Best Practices for tracking Owner Churn

This issue of Pillow Talk, our weekly newsletter, went out by email on March 19, 2026. Get the next one.Editor's note, October 2026: This issue describes Blanket as it was when it was sent. Product names, packages and features have changed since, and some work differently today.

Hey friend,

Welcome to the 33rd weekly edition of Pillow Talk! This is where I share my unfiltered thoughts on life, business, and property management.

This week, I’m sharing best practices for tracking owner churn.

In last week’s edition, I shared 5 really good reasons why tracking owner churn is worth the effort:

1. Churn makes growth an uphill battle
2. Your business could be shrinking without you knowing it
3. It puts a cap on the number of doors you can manage
4. It strains operations
5. It kills company morale

As you can see, the stakes are high. So let’s be sure to track churn the right way.

Best Practices for Tracking Owner Churn

This is not an all-inclusive list, but it’s a solid start for anyone who wants to track and understand churn in their business.

1. Track it monthly. Most PMs track owner churn on an annual basis. This is better than not tracking it at all, but it’s far from optimal. Instead, I recommend tracking it on a monthly basis.

The primary benefit of tracking it monthly is that you can more closely correlate spikes or dips in churn with specific events or seasonal behavior. For example, an employee transition resulting in a lapse in communication could cause churn to spike the following month. Without monthly data, you wouldn’t even know churn spiked the following month, and you’d have no way to diagnose the cause of the spike.

Use this formula to calculate your monthly churn rate:

(Number of owners who left in a month ➗ Number of owners you began the month with) ✖️ 100 🟰 monthly churn rate

Add your 12 monthly rates to get your annual churn rate.

2. Track unit churn too. Unit churn and owner churn have one key difference: Owner churn always equals unit churn, but unit churn doesn’t always equal owner churn.

The purpose of tracking unit churn separately is to create a clear picture of revenue impact. Owner churn always impacts revenue of course, but it doesn’t tell you by how much. Unit churn does. Use the same formula above to calculate unit churn, just replace owners with units.

3. Categorize it. Not all churn is created equal. It can be good, neutral, or bad:

• Good churn is when an owner who was never a good fit to begin with leaves. Every business has a different definition of “bad-fit,” but for the most part, it’s owners who don’t have the patience or risk tolerance to be a landlord, they’re perpetually unhappy, and are always asking to speak to the manager. They are the owners your team dreads dealing with. Be proactive when it comes to good churn. If you notice one owner causing more than their fair share of problems, fire them! But keep in mind there’s a reason they became your client. It could indicate you need a better filter on the front end. You screen tenants, why not screen owners?
  
  
• Neutral churn is “life happens” churn. Sometimes they have to sell, and there’s nothing you can do about it. It doesn’t indicate anything positive or negative about your business. Marc Cunningham says you will lose about 10% a year for “life happens” reasons. The best you can do is set up a brokerage and capture sales on their way out.
  
  
• Bad churn is when good-fit owners leave for reasons within your control. It could be because of a long vacancy, poor communication, or lack of transparency. Bad churn is usually your fault. Which is good news! Because it means you have the power to make a change.

How do you know if churn is good, neutral, or bad? You have to capture the qualitative data. Exit interviews can help.

4. Make a system. A simple spreadsheet can do the trick. What’s important is being consistent. Pick a day of the month on which you always sit down and do everything above. Here’s a possible workflow:

1. Block out 3-4 hours on the first of every month to run your churn analysis on the previous month.
2. Calculate last month’s unit and owner churn rates and add them to your running tracker.
3. Dig into each instance of churn and categorize it as good, neutral, or bad.
4. Decide if personalized follow up could salvage any of the neutral or bad churn.
5. Watch for trends and take action as soon as possible.
6. BONUS: The key to strong owner retention is identifying owners at risk of churning and taking action before they do. This looks like identifying owners with a vacancy, struggling cash flow or many maintenance events, and then offering them a concession such as a one-month waived management fee. The Blanket platform does this automatically across your entire portfolio. Let us know if you’d like help.

Good night 😴

If you want to stop losing clients and generate more revenue, it’s time to talk. Blanket is the only platform that offers a solution to both.

See it for yourself

Lior Abramovich
Co-founder, CEO