The email looks like a gift: a property manager wants a quote for Christmas lights on 44 townhomes. Then you open your pricing sheet, built for one house at a time, and realize you have no idea whether to multiply by 44, discount by half, or run. Most installers guess wrong in one of two directions—they price it like 44 separate houses and lose the board's attention in one meeting, or they slash so deep the job eats December for single-house money.
I've been installing Christmas lights professionally since 2014, and multi-family work is where I've watched the most money get left on the table in our 43,000-member installer community. The fix is a different bid structure, not a different price per foot.
What Makes Multi-Family Bids Different From Single-Home Bids?
A single-family bid is one decision-maker, one roofline, one measurement session. A townhome row is the opposite: dozens of nearly identical rooflines behind one gate, and either one signer (the HOA or property manager) or forty separate ones (the homeowners). Your cost structure changes completely—one mobilization, one trailer position, ladders that move twenty feet between jobs instead of twenty minutes. That efficiency is your margin, and it's why this work is closer to commercial bidding than residential, even though every roof is a house.
The rooflines themselves are easier than they look. Most townhome fronts are 25–40 linear feet with at most one small peak, all C9 LED at 12" or 15" spacing on enclosed Tuff Clips—the same spec you run on a standard roofline install. What's genuinely different is who pays and how you price the repetition.
Who Pays: The HOA or the Homeowner?
Every multi-family bid is one of two billing models, and you need to know which one you're quoting before you talk numbers.
| Model | Master contract (HOA pays) | Opt-in (each owner pays) |
|---|---|---|
| Who signs | Board or property manager, one contract | Each participating homeowner |
| What's covered | Every unit plus common areas, uniform look | Only doors that say yes, entrance often HOA-funded |
| Pricing | Per-unit rate × all units, one invoice | Group rate honored above a participation floor |
| Risk | Low—guaranteed volume | Patchy participation, dark doors mid-row |
| Renewal | One decision renews the whole street | Door-by-door, feeds your renewal system |
The master contract is the prize. One signature, one invoice, one renewal conversation next August. If you're pitching a board, my HOA sales playbook walks through the meeting itself—this article is the math you bring into that room.
How Do You Price a Townhome Unit?
Your per-foot rate does not change. Roofline runs $8–$12 per linear foot—peaks and dormers included at the same rate—exactly like any residential bid. What changes is that you only measure once per unit type.
- Walk one of each unit type. Most communities have two or three floor plans—call them A (interior), B (end cap), C (corner). Measure one of each.
- Price each type at your normal rate. Type A at 40 linear feet lands at $397. Type B end cap with a wrapped side elevation at 60 feet lands at $547. Quotes end in 7—it reads like a calculated number, because it is.
- Count doors per type. The site plan or the property manager gives you this in one email. No more measuring.
- Set your participation floor before you publish a group rate. On opt-in jobs, the per-unit rate only holds above roughly 60% participation. Below that, you're doing scattered singles and should quote them as singles—packages start at $1,200.
- Bid the common areas separately. Entrance monuments, clubhouse, and community trees are their own line, priced like any commercial front.
Here's the worked example. A 44-door community, 24 interior units opted in at $397 and 7 end caps at $547: that's $13,357 in unit work. The entrance package—two 10-ft trees wrapped at $30–$60 per foot of height, 18 feet of garland on the monument, and a pair of 36" wreaths at $150–$225 installed—came to $1,447 more. One contract, $14,807, from a single afternoon of measuring. Takedown is included in those numbers, because takedown is always included—that's the red-carpet service that makes renewals automatic. Deposit is 30–50% and it secures their install dates.
Why does a $397 unit make sense when a single-family package starts at $1,200? Because it's a different product. On a one-off house, you're paying for a truck roll, a site visit, a quote, and a full setup for one customer. On a master contract, the crew sets up once and the ladder slides down the row—your cost per door collapses, so the rate can too, without touching your per-foot margin. That's not a discount. It's a master-contract rate, and I'd say those exact words to the board.
What About Trees, Wreaths, and Common Areas?
Common areas are where multi-family tickets grow. The entrance is the whole community's first impression every night of December, and boards know it. Trees wrap at $30–$60 per foot of tree height—a 10-ft entrance evergreen is $300–$600, priced the same way you'd quote any tree wrap. Garland runs $15–$20 per foot, and on commercial-scale runs past 100 feet you can work at $12–$15. Wreaths install at the same price on any surface—$75–$125 for a 24", up to $400–$800 for a 60" jumbo, and a clubhouse gable is exactly where a 60" jumbo wreath earns its keep. Shrub beds along the entrance take mini strings at $40–$75 per strand, two to four strands per bush—never net lights—same as any bush and shrub bid.
Stock-wise, this is repeatable-spec work: same bulb color, same spacing, same clips across every door. Pre-bulb and pre-clip your strands at the shop and stage per unit type. A pro light kit per unit type plus C9 LED spools for the customs covers the whole community, and the Christmas light calculator turns your unit-type measurements into an order list in minutes.
Sell the Whole-Street Magic, Not the Linear Feet
When you present to a board, don't open with unit counts. Open with what the community feels like in December: grandparents pulling through a lit entrance with the grandkids in the back seat, every roofline glowing in the same warm white, the one street in town people drive through on Christmas Eve with hot chocolate in the cupholders. That's what the board is actually buying—a magical December their residents brag about—and the unit math sits underneath it as proof you can deliver.
Two tactics move these deals. First, an AI mock-up of their entrance and their row lit up—mock-ups dramatically lift close rates on every job type, and a board looking at its own street says yes faster than a board looking at a spreadsheet. Second, speed: get the proposal out the same day, within the hour if you can, because speed to lead is still the number-one win-rate factor even when the lead is a board president. Build the numbers into a proposal that closes, not a bare price list.
And once the community is yours, it's yours in a way no single house can match. One contract renews forty doors, the opt-in holdouts watch the row light up and join next year, and the surrounding streets see it too—a lit community is the strongest route-density anchor you can own. Staff it right with a trained crew and a townhome row becomes the most profitable day on your December calendar. If you're building toward this kind of account work from scratch, the business starter pack lays out the whole foundation.
Next step: the numbers win the bid, but the board meeting wins the contract—read the HOA sales playbook before you pitch, because boards approving budgets right now are deciding who lights their community this December.
Related Guides
- How to Sell Christmas Lights to HOAs
- How to Bid Commercial Christmas Light Jobs
- Commercial vs Residential Christmas Lights
- The Route Density Playbook
- How to Create a Proposal That Closes
Frequently Asked Questions
Should you discount Christmas lights for multi-family volume?
No—and don't use that word with the board. A master-contract rate is lower per door than a one-off house because your mobilization cost collapses, not because you cut margin. Your per-foot rate stays at $8–$12; the savings you pass through are real efficiency, so the job stays profitable at scale.
What participation rate should you require before honoring a group rate?
Around 60% of doors. Below that, the crew is skipping units and dragging gear past dark doors, and the efficiency that justified the rate is gone. Publish the floor up front: "the community rate holds at 27 of 44 doors or better." It also gives residents a reason to recruit their neighbors for you.
How do you handle the units that don't opt in?
Leave them clean and leave them alone—never pressure a holdout. Their quote is the standard single-home rate if they call later in the season, and many do once the row lights up around them. Next August, they're the warmest leads on your renewal list.
How do you invoice a multi-family Christmas light job?
Match the billing model. Master contract: one invoice to the association, 30–50% deposit that secures the community's install dates, balance on completion. Opt-in: each homeowner signs and pays individually at the group rate, which keeps the HOA out of the money and you out of their bookkeeping.
When should you pitch HOAs and property managers?
Spring through mid-summer. Boards shop April through June and approve budgets in July and August—so an August conversation can still land this season, and a September one is planting next year's contract. Show up with unit-type pricing and a mock-up, and you'll usually be the only bidder who did.
About the author: Jason Geiman has installed Christmas lights professionally since 2014 and founded ChristmasLightsHQ, the #1 supply resource for professional installers. He leads a 43,000+ member installer community where contractors share real bid numbers from the field.