The Cheapest Turn Is the One You Don't Need: A Pre-Renewal Fix List

360 turns more than 300 units a month. So this may sound odd coming from us: the cheapest turn is the one you never have to do.

It matters most right now. Renewal offers for January, February and March expirations are going out, and every "no" lands in the slowest part of the leasing year.

What a winter move-out costs

Take a hypothetical resident paying $1,500 a month. Each day that apartment sits empty costs about $50 in rent.

Fewer people move in winter. About 45% of U.S. moves happen May through August, according to HireAHelper, so an apartment that opens up in January can wait longer for the right applicant. Say it sits 20 days: that's $1,000.

Then comes the concession to fill it. In September, 31.3% of U.S. apartment properties advertised a deal worth at least a month's rent, up from 25.4% a year earlier, according to Apartment List. Austin led the 50 cities it tracks at 57.4%, with San Antonio close behind at 56.8%. Match the market, and that's another $1,500.

That's about $2,500 before anyone prices the turn itself. Run the same math with your own rent, vacant days and concessions.

Why residents say no

In Zego's 2026 Resident Experience Management Report, renters ranked rent as their top reason for not renewing a lease. Poor maintenance service came second.

The market sets the rent. Maintenance is in your hands. A resident who has asked three times about the same dripping faucet has already told you how they'll answer the renewal offer. So has the one still living with the stained carpet they moved in with, or the bathroom fan that has rattled since spring.

The pre-renewal fix list

Work through it 60 to 90 days before each expiration.

1. Cross the lists. Pull every lease expiring in the first quarter and match it against open work orders and repeat requests from the past year. Flag the residents you most want to keep: long-tenure households, on-time payers, the neighbors nobody complains about.

2. Fix first, offer second. Close the open items before the offer goes out: the slow drain, the sticking door, the stained carpet. An offer that arrives while a ticket is still open reads very differently.

3. Offer a refresh, not just a discount. For residents you want to keep, price a refresh and compare it with the free rent you would otherwise offer. Unlike a discount, a refresh is something they see every day. (The same logic holds for new leases: unit quality is your cheapest concession.) A refresh might include:

• Professional carpet cleaning

• Touch-up paint on scuffed walls and trim

• A deep clean of the kitchen and bathrooms

• The small fixes residents have stopped reporting

4. Track it. Log who got a refresh and whether they renewed, then compare that group's renewal rate with your average. For a national benchmark, RealPage data cited by LeaseLock shows 56% of market-rate residents with leases expiring in the first half of 2026 renewed.

Where 360 fits in

360 already cleans carpets in occupied apartments, and we can quote the rest of a refresh per unit, so you know the cost before you make the offer. Every visit is photo-documented in the Customer Portal, so you can see what was done in each apartment without walking it.

For residents who do move out, the turn is still one call to 360. But the best renewal season is the one that sends us fewer turns.

Send us your first-quarter list

Pull your January to March expirations this week and mark the apartments that need a refresh. Send that list to your 360 account manager for a per-unit quote. New to 360? Call 1-833-360-RENO (7366) or use the chat at 360ApartmentRenovations.com.