The Complete Guide to Apartment Turnover in NYC

Apartment turnover is everything that happens to a unit between one tenant moving out and the next one moving in: inspection, cleanup, repairs, paint, cleaning, and access changes, finished with a walkthrough confirming the unit is rent-ready.

The term covers both the physical work and the coordination behind it. A light turnover might be a deep clean and a few paint touch-ups. A heavy one can involve debris removal, a full repaint, hardware replacement, caulking, and outside trades for anything licensed. The scope is set by the unit, not by a standard package.

You will also hear "make-ready" used for the same job. The words overlap, and some teams use make-ready for the final preparation stage only. The apartment turnover vs. make-ready guide explains how most NYC owners and managers use each term.

Someone walks the empty unit, records its condition with photos, and turns what they find into a written scope of work. Only then does the hands-on work start, in a set order.

In practice, the first few days after move-out decide how long the whole turnover takes. Keys need to come back or the super needs to provide access. The unit needs to be inspected before anything is touched, so there is a record of how it was left. Then the work gets scheduled, and in many managed buildings that means booking the service elevator and confirming vendors meet the managing agent requirements, such as a certificate of insurance (COI) on file.

Owners who wait until move-out day to think about any of this usually lose days to scheduling alone. Lining up the inspection and a tentative scope before the tenant leaves is one of the simplest ways to reduce apartment turnover time.

Start with anything that affects safety, water, or the rest of the schedule: leaks, damage that needs a licensed trade, broken locks, and items left behind. Cosmetic condition comes after.

A practical order for the move-out inspection:

1. Entry and locks. Does the door close and lock properly? Have all keys come back?
2. Water. Look under the kitchen and bathroom sinks, around the toilet base, at tub caulk, and at ceilings below bathrooms for stains.
3. Anything that needs a licensed trade. Dead outlets, scorched covers, gas smell, leaking supply lines, radiator valves that hiss or drip. These go to the right licensed contractor and can set the timeline.
4. Items and debris left behind. Furniture, bags, and boxes block every other trade and need to go first.
5. Walls and ceilings. Holes, dings, cracks in prewar plaster, water marks, smoke or heavy wear that means a full repaint instead of touch-ups.
6. Kitchen and bath condition. Inside the oven, refrigerator, and cabinets; tile, grout, and fixtures in the bathroom.
7. Floors, doors, windows. Scratches and stains, doors that stick, window guards and sills, closet doors off their tracks.

For a room-by-room version you can print, see the NYC landlord move-out inspection checklist.

Almost everything a new tenant will touch or open: kitchen counters and cabinets inside and out, appliance interiors and exteriors, the full bathroom, floors, baseboards, doors, interior windows and sills, closets, and light fixtures.

Turnover cleaning is more thorough than routine cleaning because the next tenant will open every drawer. The areas most often missed are the inside of the oven and refrigerator, the tops of kitchen cabinets, the track of the tub surround, window sills facing the street, and the inside of closets. Older baths with original tile need extra time on grout.

Cleaning should come last in the sequence, after painting and repairs, so dust and paint drips do not have to be cleaned twice. The guide to apartment cleaning between tenants goes room by room.

Touch-ups are usually enough when walls are clean and the existing color is known. A full room or full unit repaint makes sense when there is heavy wear, smoke or grease film, many patched areas, or a color change.

A few signs that touch-ups will not work: the original paint is unknown or has faded, so fresh patches flash against the old finish; walls have marks from furniture and hands across large areas; or the last tenant painted an accent wall. Trim, doors, and closet interiors often need attention even when walls do not.

Painting always follows patching. Nail holes, dings, and minor cracks are filled and sanded first, then primed where needed so the patch does not show through. The guide to painting an apartment between tenants covers sheen, color, and prewar plaster in more detail.

Loose or worn hardware, cracked outlet and switch covers, doors and cabinet drawers that stick or sag, failed caulk at the tub, sink, and counter, and burned-out or broken light fixtures.

These are handyman-level items that can be fixed as part of the turnover when they are listed in the approved scope. Bigger issues are different. Plumbing beyond a simple fixture swap, electrical work, gas, appliance repair or replacement, floor refinishing, and pest control usually need a separate licensed contractor or specialist. At Empire Turnover those are discussed case by case during the quote and only included when confirmed in writing.

Finding licensed-trade issues early matters more than fixing them fast. A leak discovered after the walls are painted can mean opening and repainting the same wall.

Most owners and managers change or rekey the unit lock at every turnover, because there is no reliable way to know how many copies of the old key exist.

Rekeying keeps the existing hardware and changes the pins, which is often enough. A full lock change makes sense when the hardware is worn, the cylinder is damaged, or the building is standardizing hardware. Either way, schedule it near the end of the turnover so the people doing the work are not locked out, and record who holds the new keys. Building-specific rules, such as a master key system or a required lock type, should be confirmed with the managing agent or super.

Take dated photos of every room at move-out and again when the work is finished, from the same angles, including the inside of appliances, cabinets, and closets.

Good documentation is simple and consistent. Shoot each room from the doorway, then close-ups of anything damaged. Write a short note per room. Keep the before set, the written scope, and the after set together for each unit. That record helps you compare quotes, confirm the work was completed, and answer questions later.

Empire Turnover delivers before-and-after photos to the owner or manager at the end of each job. Managers who turn many units often use those sets as a standard record, which is part of standardizing apartment turnovers.

Inspect, define the scope, clear the unit, repair and patch, paint, clean, walk through, and hand off. Each step protects the work done before it.

Lock changes usually fit at stage 7 or 8. Licensed trades should be scheduled around stage 4 so their work is done before patching and paint.

It depends on scope, condition, access, and availability. A lightly used unit that only needs cleaning and touch-ups is usually much quicker than one that needs debris removal, a full repaint, and repairs.

There is no honest fixed number. Paint and patch compound need drying time that cannot be rushed, special-order parts take as long as they take, and building rules can limit which days work happens. Faster timelines, such as next-day or two-day, may be possible for some jobs, subject to availability and project scope. The guide to how long an apartment turnover takes breaks this down stage by stage.

The biggest factors are how much work the unit needs, how quickly access is arranged, whether licensed trades are involved, and how many separate vendors have to hand off to each other.

• Condition and scope. Full repaints, heavy cleaning, and many repairs add time.
• Access. Keys, lockbox codes, super availability, and elevator reservations.
• Building rules. Many co-ops, condos, and managed buildings limit work to weekday daytime hours and require a COI before vendors start.
• Walk-ups and logistics. Narrow stairs and street loading make debris removal slower in brownstones and walk-ups.
• Drying and cure time. Patch compound and paint have to dry per the product label before the next step.
• Parts. Matching an older fixture or hardware finish can mean ordering.
• Scope changes. Issues found mid-job, like a hidden leak, reset the schedule.

Several of the same factors drive price. See how much an apartment turnover costs in NYC for how they show up in a quote.

Separate vendors can work well for owners who have reliable trades and time to coordinate them. One turnover company tends to work better when the owner or manager wants a single point of contact and fewer gaps between steps.

With separate vendors, the owner books the cleaner, painter, and handyman, sequences them, and checks each one. The common problem is not the quality of any single trade, it is the time between them: the painter cannot start until debris is gone, and the cleaner has to wait for paint to dry. When one vendor runs late, everyone behind them moves.

A consolidated turnover vendor handles the sequence, the access, and the final check. The tradeoff is less direct control over each individual trade. For a balanced comparison, read one turnover company vs. multiple vendors.

It varies by building. Some owners self-manage and hire separate vendors, some rely on a super or in-house maintenance staff, and some hire a turnover company to run the whole process.

Small-building and brownstone owners often handle turnovers themselves with a cleaner and painter they trust. Larger managed buildings may have in-house staff for repairs and bring in outside help for cleaning and paint when several units turn at once. Property managers covering many owners often prefer one vendor per unit so the process looks the same everywhere.

Empire Turnover provides apartment turnover services in NYC for landlords and property managers in Manhattan and Brooklyn: cleaning, patching and painting, basic repairs, debris removal, lock changes, before-and-after photos, and coordination of the sequence. One call. One team. Turnover ready.

Use the same inspection checklist, scope template, photo standard, and final walkthrough for every unit, and decide in advance what counts as rent-ready.

• Define a written rent-ready standard per building or unit type.
• Keep paint colors, sheens, and hardware finishes on file so touch-ups match.
• Send move-out notices to the turnover vendor as soon as they arrive.
• Keep COIs current with each managing agent so vendors can start without delay.
• Use a punch list at the final walkthrough and require after photos before closing the job.

Teams turning many units across a portfolio can see how this works in practice on the property management turnover services page and in the guide to how property managers can standardize apartment turnovers.

For a fuller printable version, use the apartment turnover checklist for NYC landlords. If the unit is already clean and only needs final preparation, the apartment make-ready service may be the better fit, and the guide on how to prepare an NYC apartment for a new tenant covers the last steps before move-in.