Lansing & Mid-Michigan
The full rent-ready budget: what goes into turning a vacated unit, what drives the cost up, and how Lansing property managers plan for it.
Updated October 2026
Apartment turnover costs
A turnover is everything between one resident moving out and the next moving in: the walkthrough, the wall repairs, the paint, the deep clean, the small fixes, and the final check. The cost depends on unit size, move-out condition, how much painting and cleaning the unit needs, and how fast it has to be rent-ready. Here is how to budget it.
Published multifamily industry data puts the physical make-ready work, cleaning, painting, and minor repairs, at roughly $300 to $1,200 per turn, with the all-in cost including vacancy commonly reported between $2,500 and $5,000 (SmartScreen/ClearScreening, May 2026; Zego 2026 industry survey). Where your unit lands in that range depends on its condition. The framework below shows how to place it, and our turns are priced per unit or per scope from a walkthrough punch list, never from a national average.
Property managers: send your unit count and turn volume and we will set up per-unit pricing.
A complete turn is a sequence, not a single service. Our rental turnover checklist lays out the order of operations; the budget version looks like this:
Walkthrough and condition assessment. Photo-documented move-out condition, measured against the move-in record. This is what the punch list is built from.
Drywall patching and nail hole repair. The standard wear from pictures, shelves, and anchors, filled and sanded to paint-ready.
Minor wall repairs. Small holes, scuffs, and dings beyond normal nail holes, repaired before paint.
Painting and touch-ups, or a full repaint where required. Same-color refresh in the unit's standard color when condition allows; full repaint when it does not. Painting is one line item in the turn budget, detailed in our apartment painting cost guide.
Trim and door touch-ups. Where the agreed scope includes them; some managers refresh trim on a cycle instead of every turn.
Deep cleaning. Kitchen, bathrooms, floors, and fixtures, after the paint work is done. See our cleaning services for standalone move-out clean detail.
Minor carpentry and maintenance items. The small fixes within our scope: caulking, hardware touch-ups, and similar punch-list items.
Final make-ready review. The unit is checked against the punch list before it goes back on the market.
Every turn falls into one of three tiers. The tier is set by condition, not by unit size, and the punch list is what moves a unit from one tier to the next.
These are nationally published multifamily ranges, shown for context. They are not our prices; our turns are priced per unit or per scope from a punch list.
| Component | Published range | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Move-out deep clean | $150 to $300 | SmartScreen/ClearScreening, May 2026 |
| Painting, touch-up to full repaint | $200 to $800 | SmartScreen/ClearScreening, May 2026 |
| Carpet care | $100 to $1,200 | SmartScreen/ClearScreening, May 2026 |
| Combined cleaning and turnover repairs | $300 to $1,200 | SmartScreen/ClearScreening, May 2026 |
Our painting math. Our Instant Estimator prices wall painting at $1.85 per square foot of wall surface for two coats, with a $650 project minimum. On a turn, that rate applies to the paintable wall area measured at the walkthrough, before ceilings, trim, doors, or repairs.
The all-in picture. Industry benchmarks put the average all-in turnover, including vacancy loss, near $2,500 (SmartScreen/ClearScreening, May 2026), about $4,000 per turn (Zego 2026 industry survey, via Lula, September 2026), and $3,872 to $4,000 per unit (Multifamily Dive and Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies, via Livable, September 2026). Apartments sit vacant an average of 34.4 days between residents at roughly $60 per day (RealPage), which is why turn speed belongs in the budget conversation, not just the price.
A 2-bedroom unit after a standard move-out. Assumptions are shown for illustration; your unit is priced from a walkthrough.
| Line item | Example budget | How it is figured |
|---|---|---|
| Painting: two-coat same-color repaint, about 1,400 sq ft of wall surface | $2,590 | 1,400 x $1.85, our estimator rate; wall surface is measured at the walkthrough |
| Move-out deep clean | $150 to $300 | Nationally published deep-clean range, shown for context (SmartScreen, May 2026) |
| Drywall: nail holes and small patches | Included in paint prep | Covered by the agreed patching allowance |
| Larger drywall repairs and minor make-ready items | Per scope | Priced from the punch list at the walkthrough |
| Example physical make-ready total | About $2,740 to $2,890, plus larger repairs | Before vacancy cost |
This example uses our real painting math and a published national range for the cleaning line. It is not a quote and not a price lock. Request a turnover walkthrough for a per-unit number on your building.
For property managers
The cheapest bid is rarely the cheapest turn. Four separate contractors means four schedules, four invoices, and gaps between trades while the unit sits vacant at roughly $60 a day. The bid that looked cheapest on paper gets expensive in the days between the painter finishing and the cleaner arriving.
One vendor sequencing the turn changes the math: one contact, one schedule, one invoice. Painting, drywall repair, and cleaning run as a single job, paint first, then the final clean, with photo documentation at every step and per-unit invoicing your accounting department can actually process. W-9 and COI are handled up front, so turns never wait on paperwork.
Excessive wall damage. Holes, gouges, and cracked corners beyond the patching allowance move a turn from moderate to heavy on their own.
Full repaint versus touch-up. Touch-ups in the existing color are the cheapest paint outcome. A full repaint adds coats, material, and days.
Major color changes. Painting over a tenant's dark accent wall or bold bedroom takes extra coats to cover. Standard-color units exist precisely to avoid this.
Smoke and nicotine contamination. Requires specialty priming and often extra cleaning passes before paint can go on.
Heavy kitchen buildup. Grease-layered kitchens need degreasing before any paint or clean counts as done.
Bathroom condition. Grout, caulking, and fixture buildup scale with how the bathroom was kept.
Damaged trim and doors. Beyond touch-up, these become repair or replacement line items.
Unit size and ceilings. Larger units and high ceilings add wall surface, material, and labor hours.
Access issues. Parking constraints, elevator scheduling, and limited access windows slow every trade on the job.
Compressed schedules. A 48-hour emergency turn costs more than the same scope with a two-week window, because crews are scheduled around other work.
Debris and furniture left behind. Removal is scoped separately from the turn itself; a unit full of abandoned furniture is a cleanout first and a turn second.
These are two different questions. Apartment painting cost is one line item: what the painting portion of a turn runs, priced per unit from a punch list. Apartment turnover cost is the whole budget: painting plus cleaning, drywall repair, and minor maintenance, plus the vacancy clock running in the background.
If you only need the painting portion priced, our apartment painting cost guide covers per-unit turnover painting in detail. If you are budgeting the full rent-ready turn, you are in the right place.
Student housing runs on a season. East Lansing and the MSU area turn heavy volume in May and August. High-volume windows are planned as a block: unit count, standard scope, and dates agreed in advance so crews and materials are ready. If you manage student housing, talk to us before turn season, not during it.
Winter is interior season. Exterior work pauses and interior schedules open up, which makes winter the best window to lock in turn pricing and standing turn slots for the year ahead.
Standard turn speed. A typical 1 to 2 bedroom turn runs 3 to 5 days from walkthrough to rent-ready: repairs and paint first, final clean last. Heavy turns take longer; the walkthrough sets the real timeline.
Common questions
Published multifamily data puts the physical make-ready work at roughly $300 to $1,200 per turn, with all-in costs including vacancy commonly reported between $2,500 and $5,000. Your unit's number comes from a walkthrough: we price per unit or per scope from a punch list, so the budget is documented before work starts.
A complete turn includes a photo-documented walkthrough, drywall patching and nail hole repair, minor wall repairs, painting or touch-ups, trim and door touch-ups, a deep clean of the kitchen, bathrooms, and floors, minor maintenance items, and a final make-ready review. Our turnover checklist shows the exact sequence.
A standard 1 to 2 bedroom turn typically takes 3 to 5 days. Heavy turns with significant damage, color changes, or smoke remediation take longer. Tell us your move-out and move-in dates when you request the walkthrough and we will confirm what the timeline allows.
Budget per unit per year. With national multifamily turnover rates running 40 to 50 percent annually, a 20-unit building should expect 8 to 10 turns a year. Multiply expected turns by light, moderate, and heavy budgets to set the annual reserve, and remember the vacancy days between residents cost roughly $60 a day.
Yes, painting is one component of the turn budget, alongside cleaning, drywall repair, and minor maintenance. For painting-only detail, see our apartment painting cost guide.
Yes. Every complete turn ends with a move-out deep clean, and the sequence matters: paint first, then the final clean, so the unit is truly rent-ready when the cleaner leaves.
Wall damage beyond the patching allowance, full repaints and color changes, smoke or nicotine contamination, heavy kitchen and bathroom buildup, damaged trim and doors, larger units, high ceilings, access problems, compressed schedules, and leftover debris or furniture.
Yes. We coordinate painting, drywall repair, cleaning, and minor maintenance as one sequenced turn through our rental turnover services: one point of contact, one schedule, one invoice, with photo documentation and per-unit invoicing.
They describe the same job. Make-ready is the property management industry term for getting a vacated unit rent-ready; turnover is the more common landlord term. Both cover the same scope: repairs, paint, clean, and final review between residents.
Exit Strategies Property Solutions serves Lansing and Mid-Michigan. General liability and workers' compensation insured. W-9 ready. COI available. Per-unit invoicing. Photo documentation on every turn. One point of contact from walkthrough to rent-ready.
