One of the factors that kill rental housing businesses is a high vacancy rate, which is determined by the number of units that are unoccupied in a certain period.
An unoccupied unit is a loss in a landlord’s expected earnings or his opportunity for income.
It’s easy to compute for your vacancy rate. Just divide the number of your vacant units over the total number of units you are renting out, then multiply the result by 100:
(Number of vacant units / Total number of units) x 100
Using the formula above, if you are renting out 20 apartment units, and 3 of those units are unoccupied, then it means you have a vacancy rate of 15% for every month that those 3 empty units stay empty.
This 15% tells you how much money you wouldn’t earn in your maximum income. For example, if you rent out each of your 20 units for $100 a month, your maximum gross income is $2,000 per month. But on the month when you have the 15% vacancy rate, you’ll only get $1,700.
Your vacancy rate can also be a sign if you are falling behind your competitors. If the average vacancy rate of your area is 10%, and you have a vacancy rate higher than that, then it means there’s a problem with how you operate or market your rental business.
Most of the time, factors leading to elevated vacancy rights are overpriced rent, unmaintained units, and the lack of rent incentives.
Tips to Reduce Vacancy Rates in your Rental Property
Vacancies are normal because of the nature of the business of rental housing. However, this doesn’t mean that you should just ignore your high vacancy rate and just hope for the best.
You have to have a clear strategy on how to fill up your vacancies and give good tenants reasons to stay. Here are some of the things you can do:
Set a fair rental price
Deciding how much to charge for your units is very crucial. You don’t want to price too low that you won’t earn insufficient income or will hinder you from affording maintenance, insurance, and utilities. You also don’t want to set your price too high that it would discourage tenants to rent from you.
Know how much the average rent price in your area and the rent price of nearby housing that have similar features and amenities with your units. Use those rates as a basis to come up with a fair rental price. Do the math; the rent you collect must be enough to cover the cost of running your business and you still earn income.
Give incentives to long-term tenants.
If you have good tenants that renew their lease every year and at the same time never misses on paying rent on time, have good relations with neighbors, and takes care of your unit, reciprocate their loyalty with a good gesture.
You can offer incentives to long-term tenants by rewarding them with an additional appliance without extra charge, or you can loosen up certain policies to give them the privilege.
Conduct repairs and upgrades.
If you want potential tenants to rent and you want current tenants to renew, you have to meet their expectations that they will be provided with a comfortable living space.
You can ensure the quality of your units’ habitability by making sure that there is no damage left unrepaired and if appliances or furniture starts to show signs of deterioration, replace and upgrade them.
You might hesitate to upgrade because you don’t want to spend on new appliances/furniture, but think of the money you will lose if tenants will leave because they are unsatisfied with their living conditions.
Conduct exit interviews.
Each time a tenant ends his leasing contract, make sure you conduct exit interviews. Get their first-hand opinion on what they liked and didn’t like while staying in your units. Take everything they tell you constructively and with a grain of salt.
Whatever information you will gather from them in the interview, use it as one of your bases on what you will change or improve in how you handle your rental business.
Market where your market is.
Since most home hunters are now opting to search properties online rather than in the traditional way where they have to drive around different areas to look for vacancies, then your best bet in filling up vacancies is by building a strong online presence.
One of your best options is to publish your listings on property management and listing syndication platforms like Padleads.com.
Create attractive listings to increase chances of getting leads, then syndicate them to high-traffic rental websites so that it can be seen by a wider audience of renters.