Landlord Profits by Landlord2Landlord  Information, Advice, News for Property Management 

Each year, 60 to 80 percent of the nation s rental apartments receive new residents each year. Each time a rental unit is turned over, many costs seen and unseen are incurred. Costs go up further when the unexpected occurs: multiple units vacate at the same time. This leaves the leasing and maintenance staff overstretched and stressed trying to re-lease the units for the next occupants. Time and money is spent contacting, contracting and coordinating multiple vendors to backup your staff. Each time that a resident leaves, the unit must be refurbished for the next occupants. Industry wide, the cost of refurbishing an apartment averages $2000.

Refurbishing includes cleaning or changing carpets, painting and repairing walls, resealing bathrooms, deep cleaning appliances and cleaning curtains. The cost of refurbishing is also realized by the amount of time the staff spends on the unit, where they may be better employed keeping the community common grounds looking better and upgrading general conditions. Office staff time is also spent documenting and recovering damages. In addition to lost rent, added costs of turnover are also compounded by the efforts to bring a new tenant to the property. These cost include sales and marketing, time spent showing the property to prospects and screening each applicant. Industry experts estimate that it is nearly 10 times more expensive to try to turnover unit than to implement a resident retention program. Having a solid and consistent resident retention program for your property is indispensable to the profits of a rental business.