Unit Turn and Vacancy Cost
The Punch ListWhat a turn between tenants actually cost, which is not what the contractor invoiced.
The number everybody quotes for a turn is the contractor’s invoice, because it is the only half that arrives as a piece of paper — and a single “days vacant” figure hides whether the unit was waiting on the work or waiting on the market.
The make-ready invoice is one half of a turn. The rent the unit did not earn while it stood empty is the other, and nobody bills you for that one. Both are printed here, and the empty days are split into the part the work took and the part the market took — because only one of those is yours to fix.
About this tool
Unit Turn and Vacancy Cost: what it solves
Property software records the make-ready invoice and it records the lease dates, and it never puts them in the same sentence: they arrive from two different places and nothing in between has an opinion about what they add up to. So the turn cost every landlord quotes is the invoice, and on an ordinary turn the invoice is the smaller half. A unit standing empty costs rent every day of it, and that rent is not billed by anybody, never appears on a statement and is reconciled against nothing — it simply has no document. This prints both halves and adds them. Then it splits the empty days, which is the reason it exists: days to ready is the work, and it is a scheduling problem with a scheduling answer; days on market is price and demand, and no amount of chasing a contractor moves it. One number for both hides which one you have. It suggests no rent, no target turn time, and no view on whether a unit is priced wrong.
The invoice is the smaller half
Ask a landlord what a turn cost and you will be told the make-ready invoice. Paint, carpet, the locksmith, the cleaner.
Then there is the rent the unit did not earn while all of that was happening, and while it sat waiting for somebody to take it. On an ordinary turn that is the bigger number.
It is also the one nobody quotes, and the reason is mundane rather than mysterious: it has no document. Nobody invoices you for an empty unit. It appears on no statement, is reconciled against nothing, and arrives in your accounts only as rent that is not there — which looks exactly like a month with nothing in it.
This prints both halves and adds them.
Splitting the empty days is why it exists
Twenty-three days vacant is one number and two completely different problems.
Days to ready is the work. The contractor who did not start, the part that took a week, the inspection that slipped. That is a scheduling problem, and it has a scheduling answer — chase, book earlier, line the trades up before the tenant leaves.
Days on market is price and demand. Nothing you do to a contractor moves it. If a unit sits for eleven days after it was ready, chasing the painter harder next time will not help.
Reported as one number, you cannot tell which one you have — so you fix the one you happen to be annoyed about, which is usually the contractor, and the eleven days come back next turn.
Both halves in money, per day
The rent a unit earns divided by the days in the month is what a vacant day costs. It is a division and it is not done, because the number is uncomfortable and there is nowhere it naturally appears.
Once it is on the page beside the invoice, the arithmetic of a lot of decisions changes. Paying a contractor more to start on Monday instead of the following week stops being an expense and becomes a comparison.
Two systems, two documents, no sentence containing both
Property software records the make-ready invoice. It records the lease dates.
It never puts them together, and not because it is badly built — the two arrive from different places, at different times, through different processes, and nothing in between has an opinion about what they add up to.
That is the gap this fills, and it is one addition.
What it replaces
The turn cost quoted as the invoice, which is most of them. Or the sense that units sit too long between tenants, with no way to say how much that is worth.
Who it is for
Landlords, property managers and letting agents — anywhere a unit turns between tenants and somebody should know what the gap cost.
What it will not do
It suggests no rent. What a unit is worth is your market.
It sets no target turn time. How fast a make-ready should be depends on your trades, your unit and what you are willing to spend to compress it.
It takes no view on whether a unit is priced wrong. It shows you days on market beside days to ready. A long time on market might be price, or it might be January. The page cannot tell, and it does not pretend to.
Nothing you type is sent anywhere. The arithmetic runs in your browser. Rents, addresses and vacancy positions stay on the machine you typed them on. Close the tab and it is gone.
Yours would be built the same way.
This one runs on made-up data. The version built for your business runs on yours, and you own it outright. Builds start at $2,500. That is a floor, not a quote. What yours costs is agreed before any work begins. The first conversation is free.