Every Day Your Unit Sits Empty Costs You $60

A PM company in Memphis had a unit sit vacant for 38 days. Not because it was a bad unit — three bedrooms, updated kitchen, good neighborhood, priced at market. It sat vacant because nobody posted the listing until five days after the previous tenant moved out, the listing went up with phone photos taken in poor lighting, the first three inquiry emails weren’t responded to for 48 hours, and the two prospects who did schedule showings both cancelled because the coordination via text was so slow that they found other units in the meantime.

Thirty-eight days of vacancy on a $1,800/month unit: $2,280 in lost rent. The entire sequence — from the delay in posting to the slow inquiry response to the lost prospects — was a coordination failure, not a market failure. A comparable unit two blocks away, managed by a competitor, was listed the day the previous tenant gave notice, had professional photos uploaded within 24 hours of make-ready, auto-responded to every inquiry within minutes, and was leased in eleven days.

The difference wasn’t the units. It was the systems behind them.

The Daily Cost of Vacancy

The vacancy cost calculation is simple division: monthly rent ÷ 30 = daily vacancy cost. For a $1,800 unit, that’s $60/day. For a $2,400 unit, it’s $80/day. These numbers seem small individually, but they compound across a portfolio and across the year.

A 200-door portfolio with a 47.5% turnover rate processes roughly 95 vacancies per year. If the average vacancy is 21 days, that’s 1,995 days of collective vacancy — costing $119,700 in lost rent (at $60/day average). Reduce that average to 14 days through faster marketing and filling, and you recover $47,100 annually. That’s not incremental revenue from raising rents or adding doors — it’s revenue recovered from time wasted between tenants.

The Four Delays That Kill Time-to-Lease

Delay 1: Late listing activation. Most PM companies don’t create a listing until the unit is make-ready. That means 7-14 days of turnover time with zero marketing happening. If you activate a pre-listing when the tenant gives notice — with existing photos, the availability date, and a “contact us for details” option — you can be collecting leads and pre-qualifying prospects during the make-ready phase.

Delay 2: Slow lead response. Rental prospects contact 3-5 properties when they’re looking. The first management company to respond meaningfully gets the showing. Research shows leads contacted within 5 minutes convert at 21 times the rate of those contacted after 30 minutes. If your lead response depends on a property manager checking their email between maintenance calls, you’re losing prospects to competitors with automated responses.

Delay 3: Showing coordination friction. The prospect wants to see the unit Saturday at 2 PM. The property manager checks availability, texts back Sunday morning, the prospect has already seen two other units. Self-showing technology (lockbox with temporary codes) and automated scheduling eliminate the back-and-forth. The prospect books a time, gets a code, tours the unit, and submits an application — potentially without the PM ever being involved.

Delay 4: Application processing lag. Application received Monday, screening initiated Wednesday, results back Friday, approval call the following Monday. In a competitive rental market, a 7-day application cycle loses qualified tenants to faster-moving competitors. Automated screening that returns results in hours — not days — lets you make approval decisions the same day the application is submitted.

Dynamic Pricing: The Lever Nobody Pulls

Here’s something I rarely see PM companies do, but it’s standard practice in every other industry that manages perishable inventory: adjust pricing based on demand and time on market.

A unit that’s been listed for 21 days with plenty of showings but no applications is probably overpriced by $50-$100/month. A unit that receives three applications in the first week is probably underpriced. And a unit approaching the seasonal slow period (November-January in most markets) should be priced more aggressively than one listed in peak season (May-August).

The cost of being $100/month too high on rent is easily $1,800-$3,600 in additional vacancy (an extra month or two to fill). The cost of being $100/month too low is $1,200/year in foregone rent. The latter is a better problem to have — and market-responsive pricing gets you closer to optimal faster than “set it and wait.”

Automation can flag listings that cross time-on-market thresholds and recommend price adjustments. “Unit 4B has been listed for 14 days with 8 showings but zero applications. Current asking rent is $1,650. Market comparable for this unit type is $1,575-$1,625. Consider reducing to $1,600.” That recommendation — generated automatically — gives the PM the data to make a quick decision instead of waiting another two weeks hoping the right tenant comes along.

Speed as Competitive Advantage

The PM companies that fill vacancies fastest aren’t the ones with the best properties. They’re the ones with the fastest systems. When a prospect inquires about a listing and gets an immediate response with photos, pricing, and a link to schedule a self-showing — while competing listings haven’t responded yet — that prospect books your showing first.

In a market where renters apply to 3-5 units simultaneously, the PM company that can go from inquiry to approved application in 48 hours will consistently fill units before the one that takes a week. Speed isn’t just about reducing vacancy days — it’s about getting first pick of the qualified tenant pool, which means better tenants, fewer issues, and longer lease terms.

That’s the real ROI of vacancy marketing automation: not just fewer empty days, but better tenants occupying those units when they fill.