Pro Services Boston · Landlords
Every day a Boston rental sits empty between tenants is rent you don't get back. The unit itself rarely takes long to turn — what eats the calendar is the handoffs between an inspector, a painter, a handyman, and a cleaner who all schedule separately. Here's the turnover most landlords should be running.
The move-out to move-in timeline
- Day 0–1: Walkthrough. Inspect within 24–48 hours of move-out. Document condition against the move-in report, flag anything billable to the deposit, and scope the work before anyone touches a tool.
- Day 1–2: Repairs. The stuff a tenant lived with — a running toilet, loose hardware, a cracked outlet cover, drywall dings — gets fixed first so paint goes over a clean surface.
- Day 2–4: Paint. Touch-up or full repaint, depending on wear. This is the step that most determines how the unit photographs and shows.
- Day 4–5: Fixtures, cleaning, re-key. Worn faucets, blinds, and light fixtures swapped; deep clean; locks re-keyed for the incoming tenant.
A light turn can close in 1–2 days. A standard turn with paint and several repairs runs 3–5 days. A full refresh with flooring or larger repairs can run one to two weeks. See our full make-ready cost breakdown for what each tier typically runs.
Where the timeline actually breaks
It's rarely the work — it's the wait. A painter who can't start until next week, a handyman who no-shows, a cleaner booked separately who needs the paint dry first. Every handoff between separate contractors adds a buffer day, and those buffer days are the vacancy cost landlords actually feel.
How to compress it
Run the whole turn as one scope with one team — inspection, repairs, paint, fixtures, cleaning, and re-key coordinated together instead of stacked handoffs. Landlords turning units regularly use a PSB Pro membership to get turnover jobs prioritized ahead of the queue, which is often the difference between a 3-day turn and a 10-day one.
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