Editor's Note
A unit sits empty for about five weeks between tenants. The physical work inside it takes under a week. This issue is about the gap between those two numbers.
The vacancy gap
RealPage put the average time between one resident moving out and the next moving in at 34.4 days at the end of 2024, up from roughly 30 days in early 2020.
A make-ready done in the right order finishes in three to five days. Run out of sequence, cleaning before paint, paint before drywall repair, it stretches to seven or fourteen.
Even at the slow end, that leaves around three weeks where the unit is physically ready and still earning nothing.
Stage | Typical days |
|---|---|
Make-ready, sequenced well | 3–5 |
Make-ready, industry average | 7–14 |
Total vacancy, move-out to move-in | 34.4 |
That gap is leasing. Photographs, listing, inquiries, showings, applications, screening, signing.
Practitioners already know this
A landlord with two duplexes described it in a thread earlier this year. Renovations were manageable. What consumed the time was answering messages and scheduling showings, over and over, for each vacancy.
Owner surveys back that up. In Hemlane's 2026 Rental Owner Report, 42% named tenant turnover as their single biggest current challenge, ahead of maintenance costs at 29% and rental pricing at 13%.
Where the tooling money goes
Most property management software leads with accounting and maintenance. Every cost there arrives as an invoice someone approves, which makes it visible in a budget.
A slow leasing queue never produces that paperwork. The unit just sits, losing about $60 a day, with nothing to approve and nobody flagging it.
What actually compresses it
Three things show up repeatedly in operator guides:
Start the turnover at notice. Photographing presentable rooms and drafting the listing can both happen while the unit is still occupied.
Pre-lease during the notice window. A unit leased before the keys come back has a days-vacant count near zero.
Compress the make-ready through sequencing. Same list of items, right order, three to five days.
One tool worth a look
The landlord above mentioned what they use: Innago, which lets you save a listing, click active, and push it to the rental sites, with applications, income verification, screening, and e-signing attached.
It's free for landlords, with costs absorbed through tenant-side transaction fees. Fair warning from recent reviews: several users report ACH transfers taking four to seven days, sometimes longer, and support runs through documentation and webinars, with no phone line.
Good fit if the messages-and-showings queue is what eats your week. Less so if you need fast access to rent as it clears.
This section contains an affiliate link. If you sign up through it, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. We only point to tools we would recommend anyway.
Did You Know?
At the January 2025 national average effective rent of $1,818, a vacant unit costs about $60 a day. At 34.4 days, one turnover loses more than $2,000 in rent before a single repair invoice arrives.
Until next week,
Tomas