When Should DC Property Managers Plan Apartment Turns?

November to February: the quiet months, and the work to do in them

Winter is the far end of the year from the August peak in moves, and the DC housing market slows over the holidays. That makes winter the time for the work a summer turn has no room for. A unit that sits vacant through January can take the full repaint, the room of new flooring or the kitchen and bath refresh you put off in July.

Winter also brings water. The average first freeze in Washington is around November 12, and water and freezing damage are about 22 percent of all home insurance claims. In an empty unit, nobody notices a wet ceiling until the stain is already there. Check vacant units after a hard freeze, get the source fixed, and then put the repair on the scope. See ceiling repair and interior painting.

Use the slow months to list the units whose leases end between May and September. That list is next summer's workload.

March and April: notices come in and the spring market wakes up

DC home listings peak in March, and the selling pace runs fastest from early spring into early summer. For a landlord with a single family rental, that is the window to decide whether to rent it again or sell. For a property manager, it is when notices to vacate start arriving for the summer.

Book the walkthrough as soon as the move out date is set, not after the keys come back. The written price usually follows within 24 to 48 hours of the visit, and the scope names the order of work and the ready date, so leasing can advertise a real move in date. To set the budget from the rent instead of a guess, use the turnover planner or read how to budget an apartment turnover.

May to August: turn season and the month end wave

Moves peak in August, and because leases end on the last day of the month, turns arrive in a wave at month end. In a winter month that wave is a few busy days. In summer it runs the whole month.

Drying time sets the pace of a turnover, not headcount. A patch that needs tape and two or three coats needs each coat to dry, primer has to cure before the finish coat, and new flooring has to be on site and acclimated before it goes in. None of that gets faster in August. What you control is how early each unit is walked and scoped. See how long each stage of a turnover takes and apartment turnovers.

May to July are also the wettest months in DC. Look up at the ceilings of top floor units and along the walls of lower level units before you list them. A basement apartment shows water first.

How do property managers schedule turns when several units open at once?

Rank them by move-in date, not by move-out date. Book the walkthroughs for every unit together as notices arrive, get each unit priced and dated on its own, and send the crew first to the unit with the nearest lease start. A unit with no renter yet can wait behind one with a signed lease. We walk several units in one visit, price each separately and give leasing a status on every unit.

How do you verify a turn company can handle your volume at month end?

Ask before the wave, not during it. A company that can handle it will walk all your units before they empty, put a ready date in writing for each one and tell you plainly which dates it cannot make. Ask how many units it can have open at once, and make sure its insurance certificate is on file with your office. Property managers who want a fixed turnaround per unit can use our Turnover Program.

September and October: the fall tail and the storm rain

After the August lull, the DC market picks up again in the fall, so a smaller wave of moves follows. Atlantic hurricane season peaks around September 10. The DC area rarely takes a direct hit, but the rain from storm remnants comes down in inches and leaves ceiling stains that show weeks later.

A stain painted over bleeds back through. It needs a stain blocking primer first, and the leak has to be fixed before the ceiling is touched. Read why a ceiling stain comes back. October is also the month to walk any unit you expect to sit empty over the winter, before the first freeze.

What to settle with any turnover vendor before the unit is handed over

What people praise contractors for is simple. They showed up when they said, kept the lines of communication open, priced the job fairly and up front, ran an organized job and left repairs that blend in. The complaints are simple too. The job was left messy, or the start time and the paperwork were confusing and kept moving. All of that can be settled in writing before anyone starts.

• The date and the time of the walkthrough, confirmed in writing. When we book one you get a text with the date, the time and the address.
• One written price per unit, before work starts, and what happens if opening a wall shows more damage. Our rule is that we stop, tell you and price it first.
• The order the work will run in, and the ready date.
• Where the debris goes, and how the unit and the common areas are left at the end of each day. We do not do cleaning, so your cleaning team goes in last.
• Your paint colors, flooring spec and make ready checklist, so every unit is checked against the same list.
• The warranty term. Ours is 60 to 90 days, depending on the job.

The full list of what every scope includes is on our turnover standard. We answer every day from 7:00 AM to 7:00 PM, and anything that comes in after hours is answered during business hours. Call (240) 695-4415 or request a free walkthrough.