Guide
The turnkey make-ready guide for manufactured housing communities
What belongs in a standard make-ready scope, what actually drives the day count, where turn times go wrong, and how to price turns so they compare across communities.
Make-ready is the line that repeats forever
Every vacancy in every community, indefinitely. That changes what matters about it.
The things that make a make-ready programme good are not craft. They are predictability, comparability and evidence — because a turn that is brilliant but unpredictable is worse for a lease-up plan than one that is adequate and reliable.
This guide is about getting those three.
The standard scope
A make-ready should be a written list. If it is a judgement call, it means something different in every community and every month, and none of your numbers compare.
| Demolition and haul-off | What is failing comes out. Debris leaves with the crew, never staged at the lot line. |
|---|---|
| Subfloor | Repaired where sounding finds soft deck — priced by area actually replaced |
| Flooring | Full replacement, community-standard spec |
| Walls | VOG panel replacement or drywall repair, textured to match |
| Paint | Community-standard colour and sheen throughout |
| Kitchen and bath | Refresh per component against a written condition standard |
| Fixtures and hardware | Replaced, not cleaned. These are consumables on a turn. |
| Exterior | Skirting repair, entry door and lockset, steps and landing check |
| Clean | Documented, to a written standard |
What is deliberately NOT in it: belly wrap, roof work, full deck replacement, leveling and anchoring, abatement, appliances. All of those are real work that some homes need — and pricing them inside a standard turn is exactly how a make-ready budget becomes a remodel budget without anyone deciding to spend the money.
Where turn times actually go
Not craft speed. Two things.
Undiscovered condition
A home whose floor system is failing throughout, or whose walls are past matching, is a remodel wearing a make-ready's clothes. Running it through the turn schedule produces a turn that takes three times as long and a unit that comes back.
The fix is a walk that assigns the right scope before the unit enters the schedule, not a crew discovering it on day two.
Long-lead items
A manufactured-home-sized tub. A cabinet run. A door that is not a stock width.
These are ordered at scope approval, not when the room is ready for them. That single change is usually the difference between a five-day turn and a fifteen-day one, and it costs nothing.
Variance beats the average
The number worth negotiating on a turn programme is not the mean day count. It is the spread.
A programme where every turn lands in a five-to-seven day window lets you build a lease-up plan. A programme averaging six days across a two-to-fifteen range does not, even though the average is identical — because you cannot commit a unit to a prospective tenant on an average.
Variance comes almost entirely from the two causes above. Address those and the spread collapses.
Pricing so the numbers compare
Per unit, by unit type and turn depth, as itemized line items.
- Not hourly. Hourly gives you no basis for comparing communities and no alignment on speed.
- Not one blended per-unit number. A blended figure hides which scope line drives a cost difference between two markets, and that is the line you need to act on.
An itemized quote is a small ask that changes what your data can tell you. Our published structure is at scopes and unit pricing.
Documentation at milestones
Photographs at defined points — pre-work, post-demolition, post-rough-in where applicable, and completion. Not a completion shot.
The value is not the record. It is that a regional manager who never visits the community can approve the work, which is the mechanism that lets an operator run communities they do not personally walk. It is also the difference between evidence and two recollections when a question comes up six months later.
A turn checklist worth stealing
Walk before scheduling
Assign the right scope. Flag the homes that are remodels. Look underneath — belly, piers, drainage.
Order long-lead at approval
Tubs, cabinets, non-stock doors. Not when the room is ready.
Belly before floor
Every time. Closing a belly after the floor is in means doing the floor twice.
One spec per community
One flooring product, one paint colour, one hardware finish. Future touch-ups become an hour instead of a day.
Photograph at milestones
Not at the end. The record is what makes remote approval possible.
Close against a written punch
Walked with the community manager. Disagreements happen while a crew is still on site.