How Much Does Exterior Repainting Cost for a Multi-Unit Apartment Building
You walk the property on a Tuesday morning before the contractor meeting. The east-facing wing still looks fine. The south-facing wing is a different building entirely — body paint chalky enough to leave a print on your sleeve, trim above unit 14's patio door lifted in strips, breezeway ceiling on building C with water staining you don't remember seeing last spring. The complex was repainted seven years ago. The board wants a number by Thursday.
The lowest bid will come in around $42,000. The highest somewhere north of $90,000. Both painters walk the same 24 units.
That gap isn't markup. It's scope, height, and what each painter actually counted.
What a multi-unit exterior repaint costs by building size in 2026
For most U.S. multi-family properties in 2026, an exterior repaint with body, trim, soffit, fascia, doors, and stairwells included lands in a predictable band by unit count and story height. The numbers below assume garden-style or low-rise construction, mid-grade commercial exterior paint, occupied units with reasonable tenant coordination, and standard crew-spray-and-brush application.
| Building size | 2026 exterior repaint cost | Cost per unit | Rough crew time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4–8 unit walkup (1 story) | $8,000 – $25,000 | $1,000 – $3,000 | 5 – 10 days |
| 12-unit garden-style (2 story) | $18,000 – $45,000 | $1,500 – $3,500 | 10 – 18 days |
| 24-unit garden-style (2 story) | $35,000 – $85,000 | $1,400 – $3,500 | 18 – 30 days |
| 40-unit complex (2–3 story) | $60,000 – $140,000 | $1,500 – $3,500 | 30 – 50 days |
| 80-unit complex (3 story walkup) | $120,000 – $260,000 | $1,500 – $3,200 | 50 – 80 days |
| 150-unit complex (3 story, multi-building) | $200,000 – $450,000+ | $1,300 – $3,000 | 80 – 130 days |
The low end of each row is a same-color refresh on a building in good condition with smooth siding, modest trim count, and reasonable access on all four elevations. The high end is the version with peeling south walls, second- and third-story balcony work, a color change, full trim and door repaints on every unit, and a property layout that forces crews to break the job into multiple buildings or wings.
Per-unit cost flattens as buildings get larger because mobilization, equipment, and crew transit spread across more square footage. A 100-unit complex pays mobilization once and amortizes it across the whole property.
Why per-unit cost is the wrong number to lead with
Property owners and asset managers often ask for the per-unit number first because it travels well across portfolios. That's understandable, but it hides the variable that actually moves the bid: building footprint and wall surface relative to unit count.
A 24-unit garden-style complex with two-bedroom units arranged in long two-story buildings carries roughly 28,000 to 35,000 square feet of paintable exterior. A 24-unit townhouse-style property with the same unit count but each unit running three stories carries 38,000 to 50,000 square feet of paintable wall, plus tall gables, more trim per unit, and access challenges above 20 feet. Same unit count. Almost twice the exterior surface to paint. Same per-square-foot rate from the painter. A 70 percent spread in the final bid.
The number to ask for is dollars per square foot of paintable exterior wall area, broken out by what's in scope. That's the number that lets you compare bids fairly across building types.
Building type changes the math more than unit count
| Building type | Relative cost per unit | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Single-story walkup (4–8 units) | 0.8 – 1.0× baseline | Ladder access, smaller wall area per unit, simple masking |
| 2-story garden-style (12–40 units) | 1.0× (baseline) | Standard ladders, manageable scaffolding at gables only |
| 3-story walkup (40–100 units) | 1.2 – 1.5× | Scaffolding or boom lift needed on top floor; longer setup |
| 3-story townhouse-style | 1.4 – 1.8× | Tall narrow gables, more trim per unit, second-story doors |
| Mid-rise (4+ stories) | 1.8 – 2.5×+ | Swing stages, certified high-work crew, permitting, longer hold times |
A 3-story walkup exterior repaint isn't more expensive because the building is taller. It's more expensive because the third floor needs scaffolding or a boom lift, the crew moves slower at height, mobilization happens twice — once at grade, once aloft — and production above 20 feet runs roughly 60 percent of what it does on the first floor. Same painter. Same product. Different work.
Mid-rise buildings are a different category entirely. Once a property crosses four stories, scaffolding becomes swing stages, certified high-work crews are required, and the city typically requires staging permits. A 60-unit mid-rise can cost twice as much per unit as a 60-unit two-story garden-style complex sitting on the same lot footprint.
Substrate is the next biggest swing
After height, the next biggest variable is what the building is wrapped in. Substrate decides how much paint the wall drinks, how fast the crew moves, and what product the topcoat has to be.
| Substrate | Relative cost | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Vinyl siding | 0.8 – 0.9× | Smooth, fast washing, minimal prep |
| Wood lap siding | 1.0× (baseline) | Standard sanding, spot priming, caulking |
| Fiber cement (Hardie board) | 0.9 – 1.1× | Smooth, factory-primed; easy if undamaged |
| Stucco | 1.1 – 1.4× | Texture eats paint; cracks need patching; elastomeric topcoat |
| Painted brick | 1.0 – 1.3× | Mortar lines are slow; brick drinks paint |
| T1-11 plywood siding | 1.0 – 1.2× | Sealant in grooves slows the crew |
| Mixed substrates on one building | 1.1 – 1.3× | Multiple paint products; crew changes brushes and rollers between sections |
Mixed substrates are common on multi-family buildings — stucco on lower floors, wood lap on the second story, fiber-cement around windows, T1-11 in breezeways. Every substrate change is a paint-product change and a small loss of crew rhythm.
Stucco repaints almost always call for an elastomeric topcoat at $50 to $80 per gallon versus $40 to $60 for standard exterior latex, and hairline cracks at corners or window heads need a bridging coat first. On a 40-unit stucco property, the elastomeric upcharge alone adds $4,000 to $7,000.
What a multi-unit bid should actually include
"Exterior repaint" means different things to different commercial painters, and the gap between a body-only bid and a true full-scope bid can be 40 to 60 percent on the same building.
| Scope item | What it covers | Typical share of total |
|---|---|---|
| Body (siding, stucco, main walls) | All four elevations, all stories | 45 – 55% |
| Trim, fascia, soffit, window casings | Trim boards, eaves, soffit, around windows | 15 – 25% |
| Unit doors and entries | Front doors, balcony slider frames, garage doors | 8 – 12% |
| Stairwells, breezeways, balcony soffits | Interior-feeling exterior surfaces between units | 5 – 12% |
| Power wash and prep | Pre-paint wash, blow-down, caulking, mildew treatment | 5 – 10% |
| Wood repair, carpentry, fascia replacement | Soft fascia, rotted trim, damaged balcony posts | Variable, often a change order |
Stairwells and breezeways are the line item most often missed in a fast bid. They're technically interior-feeling spaces, but they sit exposed to weather and take heavy foot traffic — they need a paint product rated for that environment, not standard exterior latex. A complex with open-air breezeways on every floor carries hundreds of square feet of soffit, wall, and ceiling that a satellite-photo bid will simply skip.
Unit doors are another quiet swing. A 40-unit garden-style complex has 40 front doors, 40 patio doors or balcony slider frames, and often 20 to 40 storage and utility doors. Each one is hand-brushed and takes two coats with sanding between. At 80 doors and an hour each, that's two crew-weeks of work a body-only bid leaves out.
Where multi-unit repaints differ from single-family work
A multi-unit repaint isn't just a bigger single-family job. The bid has to account for things that don't show up on a house repaint.
Tenant coordination eats schedule time. Residents need 48 to 72 hours of notice before a crew works on their balcony or patio, plants and furniture have to be moved, and any unit with a pet on the balcony has to be sequenced around. None of this changes the per-square-foot rate, but it can stretch a 30-day job to 45 days, and slow days cost the painter the same as fast ones.
Occupied buildings also limit work hours. Power washing at 7:00 a.m. wakes residents up. Spraying on a windy day risks overspray on tenant cars. Most multi-family painters work 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. on occupied properties, and lose some of those hours to weather and access negotiation.
Color committee or board approval can add weeks to the project start. On HOA-managed condo properties and many institutionally owned complexes, the color choice has to go through a board vote, often with a mock-up panel painted on an inconspicuous wall and signed off first. Plan four to eight weeks for color approval on any property with a board.
Balcony railings are their own line item. Painted railings on a three-story building need 30 to 60 minutes per linear foot for prep, prime, and topcoat. A 40-unit complex with 12 linear feet of railing per unit carries 480 linear feet of railing — a full week of crew time that has nothing to do with body paint.
Permits and insurance get stricter above three stories. Most cities require a building permit for exterior work above three stories, and the painter's coverage has to match the building's height class. A painter without the right coverage either skips the permit (and the owner inherits the risk) or has to subcontract the high work to a certified crew, which adds 10 to 20 percent.
FAQs
Most commercial painters quote per square foot of paintable wall area, then translate that into a building total. Per-unit numbers are useful for portfolio budgeting but hide the building-type variable. Ask each painter for the dollars-per-square-foot rate and the total square footage they measured. If two painters disagree on square footage by more than 10 percent, one is missing trim, soffit, or stairwell area.
No. Painters work around occupied units with 48 to 72 hours of advance notice per unit, and crews sequence work so any given balcony or patio area is closed off for one to three days while paint applies and cures. Residents stay in place. The schedule extends because of coordination, not because units have to be empty.
A 24-unit garden-style two-story complex with standard substrate and reasonable condition runs three to six weeks of crew time. The same property in poor condition with heavy scraping, color change, and full trim and door work can stretch to eight or ten weeks. Three-story walkups add another 30 to 50 percent. Mid-rise properties run two to four months.
Commercial-grade exterior paint carries more binder solids, stronger UV stabilizers, and stronger mildewcides. It costs $50 to $70 per gallon versus $40 to $60 for residential-grade, but stretches the repaint cycle from six or seven years to nine or ten on a high-sun elevation. On a 40-unit property the upgrade adds roughly $3,000 to $5,000 to the bid and delays the next repaint by two to three years.
Three reasons stack up. Scaffolding above three stories switches from ladders and boom lifts to swing stages, which rent at four to six times the day rate. Certified high-work crews carry higher labor rates than ground-level painters. And cities require permits and stamped engineering for any scaffolding above three stories. A mid-rise repaint can cost 80 to 150 percent more per unit than the same units in a 2-story garden-style layout.
Yes, on most properties. Painted railings and breezeway interiors are exterior surfaces exposed to weather and traffic — skipping them on the main repaint cycle leaves the property looking half-done for seven years. They should appear as separate line items so you can see what's included. If a bid doesn't break them out, ask — it's the most common scope gap in commercial multi-unit work.
Reading a multi-unit bid by line item beats reading it by total
The bid worth choosing is the one where the line items reflect what the painter actually saw when they walked the property. Body wall area by building. Trim linear footage by elevation. Stairwells and breezeways called out separately. Door count per building. A note about which paint and finish goes on each substrate. A clear protocol for tenant notice. A list of what triggers a change order — soft wood behind a downspout, water damage at a corner detail, balcony posts that need replacement before paint goes on.
A bid that throws one number at "full exterior repaint" leaves a property manager guessing what the painter included and what they'll claim wasn't in scope when the crew gets to building six. The painter you want is the one who walked every elevation, climbed enough ladders to check each soffit, counted the doors, looked at the trim around every window, and gave you a number that reflects what they saw. The bid that came in lowest without that walk is usually the bid that grows on installation week.
