| Phase | What happens | Where days leak |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Notice → "known vacant" | Notice logged, move-out date set | Internal gaps, late registration |
| 2. Marketing → first interest | Ad goes live, applicants reach out | Too-narrow distribution, slow ads |
| 3. Selection → signed lease | Viewing, credit check, references, lease | Manual screening, slow decisions |
| 4. Lease → move-in | Renovation, inspection, cleaning, keys | Renovation booked too late, queues |
Most property companies measure vacancy as a percentage. That's the right metric for the board, but the wrong one for whoever actually fills the units. The vacancy rate hides what costs money: the number of days each unit sits empty between tenants. If you want to genuinely reduce vacancies, stop counting units and start counting days.
Vacancy is a chain of days — not a single hole
From a tenant giving notice to the next moving in, a let passes through four phases, and days leak in each:
The point: the most expensive idle time usually sits not in marketing (phase 2) but in the internal handoffs — phases 1 and 4. A unit can be let on paper yet sit empty for three weeks because the renovation was only booked after move-out.
Set a day-budget per phase
What isn't measured doesn't improve. A forward-leaning portfolio can set an internal day-budget per turnover:
| Phase | Realistic target |
|---|---|
| Notice → ad live | 2–3 days |
| Ad → enough qualified applicants | 7–14 days |
| Interest → signed lease | 3–7 days |
| Lease → move-in (no renovation) | 0 days (overlapping) |
With that budget a turnover can hit near zero idle time, provided the next lease is signed before the sitting tenant moves out. Every day over budget has a price — calculate yours with the guide on what a vacancy costs.
Seven levers that actually cut days
- Market at notice, not at move-out. The single biggest saving — often 2–4 weeks.
- Overlap the tenancies. Sign the next lease while the old one runs, so move-in is day one.
- Book renovation in parallel with marketing, not after move-out. Phase 4 is a silent day-eater.
- Set a market rent immediately. A mispriced unit leaks weeks in phase 2.
- Widen distribution. More channels bring qualified applicants faster — see our guide to finding tenants.
- Speed up screening with a ready process for credit and reference checks.
- Keep a waiting list. Capture qualified applicants who missed the last unit, so the next let starts at phase 3, not phase 2.
When your own pipeline isn't enough
Phase 2 is the phase you can most easily outsource. Instead of building and maintaining your own advertising channels, you can plug into a network that already has the reach. Bofrid forwards verified tenants to property companies and handles distribution across a wide channel network — you pay only when a forwarded prospect signs, i.e. only for the days you actually save.
Summary
Stop treating vacancy as a hole and start seeing it as a chain of days. Measure idle time per turnover, set a day-budget per phase, and attack the internal gaps first — they're the cheapest to fix and the most expensive to ignore.
FAQ
What's the difference between vacancy rate and idle time? Vacancy rate is the share of empty units at a point in time. Idle time is the number of days a single unit sits empty between tenants — that's what you influence operationally.
Where do most days leak in a turnover? Usually the internal phases: marketing that starts late after move-out, and renovation/inspection booked too late. Marketing gets blamed, but the problem is in the handoffs.
How do you reach near-zero idle time? By marketing at notice and signing the next lease before the sitting tenant moves out, so the tenancies overlap.
