Knowledge Base
Unit Turnover
Unit turnover is the process and total cost of transitioning an apartment from a departing resident to a new one, including make-ready work, marketing, concessions, and rent lost during vacancy.
How turnover cost is measured
Turnover cost is everything a departure triggers: the make-ready (labor and materials), marketing and advertising to re-lease the unit, concessions to close, and the rent lost while it sits vacant. Zego's resident experience survey of 630 property managers at communities of 250 or more units, reported by Multifamily Dive, put the average at about $3,872 per turn. Lost rent and make-ready work are usually the largest pieces, which is why turn time and turn cost belong on the same report.
Why turnover matters to operators
Turnover is where occupancy, maintenance, and leasing costs meet in a single event, and it is one of the few large expenses management directly controls. Every retained resident avoids the full cost of a turn, so retention programs are usually underwritten against the turnover number. But some turnover is inevitable, and when it happens the cost question splits in two: how long the unit sits, and what the turn itself costs. The second question is a purchasing question — the same parts and materials, bought repeatedly, at prices worth verifying against the market.
Common mistakes
Counting only the make-ready and calling it turnover cost understates the number badly — lost rent and concessions typically dwarf the paint and parts. Averaging across all turns hides the difference between a standard turn and a heavy one, so scope creep goes unnoticed. And treating turn spend as untouchable because it is urgent is how prices drift: urgency is exactly when nobody checks the price. Maintenance cost benchmarks give the category a reference point; invoice-level review gives it teeth.
Related terms
Start with one property and one quarter
Send us a quarter of invoices and we will show you what it should have cost. If there is nothing there, we will tell you that too.
