What All Goes Into Flipping a Unit Between Tenants

The process of making a property ready between tenants can be quite chaotic when you are working behind the scenes in a leasing office. This is especially true around the very end of the month when most people tend to move out/move in. The leasing office typically has a very narrow window of time to do inspections, schedule professional cleaning, make necessary repairs, and schedule carpet cleaning and painting for the unit.

After a tenant officially moves out, in most cases, they will walk through with the property manager and go over the state of the unit after their departure. This is where any damages are recorded, whether they are normal wear and tear, or not. This is to ensure the proper care is taken to repair and polish up the unit for the next tenant. If any damages are outside of the normal wear and tear realm, it is important to document them with photos and notes so that you have that when you go to evaluate if the cost to repair those damages should be removed from their security deposit.

Next, you will have to determine when the next tenant will be moving in. In most cases, the next tenant has already been lined up, shown the apartment, and signed the lease. This is because most leases require the tenant who is leaving, to allow the property managers to show the unit towards the end of their notice.

Once you have the date finalized for the move-in for the new tenant, cleanings, and repairs will need to be scheduled. You will want to get the repairs done prior to the cleaning because there could be a mess involved in the repair process. You don’t want sawdust or dirt from changing the toilet or dust bunnies from the HVAC filter to dirty up your freshly cleaned unit!

It’s important to change HVAC filters, check for any leaks from any of the pipes under sinks or the toilet, and check on batteries for any thermostats, and smoke or carbon dioxide detectors. It’s important to check all the appliances to see if they are in proper working condition and to check to see if any blinds need replacing.

Then the painter should be next to freshen up any walls that may need a fresh coat of paint, but not before repairing any holes in the walls that may have occurred. After the painter, then comes the general cleaner. This cleaner will clean all the appliances, the bathroom, kitchen, mop the floors, and clean up any trash that may have been left behind. And finally, the carpet cleaner will do their duty for the property. The carpet cleaners are last and always should be, to ensure that people are not excessively tracking up the newly cleaned carpets.

After all repairs, painting, and cleaning are complete, it is important to go back to the unit, as a property manager and do a move-in inspection. This is to ensure you have an accurate depiction of what the unit looks like prior to the new tenant moving in. The tenant should also receive a paper in which they can record if they find any repairs that were missed or damages they may find during the first week or so of living in the unit. This paper will be kept on file as well as their move-in inspection so that it can be compared to the inspection that will occur after they move out when they decide to.

As stated before, there are typically multiple units that this would have to happen to at the end of each month. With a well-oiled property management team, this is easy as pie! Especially if you have a dedicated and great relationship with the vendors that are contracted for painting and cleaning. We do have a past article on finding the best vendors for your property management team, so check that article out as well! The article linked here: http://goodmanproperties.net/…/deciding-on-the-best…/