Turnover cost calculator
Every landlord knows a turnover is expensive and almost none of them price it. This adds the vacancy to the make-ready and tells you how many months of rent you just spent.
Pre-filled with a 24-day vacancy and a full make-ready. Days vacant is the line you control.
One turnover · 24 days vacant
$3,025.00
- Lost rent while vacant
- $1,480.00
- Make-ready
- $1,150.00
- Listing
- $95.00
- Leasing
- $300.00
- Concession
- $0.00
- Total turnover cost
- $3,025.00
- Equivalent months of rent
- 1.64
- Rent rise needed to repay it in a year
- 13.63%
Priced at rent ÷ 30 per day.
Days vacant is the number to attack
Make-ready costs what it costs. Days vacant is the line you control, and it is usually decided before the tenant leaves — by whether you started marketing at notice or at handover.
- 01Start listing the day notice is served, not the day the keys come back.
- 02Photograph while the unit is still furnished and lit, then reshoot empty if needed.
- 03Book the make-ready trades before the last day, not after the inspection.
- 04Offer the current tenant a showing window; most will agree if you ask early.
Turnover against the renewal you were about to refuse
Run the numbers side by side. A $74 monthly raise is $888 a year. The defaults above — 24 days vacant on $1,850, a $1,150 make-ready, $95 of listing and $300 of leasing — come to $3,025, which is three and a half years of that raise. The arithmetic does not say never raise rent; it says price the raise against the risk, which is what the rent increase calculator is for.
| Scenario | Year-one effect |
|---|---|
| Renew at +2%, tenant stays | +$444 |
| Renew at +4%, tenant stays | +$888 |
| Raise +6%, tenant leaves, 24 days vacant | −$1,693 net of the raise |
Computed from the calculator's own defaults: $1,850 rent, 24 days vacant, $1,150 make-ready, $95 listing, $300 leasing.
Turning the figure into a monthly reserve
If you turn a unit every 30 months and each turnover costs what this page just printed, divide by 30 and put that in the capex line of the cash flow calculator. That is the honest version of the unit's economics — and usually the moment a barely-positive unit turns out not to be.
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