Apartment unit turn costs in Texas: what sets the number

Walk two vacated units on the same floor of a Houston property with the same floor plan and you can come back with two very different tickets. One needs paint, a clean and a new set of blinds. The other has pet-stained subfloor, a cabinet door hanging by one hinge and a range that will not light. The plan did not change. The resident did. That is the first rule of unit turn pricing: condition drives the number, not the floor plan.

Light turn, full turn and the standard in between

A light turn is paint touch-up, cleaning, blinds, a few outlet covers and a smoke detector battery. A standard turn adds full paint, drywall patches, a flooring replacement in one or two rooms and fixture swaps. A full turn replaces flooring throughout, resurfaces or replaces cabinets and countertops, swaps appliances and updates lighting and plumbing trim. Most ownership groups write a turn standard for each unit class so the property manager is not deciding scope door by door. Where there is no written standard, we help write one, because a standard is what lets you budget a year of turns instead of guessing at each one.

The vacancy clock

Every day a unit sits between residents costs the property a day of rent, and that cost is usually larger than the difference between a fast turn and a slow one. This is where in-house crews matter. Our paint, drywall, tile and millwork crews go from unit to unit on one schedule, so a standard turn is not waiting on a painter's separate calendar and then a flooring installer's. The principal running the property for us gets the move-out list from the manager, and units are handed back to leasing on a date, not a range.

Volume changes the math

One unit is a small job. Fifty units across a property in a quarter is a production line: materials bought by the pallet, the same flooring and cabinet finish in every unit, crews moving in sequence down a hallway. Per-unit cost falls with volume, but only if the standard holds. A property that overrides the spec unit by unit loses most of the savings and most of the speed.

Renovation turns and value-add programs

Owners who bought a property to reposition it often run heavier turns on vacated units, upgrading finishes to support a rent bump. That is closer to a renovation than a maintenance turn, and it pays to stage material for it in advance, receive it once and pull from stock as units come open. We treat those programs like a rolling FF&E install: receive, stage, install, punch, hand keys to leasing.

A planning range for turns

As a planning range, a light turn sits in the low hundreds per unit, a standard turn runs into the low thousands, and a full renovation turn can reach the low five figures depending on flooring, cabinets and appliances. Treat those as planning ranges only. They shift with the unit size, the finish standard, the property's age, the market and the year the work is done. A real budget comes from walking the units with us and setting the standard together.

We turn units across Texas with the owner on the property and the leasing calendar as the deadline. Share the rent roll, the turn standard if you have one and a few units we can walk, and we will come back with a per-unit number and a schedule leasing can count on.

If you manage several communities, ask for the turn schedule in the same format at every property. It is the fastest way to see which site is actually costing you vacancy days, and why, before the next batch of units comes due.