Every operator has a turnover number. Very few of them are calculated the same way, which is why the figure is so easy to argue about and so hard to use.
It helps to stop treating turnover cost as a single expense and start treating it as four.
1. Make-ready
Paint, cleaning, flooring, repairs, punch work, and the labor hours to coordinate all of it. This is the part everyone counts. It is also the part most likely to be understated, because internal maintenance hours are frequently absorbed rather than charged.
2. Vacancy loss
The days between move-out and the next move-in, multiplied by the rent that unit would have earned. Make-ready time is the lever here, and it is where a maintenance staffing decision becomes a revenue decision.
3. Leasing cost
Advertising, the staff hours spent touring and following up, application and screening administration, and any concession required to fill the unit. A concession offered to fill a vacancy is part of the turnover cost, not a separate marketing line.
4. The fourth one
Rent growth lost to the reset. A new lease often starts below what an in-place renewal would have produced, and the gap compounds over the following years. On a community with steady turnover, this is frequently the largest cost of the four, and it never appears on a make-ready invoice.
How to model it
Pick one vacancy day count, one make-ready cost per unit type, and one assumption about the renewal uplift you gave up. Apply them consistently. The point is not a perfect number — it is a number you can compare month over month, so you can tell whether a retention program is working.
Retention is usually cheaper than turnover. Proving it requires arithmetic, not conviction.
