A unit turn takes about a week of actual work. The unit sits empty for about a month. Almost every operator spends their energy on the week — chasing the contractor, arguing about the paint, checking whether the flooring crew showed up — and almost none of it on the other three weeks, which is where the money actually went.

The federal number says the average American rental is vacant about 7.3% of the time. Run that against a calendar and it works out to roughly 27 days a year, every year, whether or not anyone turned over. At the median metro rent, that is $45.70 a day and $1,218 a year. The National Apartment Association, working from operator books instead of a vacancy rate, lands at $1,323. Two unrelated methods, within 9% of each other.

The interesting question isn't what a vacancy costs. It's which of those days you actually chose.

In this episode of the 5-Minute PRIME Podcast, host Martin Maxwell opens up the empty window phase by phase and marks each one — the trades, the lead times, the permits, the gaps between the trades, the price, the photos, the response time — and shows why the days with the most money in them are the ones before the tenant has even moved out.

Tune in to learn:

• The five-to-one gap — why three to ten days of make-ready sits inside a thirty-day empty window, and what fills the difference
• The corroboration — a federal vacancy rate and an operator survey arriving at the same annual number from opposite directions
• The days that genuinely aren't yours — trades, material lead time, permit review, and why that list is shorter than it feels
• The between-trades gap — how a painter finishing Tuesday and a flooring crew booked Friday quietly costs three days, on repeat
• The free head start — the two-to-four-week notice window most operators file instead of spending

Do you know what one vacant day costs on your own unit, to the dollar? And are you starting the turnover clock when notice arrives, or when the keys come back?

The other half of this bill is geography — the same turnover invoice buys a very different number of months depending on which metro you own in.

Subscribe now to stop paying for days you could have taken back.

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