How Property Owners Can Reduce Vacancy Rates
Reducing vacancy in rental properties is crucial for landlords to maintain steady income streams. A vacant unit means interrupted cash flow— and any lapse in occupancy is a financial risk for a landlord.
Thankfully, there are plenty of best practices and marketing strategies that can ensure a low vacancy rate, maximizing your return on investment. As property management experts, today we will share the best ways to prevent property vacancies and keep units filled.
- The writer would like to give a special thanks to Elyse Sarnecky, Director of Marketing and former Director of Leasing at Marketplace Homes, for her expert input on this list!
10 Ways to Reduce Rental Vacancy Rates
To reduce rental vacancy rates, landlords can follow some real estate best practices. Good property management involves a careful balance of selecting good tenants, retaining current tenants, maintaining property value, and staying on top of market rental prices.
After carefully considering our best practices for filling homes and keeping them occupied, here are our top 10 tips to reduce vacancy rates.
- Have the rental price match its true value.
- Keep your rental units in good shape.
- Respond to maintenance and repair needs promptly.
- Respect the tenant’s privacy.
- Market your units effectively.
- Use move-in and renewal incentives.
- Offer flexible lease terms.
- Use professional tenant screening.
- Conduct regular inspections.
- Make the whole experience convenient.
This list includes a lot of the things we wish every novice landlord should know about filling homes, but there’s plenty for property owners of all experience levels to appreciate here!
How to Reduce Vacancy Rates in Rentals
Want to avoid high vacancy rates? Then follow these 10 tips from our leasing team at Marketplace Homes.
1. Have the rental price match the property’s true value.
Pricing your property competitively according to the local rental market is key to not only filling homes but maximizing the chance of lease renewals. It’s pretty simple. If you shop for bread at a store and see a nice loaf for $3, but there’s one of similar quality for $5, which one will you take home?
$3 wins because it’s basically the same but you pay less. Pricing a product correctly and competitively according to other available units will keep your tenancy rates high. This ensures your current tenants don’t put your $5 loaf back on the shelf and take the $3 one home.
Raising the rent too high when other competition offers a lower price for the same type of home can turn away long-term tenants and people looking for homes. Therefore, navigate price changes carefully to ensure that your rental’s month’s rent is always competitive.
2. Keep your rental units in good shape.
Closely tied to #1, keeping the property well-maintained will attract and retain tenants. Promptly address maintenance requests to foster tenant satisfaction. Periodic renovations and upgrades conducted when a lease ends can ensure the quality of your properties match what prospective renters will expect.
If your units start to lag behind the competition over time, research the surroundings. Consider adding desirable amenities such as pet-friendly trails, in-unit laundry machines, extra parking spaces, or granite countertops to attract and retain tenants.
3. Respond to maintenance and repair needs promptly.
Responding quickly to maintenance repairs is crucial! Fixing problems in the home fast maintains tenant satisfaction and increases the chance of lease renewal. Conversely, ignoring or delaying repairs can frustrate and anger tenants and deteriorate the landlord-tenant relationship quickly.
Not to mention, unresolved repairs can decrease property value and have legal liabilities. By addressing maintenance issues swiftly, landlords show their commitment to provide a safe and comfortable living environment, and ultimately preserving the long-term profitability of the rental property.
- 🔥Hot Tip: It’s easier to respond to maintenance requests when you hire a property management company that can be on the clock when you’re not. It’s just a matter of logistics after all! A team of property managers can be on call when you are not available, and that can make your life so much easier!
4. Respect the tenant’s privacy.
There are too many stories of landlords showing up whenever they please, and this is a big pain point for residents. While most states have laws about limiting landlord entry to their occupied rental, there are 13 states that don’t have any regulations. In spite of that, respecting a tenant’s privacy is essential for maintaining trust and fostering a positive landlord-tenant relationship.
Overall, landlords should uphold the privacy rights of their tenants that’s set in the lease agreement and local laws. Honoring their privacy demonstrates professionalism, builds rapport, and encourages open communication. Residents appreciate advance notice for an inspection or maintenance appointment, and this ultimately fosters a harmonious rental experience for both parties.
5. Market your units effectively.
Even if you have no vacant properties, individual leases have different start and end times. Keep your marketing game on point by updating information about your community or individual listings on sites like Zillow or your own community landing pages. Effective marketing includes uploading professional photos, posting thorough information, and any other details that can generate interest in the rental.
If you need to get more aggressive in your pursuits, boost posts on social media and pay for digital ads to get more leads. In this way, you can make the most of online rental platforms, social media, and local advertising to reach potential tenants where they are searching for homes.
- 🔥Hot Tip: When you know a unit is up for lease in a few months, preleasing communication can save you the whole process of looking for new tenants. Reach out to the current tenant and check if they’d like to renew, and if it’s a yes, make the process as easy as possible with digital solutions. If the resident declines, you can start preleasing marketing to get the same unit leased before the existing tenant moves out.
6. Use move-in and renewal incentives.
Consider offering move-in specials, such as discounted rent or waived application fees, to incentivize tenants to lease the property. For existing residents, you may offer renewal incentives, such as lease extensions or grandfathering rental rates, to encourage existing tenants to stay beyond their initial lease term.
- 🔥Hot tip: Not all incentives that you see out there are legal! Examples of legal move-in incentives include free month’s rent credit or free applications. Whenever you’re in doubt about what to do, remember that if you are actively paying someone to move in, then it’s an inducement, which goes against real estate law. Getting pros well versed in real estate regulations to market your rental for you can take all the doubts out of the equation.
7. Offer flexible lease terms.
Life is not always going to go as planned, so having a landlord that can be flexible can make a big difference in a tenant’s comfort. If you are able to offer flexible lease options, such as month-to-month or short-term leases, you maximize your chance to appeal to a wider range of renters.
Understandably, this is not always possible when it’s in the best interest of real estate investors to lock in long term leases to decrease turnover. However, being flexible in a few cases can be a great help to a tenant who doesn’t know what their immediate plans are and just needs to buy time after their existing lease is over. It’s all up to you if you want to provide that option!
8. Use professional tenant screening.
Finding qualified tenants for your rental takes a lot of stress out of the whole process. Reliable tenants are more likely to stay long-term and able to keep up with rental payments. You can also do background checks on objective criteria like eviction history and credit scores to determine if the resident is qualified to rent your property.
- 🔥Hot Tip: Want more than just help with tenant screening? Then hire a full-service property management company like Marketplace Homes. Our rental experts will take care of the entire process: from marketing, tenant screening, to the move-out checklist, while you do absolutely nothing. Plus, we know all the real estate law behind selecting tenants, so you stay 100% in compliance with all local and national laws regarding Fair Housing.
9. Conduct regular inspections.
Conducting regular property inspections gives you advance notice of any potential issues that could get bigger and cost more down the road. When you know about any problems early, you can address them proactively and maintain the value of your property. Move-in and move-out inspections are also important for landlords to track the condition of the rental pre and post lease, playing a pivotal role in returning the security deposit.
Routine inspections are also important to make sure that tenants are following lease agreements. It can be helpful to see if the tenants decided to alter any part of the home, or if there are extra pets not stated on the lease. In the event of finding any term violations, landlords can politely communicate with the resident to make future adjustments to get in compliance.
10. Make the whole experience convenient.
Using modern innovations like apps for paying rent, communications, and asking for repairs is key to making a resident happy. A full-service property management company like Marketplace Homes has fully digital systems in place to provide a responsive, convenient service for tenants.
Online applications, self-showings, virtual tours, and more make it easy for prospective tenants to browse properties too. There’s nothing like being able to report a maintenance need through an online portal instead of waiting for someone to call you back after sending a few text messages!
10 Ways to Reduce Rental Vacancy Rates
With many administrative, financial, and customer-facing tasks always on-hand, landlords can find themselves working all hours of the day. When you’re not collecting rent, you may be responding to maintenance requests or trying to market another property. Enter Marketplace Homes, a property management company with over 20 years of experience. And we operate nationwide!
Tasks like tenant placement are also tricky to navigate when adhering to local and national regulations. However, when you get Marketplace Homes to manage your home, we can do all the hard work for you. We’ll fill your home and manage it at a competitive monthly rate.
- We have an average 17-day fill time on listings at fair market value in good condition.
- 98.5% of our residents pay on time.
- There is an average 5-day turnaround between resident move-out and the next occupancy.
- Full-service national property management service means our investors don’t jump from service to service. We take care of everything!
- Our expert marketers help investors navigate the ever-changing rental market with confidence.
We’re the highest reviewed and most reviewed real estate management provider in the US with over 1,200 reviews on Google at 4.3 stars and over 465 reviews on Zillow over 4.7 stars. We promise to do our absolute best to maximize your return!
Ready to get our national property management company to manage one of your properties (or an entire portfolio)? Then contact us today!
Alicia Persson is a Content Strategist SEO writer at Marketplace Homes, utilizing previous years of experience on real estate teams that specialized in investments and property management. Before she joined Marketplace Homes, she was also a freelance writer for 7 years, leading to a specialization in real estate and home living content for boutique digital marketing agencies. During her writing years, she learned the basics of SEO and gained experience writing for many different clients, making her versatile at creating diverse content.
She is a proud University of Virginia master’s graduate and enjoyed her undergraduate years at the University of Mary Washington. When Alicia is not writing, she plays keytar and sings in a local 90’s rock cover band, or she spends time with her amazing family.