Is turnkey repair / painting really this expensive?

[Joshua Feit]

Greetings!

I use a property management company to rent my units, and they are doing a good job. But every time one tenant leaves and another comes in behind them, the costs associated with the turnkey repairs seem really high.

For example:
I have a house that is 3/2, 1500sf. The quote on the repair work is $2500, which includes painting the whole house for $1500 (and a bunch of other miscellaneous stuff, including a couple of small plumbing repairs, reglazing the tub, cabinet repairs, etc.)

The house went vacant a year ago, and we paid to paint it then -- for $1500.

Questions:

1) Is it normal to paint the whole house between each tenant?

2) Does it really cost $1500 to paint the whole house?

3) How does anyone make money on their rentals with this sort of expense on the turnkey?

[Bettina F.]

We do our own management and most maintenance in our apartment building.  We use high quality paint, from a good paint store, that custom mixes the colors.  The color matches are so perfect, I just touched up a 3 year old paint job with a Qtip.  We use a semi-gloss, washable paint with extra coats around light switches, corners, and other areas likely to get dirty.  The walls wash up quickly and easily.

I know that many will advise LL to "take the tools out of the truck", etc.   We have done the opposite.  Not only is hiring everything out expensive, it is also time consuming.  You will have delays waiting for workers to show up, which will increase turnover time.  My husband and I could paint a 1500 square foot house in 2 days.  Painting an empty house is easy (especially if you use the same color.)  We have learned to lay flooring, repair drywall, repair/replace/ adjust bifold doors. We can repair broken door jambs.  We pick up and install our own appliances.  You Tube can teach what you can't figure out on your own.  (Did I mention we started this in our 60s?)  We have learned that the skill set required is actually fairly limited.  You end up doing the same tasks again and again.  Being a hands on LL has other advantages.  We know what is going on in our building, and are able to nip problems in the bud.

The money that we have saved using this approach has allowed us to make improvements to our building.  We had landscape sprinklers installed last fall.  That has been a huge time saver.  

We used to employ a PM when we had one SFH and were out of town LL. It was never satisfactory. Do your own management/maintenance if you are in the same area.

You asked how LL were able to make money if turnover costs are so high.  By doing our own maintenance, we are able to take $36K a year out this building, even with capital improvements and paying $6K a year in property taxes.  My husband once estimated he spends, on average, 4 hours a week on the apartment building.