When a property goes vacant, most operators think about the obvious costs: lost rent, cleaning fees, repairs. But there’s a silent profit killer lurking in every unmonitored vacancy – turnover time. And in 2025, as the single-family rental (SFR) market becomes more competitive and margins get squeezed, every day a home sits empty is a day you're leaving money on the table.
The Real Cost of Turnover
Between tenant move-out and the next lease signing, homes are vulnerable – not just to loss of income, but to damage, liability, and avoidable delays. Whether it's a burst pipe, a trespasser or other unauthorized entry, or a power failure that damages appliances, these incidents can add weeks to your turnover time, and thousands to your overall turnover costs.
Property managers routinely see turnover costs rise well beyond expectations due to issues that weren’t discovered until much later. In many cases, the damage occurred days or even weeks before someone on the team noticed.
Downtime Adds Up Fast
Let’s do the math:
If your average SFR unit rents for $2,200/month, that’s $73/day in lost rent. Add $500–$2,000 in possible repairs and cleaning if an issue goes unnoticed, and the cost of “just a few days of vacancy” escalates quickly.
Now multiply that across a 200-home portfolio, with even just 5% of homes vacant at any given time, and the risk becomes clear.
The Turnover Bottleneck: Lack of Visibility
One of the biggest challenges in reducing turnover time is the lack of real-time visibility. Property owners or managers often rely on physical inspections or neighbor reports to identify problems. But when you're managing hundreds (or thousands) of homes, that's not just inefficient – it’s impossible to scale.
This gap in oversight creates an operational bottleneck, meaning your team’s got their hands full reacting to issues instead of preventing them – ultimately causing costly issues to go unnoticed for far too long.
VacantView™: Monitoring That Works While Your Team Can’t
Swidget’s VacantView solution was designed to solve this exact problem. Using modular smart sensors, VacantView gives you a 24/7 window into every vacant property, flagging:
- Unauthorized motion, which could indicate trespassers or vandalism
- Temperature and humidity changes that can suggest HVAC issues
- Water leak sensors, which can detect faulty appliances or pipe issues
- Power outages, that could compromise appliances or security systems
By installing just a few Swidget outlets or switches in a property, SFR operators permanently prep the home for monitoring. When the property becomes vacant, property managers simply plug in the modular smart monitoring Inserts to activate 24/7 oversight. This allows them to get ahead of potential issues before they spiral and reduce days on market by responding to incidents in hours, not weeks. Once the home is re-occupied, the monitoring Inserts can be removed and reused at the next vacant property – making it a scalable, cost-effective solution across any portfolio.
A Faster Turn Means a Stronger Bottom Line
With turnover being one of the largest controllable costs in your portfolio, any tool that helps reduce downtime is worth serious attention. Monitoring vacant homes doesn’t just help you avoid damage – it helps you lease faster, operate leaner, and protect your revenue.
Don’t let the silent costs of vacancy erode your returns. Turnover time is your hidden cost center – but with the right visibility, it doesn’t have to be.
Want to see VacantView in action? Register for our webinar on June 26th or contact our team for a personalized demo!
Source: U.S. Census Bureau. Quarterly Residential Vacancies and Homeownership, First Quarter 2025. https://www.census.gov/housing/hvs/files/currenthvspress.pdf
