The real cost of a turnover

The National Apartment Association's Apartment Turnover guidance, dated March 2025, cites the association's 2019 Survey of Operating Income & Expenses in Rental Housing Communities. It says “the turnover rate across apartment rentals averaged 46.8 percent last year. The average cost of a single move-out was conservatively calculated at $1,800. For a 200-unit community, that totals more than $168,000 in annual turnover expenses.”

The multiplication holds: 200 units × 46.8% is 93.6 move-outs a year, and 93.6 × $1,800 is $168,480. Two caveats come with the number. The survey is from 2019, so costs have almost certainly moved since. And it describes apartment communities, not a landlord with a few houses, who also loses rent and pays to advertise; the guidance itself calls the figure “conservatively” calculated.

The same guidance notes that “many companies in the industry use seven (7) working days as an average guideline to turn an apartment home,” with some expecting five or three.

Zego, a resident-experience software company, put the all-in cost higher. Its 2022 State of Resident Experience Management report, as reported by Multifamily Dive, found an average turnover cost of $3,976 per resident, up from $3,850 in 2021. The breakdown: lost rents $1,598, concessions $1,240, unit repairs $775, and marketing and advertising $364. Zego also reported: “It takes 17.6 months to recover the cost of losing a resident.”

The four parts add to $3,977, a dollar over the headline; that is rounding in the source. This is a vendor survey, and the article does not state the sample size, so hold it more loosely than the federal figures below. Still, notice what the total is made of. Lost rent and concessions together are $2,838 (1,598 + 1,240), which is more than repairs and advertising combined at $1,139 (775 + 364). The painter is the smaller part of the bill.

Apartment List's National Rent Report, with September 2026 data, found that “units leased in September had been sitting on the market for an average of 34 days.” Median rent was $1,388. The report's vacancy index fell to 7 percent in September after peaking at 7.3% in February.

That is a platform measure, listing to lease, for units advertised on Apartment List. It leaves out the days between a move-out and a listing going live. As an illustration only: $1,388 a month divided by 30 is $46.27 a day, and 34 days at that rate is about $1,573 of rent that did not arrive (46.27 × 34 = 1,573.18). That is in the neighborhood of Zego's $1,598 lost-rent figure, though the two come from different sources and measure different things.

The U.S. Census Bureau's release for the second quarter of 2026 states: “National vacancy rates in the second quarter 2026 were 7.3 percent for rental housing and 1.2 percent for homeowner housing. The rental vacancy rate was not statistically different from the rate in the second quarter 2025 (7.0 percent).” The figure is not seasonally adjusted.

It measures the share of units that are empty, not how many days a particular unit stays empty. That makes it the climate and not the forecast for your building.

Moving intentions matter because every move starts a turn. Buildium's 2026 Renters Report, a vendor survey of 1,500 U.S. renters, found that 28% of renters plan to move between mid-2026 and mid-2027, up from 18% last year.

On the other side, Greg Willett, chief economist at LeaseLock, wrote on July 30, 2026 that “56 percent of market rate apartment residents with leases expiring in the first half of 2026” signed renewals, citing RealPage's lease transaction database, with renewal rents up an average 3.5% so far in 2026. That covers market-rate apartments in RealPage's data, and there is no matching public figure for landlords with a handful of units. One source points at intent and the other at behavior, both come from vendors, and neither describes your building.

Take a landlord with ten units and the National Apartment Association's turnover rate of 46.8%. That is 10 × 0.468 = 4.68 move-outs a year. At the association's $1,800, the year costs 4.68 × 1,800 = $8,424. At Zego's $3,976, it costs 4.68 × 3,976 = $18,608, rounded.

The range, roughly $8,400 to $18,600, is arithmetic on two averages from larger operators, not a measurement of any small portfolio. The two figures also count different things, so some of the spread is definitional. What to take from it is the order of magnitude. In units of Apartment List's $1,388 median rent, $1,800 is about 1.3 months of rent and $3,976 is about 2.9 months.

Count your own. For your last three move-outs, write down the days empty, the concessions, the repairs and what you spent on listing. Three of your own numbers beat any average in this post.

Start the next turn the day notice arrives. Seven working days is a common guideline for turning a unit, according to the National Apartment Association's guidance, and every day you shave off is a day of rent: about $46 at the $1,388 median.

Book the walk-through, the vendors and the listing photos before the move-out date, not after it. Waiting between steps is where the days go.

Treat retention as the cheaper turn. If a resident asks to stay, a quick renewal costs a conversation, and the repair they have been waiting on is the first thing to fix. PropLane drafts resident reminders and follow-ups for a manager to approve, which keeps those conversations from slipping.