Trading guaranteed turn volume for a rate concession, is it a good trade
Consider a small multifamily owner with two buildings, 11 units total, where 8 units will turn over the next 14 months as leases roll. These are consistent turns: paint, LVP, one bath refresh, averaging roughly $9,400 per unit based on recent work. A preferred crew, a three man outfit that does mostly flip work, prices turns at $9,400 to $10,800 depending on how they're booked, and has pushed back scheduled turns by three weeks twice in a year when a flipper had a closing date and the owner didn't. Each of those weeks costs roughly $410 of lost rent per unit. One structure worth considering: offer the crew eight turns over 14 months, scheduled 30 days out, paid in 7 days rather than 21, in exchange for a flat $8,600 per turn and first call on scheduling. A crew countering that they want the whole eight committed up front regardless of whether units actually vacate creates a real problem, because if a tenant renews, the owner ends up holding a commitment for a turn that isn't needed, with no guarantee of other work to fill the gap. The alternative, paying $9,400 to $10,800 per turn and continuing to get bumped, could cost roughly 12 lost weeks across 8 units, call it $4,900 of rent, on top of the higher per-unit pricing. The more useful question underneath the negotiation is often what the crew actually values most. It may not be guaranteed volume at all. Fast payment alone might be enough to buy schedule priority without the commitment risk.
