I just did a rough estimate on my lost renral revenue due to vacancies and evictions for 2018. It's just over $12,000 for 24 units.

You don't really feel it as it's happening, but it add it up and it sheds a different light on it for you.

For me it will increase how fast I drop prices (supply and demand) on vacancies.

How did you do?

Slightly under 3% of gross potential rent uncollected due to eviction, vacancy, rehabs, etc.

John T. Reed says if your vacancy rate isn't around 5%, you're under-priced and/or not kicking out enough bad residents. Either scenario will eventually end up costing your more in the long term than you'll collect in the short term.

I lost 21 months of rent with 245 rentable months. Some units weren't available for the full 12 months of the year due to coming online for the first time.

With that ELT correction, I'd be around $11,500 lost with 19.5 months vacant.

I just went off of what I ended up renting it for. It was a rough estimate.

$6005 in lost rent due to vacancies.

Another $1500'ish in lost rent due to "I don't need to payitis." (Which is also followed by a "you don't live here anymorectomy.")

Overall, a 7.5% vacancy rate-- 13.5 months out of 180 possible.

On the plus side, we brought three new houses online-- a reno in May, a reno in August, and one owner-financed tax sale flip in August to the tenant who had been trying to RTO from the previous owner.

2018 413 possible rents, collected 409

2017 413 possible rents, collected 404

I have always looked at this statistic. I think it gives a good picture of how well you are doing with what you currently own. Both years I had the same 11 turnovers. I have no full time employees and a few very part time employees (less than 100 hours per week).

Total of 8 days during 2018, more than made up for by increase in prices for vacated rentals.

I purchased some junk units in marginal areas. I did the best to keep the units rented with paying tenants. Around 30% of the existing tenants had to be evicted and money spent re-hab the units. 10% of the tenants I rented too also had to be evicted.

So after a short hold, around 10 years of troubles, I sold off my troubled properties that never produced 100% of the potential income. My gain, half to 1 M per property. It was never about getting top dollar or keeping the building 100% occupied. It was about my goals.

NE,

Our weekly meeting includes a running tally of lost rent on each vacant and turnover, with a total. Each house is on the list with a simple formula that adds rent each day for that house.

My theory: if my business is perfect I am not running fast enough.

I always think of the lost revenue when LLs say they keep their proces under market.

We suffered our worst turnover year ever in 2018 (8 of 15 units). We also spent half of our "vacancy time" doing rehabs.

Out of 912 rentable months, 40 months $45K lost. little over 4%..

With more measurements in place(ZT, inhome visit) and still strong demand locally, we expect a better 2019.

I look at things another way...rather than look at empty months (we only had one unit empty for one month anyway) I ask myself:

I love these types of posts. Thank you all.

I pushed out some of my teni this past year. It made things tougher however I had people who were paying but were high maintenance. (Paid late, didn't understand utility use common sense practices etc)

The net result is that the vacancies were up but that was short term.

I heartily agree with WMH! Good point!

Our weekly meeting summary spreadsheet includes gross rent income. The list of vacants tells me which properties to focus on to pick up more rents.

I review the profit privately each week.

Overall, like Mr Wonderful says “Know your numbers!”

Jeffrey has pointed that out many times, that collecting "full rent" does NOT always mean fully occupied at all times. If you are making more this year than you did last year (with the same units of course) then you are doing something right, even if one had to sit empty for a bit to find the right tenant and get increased rent.

Lost 3 months in rent last year out of 24 units.

I see so out of 288 months I could have collected I got 285.

You are tracking a tricky stat......

You can be full of by simply tossing the first piece of riff raft that comes along. You will indeed get the first months rent, but you might not get any other rents collected. So now you have a place occupied by a freeloading mooch.

The good news is you don't have pay utilities on an empty place. The bad news, the mooch is tearing up your unit. I will gladly have an empty unit over a slightly marginally qualified applicant. The long term answer is to focus on where the successful placement come from and what inspired them to live at one of your places.

According to the bizstats web site, nationally landlords have a gross profit of only 16% and a net profit of only a few percent. So you need to control quite a few units and take steps to prevent from having your bad apples pick your pocket

You are tracking a tricky stat......

You can be full of by simply tossing the first piece of riff raft that comes along. You will indeed get the first months rent, but you might not get any other rents collected. So now you have a place occupied by a freeloading mooch.

The good news is you don't have pay utilities on an empty place. The bad news, the mooch is tearing up your unit. I will gladly have an empty unit over a slightly marginally qualified applicant. The long term answer is to focus on where the successful placement come from and what inspired them to live at one of your places.

According to the bizstats web site, nationally landlords have a gross profit of only 16% and a net profit of only a few percent. So you need to control quite a few units and take steps to prevent from having your bad apples pick your pocket