5 Ways to Reduce Vacancy to 30 Days or Less

Here is a simple formula that summarizes how to reduce your vacancies:

Good Property Management + Proactive Owner = Reduced Vacancies

You spend a lot of time and money, selecting just the right property in just the right area. You should give equal time to learning how to manage your property managers properly.

Here are five simple things you can do to reduce your vacancies significantly:

Be a good record keeper:

Know when your leases are going to expire. Take it one step further and mark in your ELECTRONIC calendar the dates your leases expire. Then set a reminder 60 days before the lease expiration date to contact your property manager and ask them if the current tenants want to renew the lease. That kind of proactive involvement will show your property manager that you’re on the ball.

Understand and carefully read your management agreements:

Property management agreements can vary dramatically from one company to another and from one market to another on many levels. It’s important to read and understand your contracts so that you know how to handle a potential issue or situation. Keeping yourself up-to-date on the terms in your agreement. This will help you work closely with your property manager to ensure that the right procedures are being implemented, such as maintenance items, rent collection, advertising, dates you will receive payment, the turnaround time between tenants, walk-through inspections, etc.

Check online to make sure your property is properly advertised:

Trust but verify. It is up to YOU as the landlord to make sure your property is easy to find online. If you can’t find your property, then potential renters definitely can’t. Make sure you can find your property easily on Zillow, Trulia, or apartments.com to name a few. In regards to the ads themselves, make sure your PM has aesthetically pleasing pictures of the front of the house and the floor plan posted if possible. Curb appeal is a huge factor in attracting tenants. Check to make sure that all the information is accurate and persuasive to the reader.

When vacant, call once a week:

"The squeaky wheel gets the grease.” This saying holds true to the utmost regard when working with property managers during a vacancy. Email or preferably call your property manager once a week during a vacancy to ask 1) How many calls your property received, 2) How many showings were conducted, and 3) How many applications were received. Go over the information with them on the phone and find out what they are doing to find you a suitable renter. This call can be as short as 5-10 minutes, but if it means the difference between a short or long vacancy, it is time well spent. Also, keep in mind that your property manager has other properties they are trying to rent, and the owner in their ear the most is usually the one that gets their property rented the fastest. Funny how that works.

Don’t settle for questionable tenants!

Tenants with questionable credit or employment history can be problematic. It’s much better to be vacant and wait just a little while longer than to have a tenant in your property that will be difficult to collect rent from the rest of the year. Proper screening is the most important thing your PM can do for you. If you follow the steps above and you reach a 45-day vacancy, consider lowering your rent to be as competitive as possible.

A few other unique ideas are to remember your property manager at Christmas with a card and maybe a box of See’s candy. I like to send my tenants a $25 Home Depot gift card twice a year; once in March to buy furnace filters, weed spray, bug spray and perhaps some flowering plants for the garden then again in late November to buy a Christmas tree and Poinsettia or other things for use around the house. You can send the gift card to your property manager, who will then deliver it to your tenants. Sometimes it’s these little things that make a big difference in the tenant’s length of stay.