How long does a full house rekey take?

For a typical California single-family home with 4-6 exterior locks, plan on 45-90 minutes for the rekey itself once the technician is on site. Add 15-30 minutes for the van to reach you. Most appointments wrap up under 2 hours from arrival.

Will the new keys also work in my mailbox or shed?

Only if those locks use a compatible cylinder type and you ask for them to be keyed alike. Most house deadbolts (Schlage, Kwikset, Yale) won't share keys with a mailbox lock or padlock without specific keyway matching. Tell the locksmith on the phone what you want keyed alike and they'll bring the right cylinders.

Should I do this before or after I move in?

Before, if you can — ideally same day as closing. The keys should be invalidated as fast as possible. If you can't be there, ask your realtor or a trusted neighbor to be present so the locksmith can verify proof of address against the closing documents.

Does homeowners insurance care about this?

Some carriers offer small premium discounts for documented re-keying or installing high-security/smart locks at move-in. Worth a 5-minute call to your insurance agent. Either way, save the locksmith invoice — it's also useful if you ever need to make a theft claim later, as evidence of due diligence.

Should you rekey or replace your locks after buying a home?

Should I rekey or replace the locks after buying a home in California?

For most newly-purchased California homes, **rekeying is the right answer** — it's faster, cheaper ($120-$180 for a typical 4-door house in 2026 vs $600-$1,200 for full replacement), and just as secure as long as the existing locks are in good mechanical condition. **Replace** instead if: the existing locks are visibly damaged or grinding, they're cheap big-box-store builder-grade hardware that's never been upgraded, you want to consolidate three different keys into one Schlage/Kwikset SmartKey master key, or you want to upgrade to high-security or smart locks. Either way, do it within 24-48 hours of closing — the previous owner's contractors, cleaners, real-estate agents, and former friends-with-spares all still have working keys, and California title companies don't track key handovers. Call One & Only Locksmith at (888) 492-0666; we cover the LA metro, the Bay Area, and Silicon Valley.

Phone:: (888) 492-0666
Reading time:: 6 min
Last updated:: 2026-05-14
Topic:: new home, rekey, lock change

Call (888) 492-0666

First: yes, you absolutely need to do this

Plenty of newly-minted California homeowners forget about the locks. They shouldn't. By the time you close on a home, copies of the existing keys have realistically been distributed to:

The previous owner and their family
Cleaners, gardeners, pool service, dog walkers
Real estate agents (yours and theirs)
The previous owner's contractors (painters, plumbers, electricians)
The previous owner's parents, siblings, ex-partners, neighbors
Anyone who house-sat in the last decade

None of these people are necessarily bad actors, but you have no chain of custody and no idea how many copies are out there. The first 24-48 hours after closing is the time to invalidate every old key in one $150 visit.

Rekeying: what it actually means

Rekeying changes the internal pin combination of your existing lock cylinder so the old keys don't work anymore, but the lock body, the screws, the strike plate, and the exterior hardware all stay the same. A locksmith pulls the cylinder, swaps the pin stack, cuts you a new key matched to the new combination, and reinstalls. Per cylinder, the labor is 10-20 minutes. A full house with 4-6 doors is usually done in under an hour. Pricing: $20-$30 per cylinder + a $40-$80 service call. A typical 4-door California home rekeys for $120-$180 all in, including 2 new keys. The lock is just as secure after rekeying as before, because security comes from the cylinder mechanism, not the specific pin combination.

Replacing: when it's actually worth it

Lock replacement means buying new exterior hardware and installing it from scratch. It's worth doing in any of these scenarios:

Existing locks are visibly damaged — cylinders grinding, knobs spinning loose, strike plates bent, key sticking. Rekeying a worn-out lock is throwing money at a part that needs replacing anyway.
Existing hardware is bottom-tier builder-grade — paper-thin Defiant from a big-box store, hollow-housing knob locks, no-brand deadbolts. Replacing with Grade-2 Schlage or Kwikset is a real upgrade in burglar resistance.
You want a master-key system — keying every door alike to one key requires rekeying anyway, and is sometimes simpler to do alongside replacement if hardware doesn't support easy rekeying (some old or specialty locks).
You want smart locks or high-security locks — these are full replacements by definition.
You have three different brands of lock that won't easily key-alike to a single key — sometimes faster to replace one or two with matching hardware than to fight with the rekey.

Pricing: $150-$280 per door installed for a Grade-2 deadbolt. A 4-door house full replacement runs $600-$1,200, vs $120-$180 for a rekey.

What we usually recommend

For 80% of California new-home buyers, the right move is:

Rekey the front door the day of (or within 48 hours of) closing
Rekey or replace the side and back doors — same trip
Rekey the garage-to-house door if it has a deadbolt; if it just has a knob lock, replace with a Grade-2 deadbolt
Add reinforced strike plates on every exterior door (3" screws, hardened steel plate) — $30-$50 per door, single biggest burglary-resistance upgrade you can make
Consider smart deadbolts on the front and garage-to-house doors if you'll use the convenience features

The 80%-case bill: $250-$500 for everything above on a typical 4-door home. Worth every cent the day you close.

What about the garage door opener?

Don't forget the garage. Most homes built in the last 15 years use rolling-code garage door openers that are reasonably secure, but if the previous owner handed out remotes or shared a wall-keypad code, you have an open door. Two simple fixes:

Reset the wall keypad code — every garage opener manual explains how. 30 seconds.
Re-pair remotes — clear the opener's memory of all paired remotes (a button on the back of the motor), then re-pair only your own. 5 minutes.

Neither requires a locksmith and neither costs anything. Many California new-home buyers forget to do this and end up wondering why the garage opens at odd hours six months later.

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