The benchmark data works out to 4–6% of effective gross income
The most reliable public number comes from the National Apartment Association's 2024 I/E IQ benchmarking report, produced with IREM and BOMA and covering more than one million units across 4,600-plus properties. It puts repairs and maintenance at $1,098 per unit for 2024, up 3.7 percent year over year, inside total operating expenses of $8,657 per unit. To convert dollars into a percentage of income, apply the industry's consensus operating expense ratio: 35 to 50 percent of effective gross income. At those ratios, NAA's expense figure implies effective gross income between roughly $17,300 and $24,700 per unit — which places R&M between 4.4 and 6.3 percent of income. Mid-single digits is the defensible answer. For the dollar-level detail behind that figure, see our breakdown of maintenance cost per unit.
Each rule of thumb measures a different expense
The rules contradict each other because they were never measuring the same thing. The 50 percent rule says half of gross rent goes to operating costs — all of them: taxes, insurance, management, utilities, and maintenance together. It is a screening shortcut for small residential deals, not a maintenance budget. The 1 percent rule ties the budget to property value. The square-footage rule assigns $1 per square foot per year. Both scale with the building rather than the income, so they produce a different percentage at every rent level. A Forbes Business Council guide lists all three and pegs annual repairs at 5 to 8 percent of gross rent. Meanwhile one property management firm rejects percent-of-rent budgeting outright: a repair costs what it costs regardless of the rent roll. Each rule is answering a different question.
The numerator problem: R&M is not all of maintenance
"Repairs and maintenance" is a specific general-ledger line, and it does not contain everything a property spends keeping units running. On most multifamily charts of accounts, maintenance technician payroll sits under salaries and personnel. Unit-turn work may be split between R&M, a dedicated turnover line, and capitalized improvements. Capital repairs — roofs, boilers, parking lots — leave operating expenses entirely. So when Zego's resident experience survey of 630 property managers reports average turnover costs holding near $3,872 per unit, that figure includes advertising, concessions, and lost rent alongside the repair work — categories that never touch the R&M line. A writer quoting Zego's number and a writer quoting NAA's $1,098 are both accurate, and more than a factor of three apart. Before comparing your ratio to any benchmark, confirm what the numerator actually contains.
The denominator problem: which income?
The income side is just as unstable. Single-family rules use monthly gross rent. Institutional underwriting uses effective gross income — scheduled rent minus vacancy and loss to lease, plus other income. The same spend produces a different percentage on each base, and the gap widens as vacancy rises. Rent level distorts the ratio further. NAA's $1,098 of R&M per unit works out to 3.7 percent of income at a property collecting $2,500 a month per unit, and 8.3 percent at one collecting $1,100 — an identical maintenance operation, a very different ratio. A high percentage can mean expensive maintenance, cheap rents, or high vacancy. A low percentage can mean disciplined purchasing or simply a strong rent roll. The ratio cannot distinguish between them, which is why it makes a poor diagnostic on its own.
A percentage cannot tell you whether you are overpaying
A ratio compares spending to income. Overpaying happens somewhere the ratio cannot see: the price of each line item. A property can sit at 5 percent of effective gross income — comfortably inside benchmark — while paying above market for every part, filter, and service call it buys, because strong rents absorb the markup. Nothing in the percentage flags it. The only way to know whether spend is efficient is to price each invoice line against verified suppliers for the same item, which is the work of a multifamily invoice audit. Stilwell built The Benchmark to do that work quarterly: it reads every R&M invoice a property pays, prices each line at the SKU level, and shows where to buy instead. For a 200-unit property, it has found an average of $22,546 in annual savings — a 4.51x return on the product's cost.
How to move the ratio without cutting service
There are two honest ways to lower the ratio and one dishonest way. The honest levers: pay market price for the items you already buy — same part, same service level, lower invoice — and reduce work volume through preventive maintenance and tighter turns, so fewer emergency repairs hit the ledger at premium pricing. Neither touches service quality. The dishonest lever is deferral. Skipping work lowers this year's percentage and hands next year a larger one, plus the turnover cost that deferred maintenance eventually causes. Watch the denominator too: a ratio that improved because income rose says nothing about the maintenance operation. Anchor the metric in dollars per unit, then work the price level. That sequence — measure, price, switch — is the core of reducing operating expenses without touching anything residents experience.
