How to bid apartment complexes for house cleaning is our topic on today’s #Askahousecleaner.
Pricing apartment complexes is not as simple as doing walkthroughs and leaving a bid packet. Cleaning job proposals depend on a variety of factors. Are you doing building maintenance or move-in move-out cleanings?
And are they condominium cleanings or is this a high-rise apartment cleaning?
Today’s sponsors are Savvy Cleaner Training for House Cleaners and Maids. And we recommend Clean Bid from Clean Guru.
Listen: How to Bid Apartment Complexes
Watch: How to Bid Apartment Complexes
Hey there, I’m Angela Brown, and this is Ask a House Cleaner. This is a show where you get to ask a house cleaning question, and I get to help you find an answer. You can find this and 400 other answered questions in this series on our YouTube channel.
How do you bid cleaning jobs for apartment complexes?
This is a trick question because what does the apartment look like? There are different types of apartments. There are different types of jobs.
Some apartments have lots of hallways, stairwells, elevators, and public restrooms. You will be bidding on all these.
It is unusual that the apartment would also provide interior cleaning for the tenants.
Move-in Move-Out Cleans
Move-in Move-Out cleans are when you clean between tenants. But not all apartments will have you do this work. They may outsource it and just have you do the building maintenance.
Make sure you clarify with the property or hiring manager the scope of the job.
Find out what worked for them in the past and what didn’t work. Something didn’t work or they wouldn’t be calling you now about this job.
How Many People Will You Need for the Job?
So, what did the job involve before? And then figure out is it too much for one person to do. Do you have a team? Are you going to be cleaning every day? Or will you be cleaning once a week?
Are you going to be cleaning once a month or are you only coming in to do those tenant turns when people move out?
What do you need to do to complete the job and what do they pay?
Find Out the Budget
And before you give them a price of any kind, find out what they paid in the past. Maybe the previous person left because the pay was too low.
And so, you have to figure out how much is this project going to pay? How long is it going to take to do it? How many cleaning supplies, how many people? There are a lot of variables that we don’t know, and you need to know that going in before you place your bid.
Now, if you’re not familiar with how to price this type of job, check out CleanBid by Clean Guru.
Clean Bid by Clean Guru
a cleaning estimator software that walks you through every variable of a job like this. And it’s great for commercial and residential work.
Apartment complexes fall under the category of commercial work.
Are you bidding on the interior and exterior or interior only?
Are you expected to clean the entryways that just have a cement floor?
Who does the parking lot? Does that fall under your job or is that classified as landscaping? And so, there are a bunch of variables that you have to figure out before you even accept the job.
Once you know the scope of the job you can give a fair price. CleanBid factors in all those things. It also factors in how long each area should take to clean.
Commercial is Unlike Residential Cleaning
Unlike residential cleaning, the apartment complex has a different layout from a home.
Is it a flat floor? Are you taken up and down by an elevator? Are there stairs? Is it three or four stories? Is it a hundred stories?
Every apartment complex is different depending on the city, and size.
So, figure out what the parameters of the job are.
Payment Terms When You Bid Apartment Complexes
Where will you send the bill? What will your payment terms be? Unlike residential cleaning, you don’t get paid on commercial jobs the same day.
Usually, you have 30, 60- and 90-day terms.
And so, you have to determine how long you can go after you clean without getting my money back. And so, these are variables that you want you to be aware of.
If you need money the same day – stay with the residential cleaning.
Not All Jobs Are Equal
In commercial cleaning, you can’t just quote by the square foot. You can’t clean all square footage the same way.
An empty lobby will take less time to clean than bathrooms for example.
Rules for Soliciting Tenants
What are the rules and regulations for soliciting?
Find this out upfront because some complexes don’t allow their maintenance staff to clean for tenants.
If people see you coming and going with vacuums and mops, they might ask if you can clean their individual units. Are you allowed to sell your services to the individual tenants that live there?
And the reason I say that is because a lot of apartment complexes have rules against soliciting. You can clean the building but you do not get to clean the inside of the individual units.
And so, if you ask even to lay flyers, sometimes they’ll say, “Yes, you can leave them with us, we will pass them out.” Then you go back again to do your next cleaning, and they’ve thrown them all out.
Know the Rules and Get a Contract
When you know the rules, it allows you to create a fair contract. You know and the project manager knows what to expect from the job. When payment terms are clear and agreed upon, you can schedule the work and begin.
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