Between tenants "best practice" ideas?

[Jim Baum]

Hello,

I've managed to acquire a few properties over the course of a year, and I'm now faced with my first turnover/vacancy. Would you mind commenting on some of the ways to minimize expenditures and other 'best practices (to do / not to do)? Here are two things that come to my mind:

1) Make-ready - avoid this cost by having current tenant deliver/clean carpets to their move-in condition. Else deduct from security deposit. This is assuming that there are no damage and the deposit will cover it if there is damage.

2) Utilities - ask tenant to extend until new tenant, or simply have property with utilities turned off until new tenant. Not sure if either of these are good ideas, but getting temporary utility seems costly with all the fees they want.

3) Any other suggestions?

Thanks in advance,

Jim