New to the Business and Need Assistance

Hello, I'm new to the Apartment Maintenance business and need assistance as soon as. Is there anyone out there that could assist me explaining how to put together a proposal for a Turn Team? I think you go off of square footage. I really need help please.

If you have a moment, could you answer a couple of questions first, Sherdana? First off, are you a Maintenance Supervisor, a Manager, or a Vendor? If you are a Manager, then you are proposing to get together an onsite Turn Team or hiring contractors? Or, as a Vendor, you want to propose your services to apartment communities? If you are a MS, are you wanting to hire contractors to take over or you want to put assignments out there to your Manager as a way to organize your total turn service and thus ensure better quality of turns while also completing work orders on time?

I can assist with a plan for any of these scenarios, just need to understand your thought process.

I am a vendor and would like to propose my services to apartment communities.

Forgive me for not saying but "Thank You" for reaching out to me.

Sherdana, the best way to reach out to the apartment industry is to join the local Apartment Association. Introduce yourself to the Executive Director, pay a Membership Fee and attend the monthly meetings, Meet & Greets and participate in the Golf Outings or joing a committee. When you attend the meetings, especially at the first one, they will allow you a few minutes to introduce yourself to the entire audience and tell everyone what you do and how you can assist them in their businesses.

I am solicited by so many Vendors that are unprepared when they come out to meet me that it can be a time waster (no offense intended.) Once you meet some contacts, especially property managers, etc., then ask them what they need. If you offer cleaning or full spectrum turns, then you need to put together some pamphlets of your services. When meeting on site with Managers and Maintenance Supervisors, you'll want to present a sample scope of work or ask them what theirs is so you can bid competitively.

Don't forget to follow up with your contacts. It is never a bad idea to send a personal "Thank You" to the person to whom you are making a presentation. The last thing you want to do is walk into a Leasing Office, unannounced and unsolicited, and tell them you are better than the people they are currently contracting with for services.

Thank you. You have provided me with a wealth of information so I won't waste a lot of time. I want to also know how to bid jobs for a turn team? Do you know? Isn't it off of the sq footage?

I will not pay based strictly on square footage. If I did that, then the Bidder becomes cost prohibitive. I know most painting crews charge like that; however, I want someone who can paint and bases their fees on volume rather than square footage. Too many painters price themselves out of the market this way, in my opinion. There is no hard and fast rule though. I base my decision of hiring Contract Help according to what they choose to charge for their service. For example:

One Bedroom - 750 Square Feet, cost to hire painting crew (I supply the paint) - could range in cost from $120-250 with ceilings extra; cost to clean with a contractor could range from $50-75; cost to have the carpet cleaned could range from $55-80

As a Contractor, you have to go by the scope of work. If you are a painter, are you charging an additional fee for painting ceilings, trim, doors, etc.? So, you need to think about this (these add-ons) prior to soliciting a contract. You need to find out how much the property in question has budgeted in general for these jobs (if possible) because if you come in and say to a Manager or Maintenance Supervisor, "Let me bring my Turn Team in to do your turns. I charge $250 total, including maintenance for your vacants," you are liable to get a lot of business but you'll find out soon enough you have underbid yourself into an impossibly narrow corner. On the other hand, if you come in and say, "I can turn your one-bedroom units for $1500, including maintenance," you'll price yourself out of a job.

Does this make sense?

Here is just another way of doing it, there might be information/help or not.

I worked "for" a property management company, and held no particular job, except being an "agent of" that property management company. However, I specialized in painting, as painting is the only real fast money out there. I benefited the PMC as I was extremely fast, and did high quality work. At best I was a one man band. I found if you hire people to help you paint apartments, they simply just get in the way, with the exception of my own wife. In the case of my wife, the job goes faster and smoother, as then I am working with her. To make money and please a PMC, you have to be good as a painter. I was lucky as a million years ago I was a Journeyman painter prior to having an army career. The point is I "was" a painter prior to getting into property management. You have to spray. If you don't spray, your dragging feet and not making money and not meeting the needs of the complex on turn around. So if your not pumped up to spray apartments, my advice is to leave it alone.
Cleaning and Painting is two different animals entirely. Never mix cleaning with painting. I know this is hard to wrap your mind around. You only want to rake out the remains of the prior tenant before you gear up to spray, and insure your not blowing flick and flack all over your nice new paint spray job. Once the unit is painted and put back together, then you have someone come and clean it to standards for rental. If you are a mover and shaker of a painter, you want to be done in that unit when you thumbs up the job. Let the "other" people whoever they are do further cleaning. That way, you make money, the PMC is happy and all goes well.
I am going to give you a sample list of what I used to charge. I am recently retired, but I still do a few units in a crunch:

One Bedroom: Ceilings, Walls, Woodwork, one color. $350.00
Two Bedroom: Ceilings, Walls, Woodwork, one color. $450.00

If using contrasting colors or other schemes, you have to calculate what it will cost to do the ceiling one color and the walls another or the woodwork another. You get caught up with masking off and brushing the woodwork, this way the job slows and you have to account for that slowing. You can do custom work, but don't try and sell custom work to any PMC I have ever met!!!

The PMC has various accounts that you buy materials on and cost them back on an invoice to the company. Get set up with a paint company on a first name basis and then just phone in orders and have it delivered to the complex. You lose when you run all over town getting up supplies, and most PMC's don't want to tie up funds in a lot of in stock paint. The most important thing is to learn to fix your paint sprayer. They are really pretty simple, and unless you lose a pump, the parts are easy to replace. Keeping the guns and hoses clean, and I mean spotlessly clean after EACH use is paramount. You want to run hot water and white vinegar through after your done. In the winter, run auto antifreeze through the unit and it will both get a proper lubricant, and not freeze up on you. Use gun extensions. That eliminates ladders where you won't wear yourself out moving them all over the place. Also the gun extensions give you much more control on the output. You will quickly learn on spray rigs by doing.

If your saving carpet or flooring, you add $75.00 and it is worth it as your pulling all kinds of covers and tapes around to save the floors. After you have done a few two bedroom townhouses and pulled drops all up and down the stairs, you will quickly understand this.

Wall repairs usually run another $50 to $75. It can be more if he put her head through the sheet rock or she his, or maybe a few fist holes if he lost his job, or got drunk and mad. Don't buy full sheets of sheetrock. Home centers now carry small sheets and with practice you can make repairs nearly invisible. On tools, eliminate the stuff you will never use. Have a box you can lift, and put all of your tools in it. You want to lessen to minimum the stuff you carry in and out of units. These little things will speed you up and keep you feeling like rocking and rolling.

If your good, you can do quite well three units a week (Mon thru Fri). Before anyone coughs at that, no you cannot sustain doing anymore than three a week by yourself in the manner I describe, so your killing yourself and hurting your quality.

You might still want to do the full turn. I don't think I would want a full one alone, but you probably should never try to do a full turn and brush and roll. You will find yourself worn out and burned out in about three turns.

Just a little voice of experience for what it is worth: A PMC cannot, will not, and should not pay too much to get a turn. They will expect the manager to bird dog the costs. That is why a professional paint job from someone who is not really expecting top painter pay is the way to go.

To Mandy - Again I've learned so much from you! Thank you so much. I had been grasping at straws, almost ready to give up because it seemed like everyone that I had asked seemed like they were afraid to tell me anything. Maybe they thought I was going to take business from them. Anyway, you have been wonderful and I am so grateful! It made plenty of sense and I understand completely.

To Herb - Thank you for explaining in great detail. I now have an extremely clear picture after reading your message and Mandy's message. I truly appreciate all of the tips and steps you broke down for me. I'm so excited to be on this website. As I can see it brings about a wealth of knowledge! well I'm ready to get started. Thanks again.

To add to what Herb was saying, which is all great; I do have a few things to say:

1) Make sure that you and your crew can answer the 'golden question' in a positive manner. The 'golden question' is " Would I want to live here based on this work?"

2) If you encounter a unit where the prior resident was a long term resident and a heavy smoker; it is perfectly okay to charge extra to repair the smoke damage. I had a unit where the resident was there for 20 years and the walls were totally discolored to the point where you could see where pictures were hanging! We needed to use 2 coats of primer treated with an additive to seal in the stain before painting with the real wall color we were using, which took an additional 3 coats of paint.

3) If the property is going to be replacing carpets and flooring, I would paint first, then remove the carpets. No need to worry about drop cloths. Make sure you remove all electric faceplates and mask over the outlet/switch, regardless if you spray or roll. If you can remove light fixtures and mirrors; it is wise to do so. You may want to ask that the maintenance crew do this before your crew arrives. I might even offer to remove the carpets after my crew is done to prepare for the flooring crew. At my property, I did a pest control treatment of all vacant units after the carpets were removed and before installation of the new materials.

4)If you do spray, make sure you have taped and masked off areas where you do not want paint. You do not want to spray over a window, sealing it shut. Definitely brush over those areas as well as any other tight spots after spraying.

Another thing to remember is about small(er) complexes. In many cases, a turn around is extra money for the on site manager. They are not going to want to share it out with anyone or contract it out. Your professional turn business will mostly work better with the large complexes where they have staff that has specific type jobs. Also these size complexes have money to let contracts where the small complexes will not have.

Examples are in some PMCs the pay for a cleaning on a turn to the on site manager is a flat $50.00. Roll/Brush painting might be $150.00 walls only. Since the on site manager's pay is heavily weighted in a free apartment and utilities, their salaries are small, and they want all the extra work they can get.

So I would present my offers to the large, more corporate, complexes.

In the case of my last property, we generally did all turns in house; HOWEVER, when I arrived, we had so many and so many had extensive damage that help was needed.

Those that do turns in house, do so because they cannot afford to pay vendors for more than supplies or major work.