Vacancy is a significant concern for any property investor, residential or commercial, as it directly impacts your income. If you want to ensure that your apartments or other residential properties are consistently generating revenue, it's crucial to keep vacancy rates low. Here are three strategies to achieve this.

Keep Rent Competitive

This may sound easy, but in a world where people often want to make as much money as possible, this can be difficult for some to do. Your goal may be to maximize your rent revenue, but rent also represents what people can afford to pay to live somewhere. If the rent you charge is above average for the area your property is located in or not equivalent to the living conditions and facilities you offer, vacancies will remain high.

Let Residents Have Privacy

Sometimes, high vacancy rates have nothing to do with rent and more to do with management. For example, when you are at home, you are likely to value your privacy and not want too many people to engage with you without your permission, insisting they can overrule your consent if need be.

Property owners or managers who constantly interact with residents, especially without permission, and override their residents' consent, citing ownership can quickly lead to a reputation for that property. If reputation spreads, vacancies will increase.

Be Flexible With Leasing

If you try to stabilize your revenue by using leasing contracts instead, this can contribute to higher vacancy rates if you’re unwilling to negotiate. A lease is generally a good guarantee for you about the amount of income you’ll have in the near future, but many people renting prefer not to get “locked” into a lease that means they can’t move if, for example, a job offer suddenly comes up that requires them to relocate.

Be flexible about your leasing conditions to appeal to more potential residents.

If you’d like to improve the management of your property rental investments, contact Occupancy Solutions and let us help.