Topic: Maintenance Standards: What is considered the indu

What is considered the industry standard for unit make ready time and work order (emergency & non-emergency) response time?

I'd be very interested to see what the responses are on this as well.

Mark:
For unit make ready it varies from company to company however 7 days for a scheduled turn is an average for a unit that is not pre-leased. For non-emergency work orders most companies I know guarantee a 24 hour response and resolution time. For emergencies like a water line break, each community should have a maintenance tech "on call" and response should be travel time or if the tech lives on property even quicker. Emergencies that can result in damages to the asset are important to repair quickly for the resident but also for the owner, therefore the properly trained tech knows his "on call"time is a critical component of their employment.

We strive for a 7 day turnaround.

I must be a slave driver! But I have been managing property for 25 years, 1 bedroom make ready 1/2 day to 1 day, 2 br 1 day, Carpet on top of that.
Most companies try to complete service calls in less than 24 hours.

We strive to complete average turnovers of unit in four days total including carpet replacement or cleaning, Major damage is more in line witht the seven day estimate. We offer on-line service request submittal as well as on call phone service to meet a same day service goal.

I'm confused, How can it take 4 to 7 days to do a make ready?
Let's take a 400 unit property with 50% turnover, thats 17 units a month you have to turn just to maintain occupancy. If it took a week to turn a unit occupancy would plumit.

We're in upstate New York and have 346 units with a 28% rate of turnover, requiring anywhere from 4 to 14 turnovers in a month, depending on the time of year.

On average, our 3-man turnover crew takes about 1 day for a 1BR, 1.5 days for a 2BR and 2 days for a 3BR, including reconditioning A/Cs, HWHs and plumbing PM. Add a day allocated for the painting contractor, a day allocated for the cleaning contractor and a day for final walk-through before delivery to the customer. Overall, it would take about 4-6 days to complete a "make-ready" apartment.

How is this accomplished within a calendar month? These tasks are performed by different forces (contractors, in-house) in a cascading, synchronized way as the month progresses.

We expect to provide same-day service, performing about 2,500 a year. We don't differentiate between business hours and non-business hours service. If a customer needs a light bulb replaced on Christmas day or at midnight tonight, we will do so.

A quality "make-ready" and 24/7/365 service is one of several reasons why we have a 28% rate of customer turnover, as compared to the NAA reported average of 60%.

Rick Hevier
Richard Hevier
Richard S. Hevier
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Rick - out of curiosity, what is the age of those units?

We have a 40-year old property on about 30 acres. In my post I meant to say that we perform about 2,500 service requests a year.

Rick Hevier
Richard Hevier
Richard S. Hevier
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Thanks Rick. I figured you were referring to service requests with the 2500 - makes sense with a property that age to have a higher volume of service requests... That's also a very admirable service policy. How do your maintenance techs feel about the 24/7/365 service policy that doesn't differentiate between light bulbs and water leaks?

@Matt: A key reason why we generate 2,500 service requests a year is that we ASK for service requests: 1). when our customers come to the office to pay their monthly rent we typically ask them if there is any service that they need for their apartment. 2). we finish each contact with a customer with the question, "Is there anything we can take care of for you in your apartment?".

Why are we proactive when it comes to seeking out service requests? 1). we want to uncover service issues that might otherwise fester and that our customers may forget to ask about; 2). we want to properly maintain our property; 3). a service request is not a complaint, but an opportunity to demonstrate our value; 4). we see service as integral to customer retention - far more so than renewal carrots and other gimmicks intended for customer retention.

How do our maintenance staff respond to our 24/7/365, same-day service expectation? In our training, we emphasize that 1. this kind of service is more valuable than any marketing/advertising program we could purchase (25% of our leasing comes from present and former customer referrals); 2). it costs more to find a new customer than it does to keep a current customer, and service is crucial for customer retention; 3). we use our level of service in marketing to new customers, since our service gives us a competitive edge compared to our competitors (and perhaps 99.9% of apartment properties nationally). There is a downside - 2,500 annual service requests gives us more opportunity to screw up, which, unfortunately, sometimes we do.

There is certainly a cost to the level of service we provide. However, for 2009 we have been virtually 100% occupied, we have raised rents TWICE this year, and we have a 10 year average 28% rate of turnover, while rejecting about 1 of 3 new applications. In addition, 1 out of 3 of our customers have resided with us more than 5 years, about 1 out of 5 more than 10 years, and 1 out of 9 more than 15 years (7 customers more than 30 years). The upstate New York market is a high-tax area experiencing nearly 9% unemployment, with steady, negative population loss over the past 10 years.

Rick Hevier
Richard Hevier
Richard S. Hevier
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We aim for 4 day unit turns. 5 days for the bad units. Most of our units are leased before the previous tenant moves out. Our community is 150 units. On a busy month we have 15 unit turns. With staggering maint/prep a day, paint a day, maint./put back together clean drains new toilet seats caulk windows etc etc, cleaner and carpet cleaner come in on the 4th day and a basic touch up is done after that to ensure quality for our new tenants. We are a luxury community and very rarely get called back for something missed. I am not sure how you can maintenance, paint a whole unit, clean and clean carpets in 1-2days?
With staggering units 2 maint. guys have done 15 units in a little over 2 weeks but 12 of those 15 were painted by a contractor. Cleaning and carpet cleaning were also contractors.

Industry standard is 3 days. 1 to clean. 1 to paint. 1 to maintain.

I am very interested in this industry standards. I am the only person employed as maintenance for the property owners I work for. I do all the service call which including HVAC and Appliances if I can figure it out without having to call some outside service in. I do all the turn over work except for final cleaning and carpets. I do a lot of the tough up painting. The number of units is around 239 not counting the condos. There are four complexes and condos. The complexes consist of townhouses and apartments.

I am new to maintenance though I have spent my whole life in construction of residential homes and have a strong back ground in plumbing and carpentry. I am a pretty good electrician and though I do admit to limited knowledge and skill when it come to HVAC and Appliance but I am learning.

So any helpful ideas are greatly appreciated.

Full paint, clean, carpet shampoo or replacement? You are probably not a slave driver but...You either a small property, a large maintenance crew, a high end property were the residents do very minimum damage to the unit or a combination of some of them. :)
A turn can be done in 3 days any less than that quality is really compromised... Just my two cents ;)