Make-ready

Make-ready is the property-specific process between possession of a vacant unit and confirmed readiness for the next tenancy. It can include condition documentation, cleaning, repairs, safety work, lock handling, utility coordination, appliance checks, required inspections, and final quality control. It is not a universal cosmetic checklist: the scope begins with actual condition, property standards, lease records, and applicable requirements.

Run the work from an itemized scope with an owner, sequence, estimate, and completion evidence for each task. Separate resident-accounting decisions from work authorization; determining responsibility for damage is not the same as deciding whether a repair must happen before re-leasing. Photograph and date the starting condition, preserve invoices and approvals, and mark a task complete only after someone verifies the result.

Suppose a unit is returned Friday with ordinary cleaning needs, a leaking kitchen trap, two damaged blinds, and a smoke alarm that fails testing. The landlord schedules the plumber before cabinet cleaning, orders matching blinds, replaces and tests the alarm, and completes a final walkthrough Wednesday. The five calendar days include dependencies and verification; simply adding one day per vendor would miss the fact that some work can overlap while another task blocks readiness.

Common red flags are advertising a firm availability date before the scope is known, allowing “miscellaneous turn” invoices with no unit detail, and calling a unit ready while a safety or utility issue remains open. Compare planned and actual days by cause after each turn. That history helps with vendor capacity and vacancy planning without turning a past average into a promise about the next unit.