What a make-ready really costs in the Valley

A turnover on a 1,500 square foot Phoenix rental typically costs between $850 and $2,400 if nothing has gone wrong, and takes seven to ten days. Those two numbers are connected, and the second one is usually where owners lose more money than the first.

Where the money goes

The line items are predictable, which is why we issue a scope with a cost against each one before anything is spent. These are sample ranges from our own recent turnovers.

• Deep clean including appliances and windows: $280 to $480
• Touch-up paint, walls and trim: $350 to $700
• Full repaint: $2.10 to $2.80 per square foot
• Carpet clean: $180 to $320, replacement $3.40 to $4.90 per square foot installed
• Cooling service and filter: $165 per system
• Landscaping reset and irrigation check: $220 to $600
• Minor repairs, hardware, blinds and screens: $150 to $450

The week most owners lose

The sequencing mistake is booking trades after the move-out inspection instead of against the move-out date. If you wait until the tenant has gone to call a painter, you have already added five to seven days of vacancy that produced nothing.

We book the paint, flooring and cleaning slots when notice is given, then confirm or release them after the inspection. On a $2,400 a month property, one avoided week of vacancy is $560, which is more than the entire cleaning line.

The order matters too. Repairs first, then paint, then flooring, then cleaning last. Cleaning before flooring is the most common reversal and it guarantees a second clean.

What can wait

Our scopes split into must do, should do and can wait, and plenty of owners skip the middle column entirely. That is a legitimate choice, and it is easier to make when the cost is written down next to the item.

Must do is anything affecting habitability, safety or the photographs. Should do is anything that will become a must do inside eighteen months. Can wait is cosmetic and will not change the rent or the days on market. If a line cannot be assigned to one of those three, it should not be on the scope.

Written for a demo website. Figures are samples drawn from a fictional portfolio, and nothing here is legal, tax or investment advice.