Landlord turnover cleanouts in San Antonio

The short answer

Turnovers price by volume, so the unit size is the starting point.

• Studio or light one-bedroom: 1/4 truck, $241.
• Furnished one-bedroom: 3/8 at $338 or 1/2 at $431.
• Two-bedroom: 5/8 at $513 or 3/4 at $587.
• Three-bedroom house left furnished: full truck, $732, sometimes more.

Labor and disposal are included, the price is agreed before dispatch so it goes cleanly onto a work order, and there is no stair charge, walk-up fee or same-day surcharge.

Handle abandoned property properly first

Before anything gets removed, be sure of your position. Texas law sets out how a landlord must deal with property a tenant has left behind, and the requirements differ depending on how the tenancy ended.

Do not treat a unit that still contains a former tenant's belongings as a simple junk job. Check the current requirements, or take advice, before disposing of anything. That applies to the obvious items and to the ones people overlook: documents, medication, and anything that looks like it has value.

Once you are clear to proceed, photograph the unit before anything moves. Wide shots of every room, plus close-ups of anything damaged. That record is what supports a deposit deduction later, and it takes five minutes.

The San Antonio turnover calendar

Turnovers here are not evenly spread, and knowing the peaks is most of the scheduling problem.

May through August is the heaviest stretch. PCS season moves a large number of families in and out of rentals around Joint Base San Antonio, which means Universal City, Schertz, Cibolo, Converse, Live Oak and Selma on the Randolph side, the Northeast side near Fort Sam, and the Southwest and far West sides near Lackland. Those dates are fixed by orders and nobody can move them.

Late April and May adds student turnover around UTSA, St. Mary's, UIW and the Alamo Colleges, which hits the complexes off Babcock, De Zavala and Culebra all at once.

Every month end, and particularly the first of the month, is its own crunch everywhere else.

If you manage more than a handful of doors, book the summer turnovers ahead rather than the day the keys come back.

What tenants leave, in order of frequency

Consistent enough to plan around.

The mattress is at the top of that list for a reason. It is heavy, nobody wants to move it twice, and it does not fit in a car.

A standard leave-behind: mattress set $143 + sofa $126 + TV $68 = $337, against a 3/8 load at $338. Item pricing wins by a dollar. Add the dresser and it is $337 + $126 = $463, past the $431 half truck, so the load price wins.

Speed is the whole product

For a landlord the cost of a turnover cleanout is not the invoice. It is the days.

A unit that cannot be shown is a unit that is not earning, and in the summer window the applicants are moving through the city on their own fixed dates. A rental in Converse that is not ready on the fifth loses the PCS family who needed it on the fifth, and they do not wait.

So the sequence that works is: keys back, photos, cleanout, then trades. Not trades first. Painters and carpet crews cannot work around a sofa, and having them step over it costs more than removing it did.

Same-day is often available and there is no same-day surcharge, but during May to August availability is the constraint, so book on the handback date rather than after the walkthrough.

Single-family rentals versus complexes

Different jobs, different problems.

Single-family rentals, which are a large share of this market across the South, East and Northeast sides and out through the newer suburbs, come with a garage, a shed and a yard. Budget for all three. The garage is where the previous tenant put everything they did not want to move, and this city's houses have no basement, so it is always the garage. A yard can add a dead patio set at $89 for the table and $30 a chair, a grill at $59 or $71, and sometimes a collapsed above-ground pool at $145.

Garden-style complexes mean exterior stairs, a parking lot rather than a driveway, and a dumpster enclosure that is posted against bulky items. Carry-out from a third floor is included and there is no stair charge. Reserve a space near the stairwell if you can, because a truck parked across the lot adds a long carry to every trip.

Documenting it for the deposit

If you intend to deduct the cost from a deposit, the paperwork has to hold up.

• Photograph before, during and after. Timestamped, wide plus detail.
• Itemize what was removed, not just "cleanout".
• Keep the written quote and the invoice, showing the price was agreed in advance rather than improvised.
• Follow the statutory process for deposit accounting and for abandoned property. Check the current requirements rather than working from memory.

A price that was published and agreed before the truck was dispatched is easier to defend than a number a crew decided on in a parking lot.

Recurring turnovers

If you run a portfolio rather than a single unit, the useful thing about published pricing is that it is predictable. You can budget a one-bedroom turnover at $241 to $431 and a three-bedroom at up to $732 without calling anyone, and you can approve the work without a site visit.

Get the gate codes, unit access and any complex notice requirements into the booking up front. On a repeat basis that is the difference between a turnover that happens on the handback day and one that slips a week into the busiest month of the year.

Frequently asked questions