Priced make-readies per unit and lost about $9k learning what a turn is

This is for anyone on the service side thinking about apartment work, because the mistake was simple and I made it anyway.

A make-ready, or a turn, is the work done on an apartment after one resident leaves and before the next one moves in. Paint, clean, small repairs, replace whatever's broken. Apartment communities have a lot of these because a chunk of residents move out every year.

I bid a make-ready contract at a 240-unit community. Flat $385 per one-bedroom, $455 per two-bedroom, they expected about 90 turns a year. I built the price off houses I'd done, figured two people for a day and a half, materials included.

What I didn't do was define what a turn included. Their idea of a turn included full paint every time, not touch-up. It included blinds, it included cleaning appliances I'd assumed a cleaning vendor handled, and on any unit that had been vacant more than 30 days it included re-cleaning before move-in because dust settles. About one in six units also came with what they called normal damage, which meant drywall patching I'd priced as an extra and they'd priced as included.

My real average came in around $490. On 87 turns that's roughly $9,000 I ate over the year, plus a lot of weekends.

What I'd do differently: write a scope sheet with a line for every task and get the site manager to initial it, then price two tiers, a standard turn and a heavy turn, with a written trigger for which one applies (over 30 days vacant, or damage over some dollar threshold). I'd also ask to walk six recent turns before quoting anything. They'd have let me. I just didn't ask.