Made $1,150 doing room turns all weekend and still priced it wrong

I've been trying to work out where I fit on the service side and this landed in my lap. An owner with a six room house had five people move out in the same two weeks (student calendar, apparently normal for her) and needed all of them prepped before the new leases started.

What I did: hauled out abandoned stuff, deep cleaned six rooms plus two bathrooms and a kitchen, touched up paint in four rooms, patched maybe fifteen nail holes, swapped three light fixtures she'd bought, made beds with her linens, took photos of each room for her records.

What I charged: $1,150 flat for the house. What it took: 19 hours across Friday to Sunday, plus about $180 in supplies and paint I ate. So call it $51 an hour before my truck and before the dump fee I forgot to bill.

That's fine money for a weekend. The problem is she asked me to quote her other house, a four room, and I have no idea what to say. Half as many rooms isn't half the work because the kitchen and the bathrooms are the same job. And if I quote per room I'm punishing myself on the small houses, but per house feels like I'm guessing.

How do people actually price this? Per room, per house, hourly with a cap, something else? I'd rather set it right now than renegotiate in three months.

Answer

2chriswalton8CC1CPRO8

Price against what a vacant room costs her, because that's the number she's actually deciding with.

Say her six rooms rent around $700. An empty room is roughly $23 a day. If you can turn the whole house in a weekend and she otherwise loses five days across five rooms, you saved her something like $575 in rent she'd never have collected. That's why $1,150 didn't get pushed back on. You weren't selling cleaning, you were selling her lease start dates.

So build the quote the way halyard and trellis said, base plus per room, and then check it against the vacancy math for that specific house before you send it. On the four room house the rooms are probably cheaper and there are fewer of them, so the daily bleed is smaller and the price ceiling is lower. Same work, less value to her, and you need to know that going in rather than finding out when she balks.

The follow-on is the thing canton pointed at. If she'll commit to a window every year, you get to plan your labor and she gets to plan her cash. That's worth a discount from you and a premium from her at the same time, which is a rare place to stand.

One caution. Don't quote off her rent roll without asking her for it. Ask what the rooms rent for and how many vacant days a turn normally costs her. If she won't tell you, price on scope and move on.

11 replies

-1ryanmck27SC2C

Split it. A base for the house that covers kitchen, baths, and common areas, then a per room adder. Your six room job priced that way might be $500 base plus $110 a room, which lands right where you already are and scales down honestly to the four room.

4aliyah_bAU2APRO6

You ate $180 in supplies and forgot a dump fee. Bill materials at cost plus a markup and put haul-away as a separate line with a minimum. That's not being greedy, it's the difference between $51 an hour and $58, and you'll do this fifty times.

3hannah_west29 Get yours

Your rate is $51 an hour on a job where you brought your own vehicle, your own tools, and carried the material float. Take out truck cost, gas, the dump, and the hours you spent quoting and invoicing, and you're probably closer to $40. That's still real money for a weekend. I'd just want you to know the number you're actually earning before you build a business on the wrong one.

0marcus_hale41CG4A

The interesting fact in your post is that her five move-outs clustered in two weeks. That means she has a predictable annual crunch, and you're the person who can make her hit her lease start dates. Predictability is worth paying for. If I owned that house I'd rather pay you a retainer to guarantee a weekend window than shop the work every August and pray.

1mitchell_ray4 Get yoursPRO6

Nineteen hours and you were also the guy hauling somebody's abandoned furniture. Charge for that separately or you'll be moving couches for free forever.

-1carlos_nunezActive

Two of my rehabs ran late this year because turn crews quoted flat and then discovered the scope. Protect yourself on the unknowns. Paint touch up in four rooms is fine until one room has a wall somebody hung shelves on with anchors every eight inches. Write the quote with a scope line that says what's included and an hourly rate for anything past it. Owners don't fight that if you tell them up front.

2tonyv88SO4CPRO6

I manage properties and I hire people like you. What I want is a number I can put in a budget before the tenant even gives notice, and a date you'll hold. Halyard's base plus per room is exactly what I'd sign. What I won't sign is hourly with no cap, because I can't forecast it and my owner asks me what the turn costs in March for work that happens in August.

1mikeoconnell7SP2APRO6

One thing nobody's said: get her to buy and store the consumables on site. Paint that matches her walls, filters, light bulbs, linens. Then you're not fronting material or guessing at colors, and your quote gets cleaner and lower, which makes you easier to hire.

1jessreyes12AU1APRO8

I'd have been embarrassed to ask this in person so I'll ask here. Plumb, how did you know the paint colors? Did she have cans on site, or did you match them and hope, because that alone would have taken me three hours.

2dmitri_v6CapitalPRO6

Whatever structure you land on, put it in a one page written agreement with the scope, the base, the per room adder, the hourly for out-of-scope, and who pays for hauling. Insurance and any licensing needed for the fixture swap depends on your state, so check that with someone licensed before the next job. The rest of this thread has your pricing sorted better than I could.