough to finished that applicants can picture living there.

A few practical rules for showing during a make-ready:

  • Schedule showings around trade work — don't show the unit while a floor installer has the living room torn up.
  • Put a short "work in progress" note on the counter — list what's being finished and when. Applicants take it as a sign of a responsive landlord.
  • Take real listing photos after the final punch — swap them into the listing right away. Fresh photos get more inquiries.

Overlapping the work with marketing and screening can shorten total vacancy by one to two weeks. On a $1,500 unit, that's another $350–$700 back in your pocket.

Build a Reusable Make-Ready Checklist

After two or three turnovers, you'll notice you're doing the same 40 or 50 tasks every time. Put them in a checklist and your process becomes repeatable. You'll also have something to hand to a handyman or property manager later. A good make-ready checklist includes:

  • Safety items — test smoke and CO detectors, check GFCI outlets, confirm window locks work, and make sure the dryer vent is clear.
  • Systems — new HVAC filter, flush water heater if due, test the garbage disposal, and run every faucet for leaks.
  • Security — rekey or replace locks, reset garage codes, and collect or deactivate old key fobs.
  • Utilities — move utilities into your name for the vacancy period and schedule the transfer for the new tenant's move-in date.
  • Finishing touches — new toilet seats, fresh shower curtain rod, working light bulbs in every socket, and a clean dryer lint trap.
  • Documentation — date-stamped photos of every room after completion. These become the new tenant's move-in baseline.

Keep the checklist, completion photos, receipts, and contractor contacts together by property. KeyLoft works well for this because you can check items off offline while walking the unit, then refer back to the previous turnover's costs and vendors the next time that unit comes open.

A 10-day make-ready doesn't take heroic effort. You scope early, sequence the trades correctly, standardize your finishes, and keep contractors accountable. The first turnover you run this way will feel like extra planning. By the third, it's routine, and each week you cut from vacancy is rent you keep. Start with the pre-move-out walkthrough the next time a tenant gives notice.