At the moment, all your units are full. You’re done with your job until you receive a work order for repairs or a tenant moves out, right? Wrong. It’s great to revel in the great feeling of having 100% occupancy, but your job doesn’t end there – now your goal is to convince tenants to stay in your units. 

Save time and money. Encouraging residents to stay with you is worth your time because each occupied unit is equal to one less listing to market on Craigslist, a steady stream of rent payments to your account, and so on. The cost and effort that goes into filling a vacancy adds up! Stop losing money and operate with an optimal budget by retaining tenants. You’ll spend less money and time on marketing and turnover maintenance, which translates to reduced costs and increased income.

Focus on great service. Over 60% of customer turnover is controllable, with staff performance the largest determining factor in why a tenant moves out. To reach your tenant retention goal, your residents need to be satisfied with their current living situation. As a property manager, there’s a lot you can do to leverage your service for better retention and occupancy rates. It’s important to be up-to-date on your tenants’ perceptions and concerns. Know where their priorities lie and respond to them with top-notch customer service, since your financial situation depends on their satisfaction.

Retention means greater profit. The Journal of Property Management revealed that on average, a retained resident is worth almost $900 each year on top of rent payments. Each time a resident moves out, a unit is vacant for an average of 1.5 months. If the tenant retains their lease, the property saves $1,350 as well as the additional costs that would go to marketing the vacancy. In order to implement a better tenant retention strategy, it’s important to know exactly how much a tenant is worth to your business. This may seem like a daunting task, but in actuality, you already have all the information you need at your fingertips (in your financial records). Read on — we’ll show you how to look at your numbers, and how reducing resident churn will help you put your balance in the green.

Stay tuned for More On the Economics of Rental Retention and How Keeping Residents Happy Drives Profit. In Future Newsletters, we’ll break down the economics behind tenant retention and look at how applying strategies to reduce turnover will have a positive impact on your profits, operating budget, and long-term success as a rental property manager.