Most operators can tell you how many units are vacant. Far fewer can tell you, off the top of their head, how long each one has been empty, or which one has been sitting the longest. That second number is the one that costs money.
Occupancy is a snapshot. Days vacant is a meter.
Occupancy tells you how full you are right now. It does not tell you that one unit has been empty for 180 days while three others turned in a week. A property at 95 percent occupancy with a single unit empty for half a year is hiding a real loss inside a healthy-looking number. The count looks fine. The clock does not.
Days vacant is rent you never get back
Vacant rent is the one loss you cannot recover. A delinquent balance can be collected. A concession can be earned back at renewal. But the rent on an empty unit, for the days it sat empty, is simply gone. Every day counts, and the longest-empty units are where the money is quietly bleeding out.
Track time, not just the count
- Days vacant per unit, not just the number of vacant units
- The longest-empty units, named, with the dollars lost attached
- Make-ready time, from move-out to rent-ready
- Lease-up time, from rent-ready to leased
- Upcoming vacancies from notices, so you can pre-lease instead of react
The two gaps to close
Vacancy loss is really two problems with two different fixes. The turn is how long it takes to get a unit rent-ready. The lease-up is how long a rent-ready unit then sits unleased. Lumping them both into "vacancy" hides which one is actually slow. A slow turn is a maintenance and vendor problem. A slow lease-up is a marketing and pricing problem. You cannot fix what you cannot separate.
Pre-leasing beats backfilling
The cheapest vacancy is the one that never happens. A notice to vacate is an early warning, so start marketing and showing against the move-out date, not the move-out itself. The gap between move-out and move-in is exactly where days vacant lives, and it is the easiest gap to close if you see the notice coming.
See the meter, not just the count
Counting empty units is a Friday spreadsheet. Knowing the days vacant, the longest-empty units, and the dollars lost is a different thing entirely. The Access surfaces the time, not just the count, so the unit that has been empty since spring is not a surprise at month close.