In student housing, nothing matches the intensity of the annual summer turn. Each summer sees thousands upon thousands of residents move out and new ones move in compressed into a roughly two week period. Your time is limited, on-site teams are under immense pressure, costs can quickly escalate, and offices are inundated with move-out disputes and parent complaints.
While it might seem like summer turn was just yesterday, we’re at the halfway point of the student housing cycle (we know, we can’t believe it either!).
Summer turn is just the tip of the iceberg
While summer will always be “the beast” of student turn season, it’s no longer the only time turns take place during the year.
Many student housing properties now have midyear move-outs in December, which require the same turn process as summer move-outs (albeit in a less pressure-packed, compressed time frame). Those turns typically happen right around Christmas. Preparedness is key to ensuring nothing slips through the cracks.
Many properties also offer short-term leases throughout the year. With short-term leases, there is no set cadence for when residents move out. This means individual turns or cluster turns can happen any time of year.
Tips for tackling turn year-around
Better data = better turns – Whenever a unit turn happens, you likely have a process you follow. What if you could record the data from that process, and access it along with all the data from your previous unit turns? There’d be no more scrambling to create new Excel spreadsheets. No more taking notes on Post-It notes that inevitably get thrown away or combing through email threads to find answers from previous turns. With Turnable, store all of your data in one, easy-to-use location. You’ll be ready to turn any unit at a moment’s notice.
Vendor management – Whether it’s the mad rush of summer turn, or an individual unit, turnover relies heavily on the strength of partnerships with your vendors. Do you know how much volume your vendors can handle? How quickly are they completing their work? With Turnable, you can use historical turn data to better estimate how many vendors you need for each service.
Establish best practices – When you work on smaller-scale turns, you get the chance to focus on internal workflows you might not necessarily have the time to fine-tune during the summer turn. You can take all of the practical, hands-on knowledge you generate throughout the year and apply it to your larger, more complicated turn season. The result? Better managed turns.
Software for more than just summer turn
With peak turn season in the rearview, now is a good time to go back and assess your turn process. Did you stay on budget? Did your vendors show up on-time and complete their work? Were you overstaffed? Understaffed? How are you tracking this? Are you even tracking this?
By utilizing student turn software, like Turnable, the better your data becomes. The better your data, the more effective your prep becomes each year.
With the combination of Turnable and Leonardo247, student housing operators now have one platform for all their maintenance, operations, and turn needs. Learn more.