The short version
- Asking rent is the number everybody watches and the one with the least room in it.
- Vacancy days are the most expensive line in a small portfolio and the only one with no invoice.
- Days from listing to signed lease is the number you can move fastest.
- On-time payment rate is a better early warning than arrears totals.
- Turnover cost is real money that almost nobody adds up per unit.
01The one number everybody optimises
Asking rent gets all the attention because it is the visible number. It is also constrained: by the guideline during a tenancy, and by the market on turnover. There is not much room in it.
The four numbers underneath it are barely constrained at all, and almost nobody measures them.
02Days vacant
Vacancy is the biggest single leak in a portfolio of three to thirty units, and it never appears on a statement. Nobody invoices you for the three weeks a unit sat empty.
The arithmetic is simple and unpleasant. Annual rent divided by 365 gives the daily cost. On a $2,200 unit that is about $72 a day, which means a week of indecision costs more than most of the improvements people argue about.
TenantBay calculatorWhat an empty unit is costing you
Vacancy is the most expensive line in a small portfolio and the only one that never shows up on a statement. Nobody sends you an invoice for the three weeks a unit sat empty, so it never gets managed.
Your turnover
The real number
Enter the rent and how long the unit sits empty between tenants.
Daily rent is the annual rent divided by 365, which is how the loss actually accrues. Turnover cost is whatever you spend between tenants: paint, cleaning, locks, listings, your own time.
03Days from listing to signed lease
This is the number you can move fastest, because most of it is response time rather than market conditions.
Track it per unit. If it is over three weeks in a normal market, the problem is almost never the price. It is a lead that waited overnight for a reply, a showing that took four days to schedule, or a lease that waited on somebody finding a printer.
04On-time payment rate
Arrears totals tell you about a problem that has already happened. The share of payments that arrive on the due date tells you about one that is forming.
A tenant drifting from the first to the fifth to the ninth is a pattern worth a conversation long before it is worth a notice. It is also, separately, the evidence base for an N8 if it never resolves.
05Turnover cost
Paint, cleaning, locks, small repairs, listing fees, and your own hours. Most landlords have a rough feeling about this and no number.
Add it up once per unit and it changes decisions. A tenant renewing at slightly under market is frequently worth more than a new tenant at market, and you cannot see that without knowing what the turnover actually costs.
06You cannot manage what lives in four places
None of these numbers are hard to calculate. They are hard to have, because the inputs live in a bank app, a chat thread, a notebook and a spreadsheet somebody stopped updating.
TenantBay keeps homes, tenants, leases, rent and expenses on the same records, so occupancy, days to lease, payment behaviour and cost per property come out of the work you were already doing. The same records produce the year-end statement and the CRA T776 package per property, which means the reporting is a by-product rather than a project.
Questions landlords actually ask
What is the most expensive mistake a small landlord makes?
Leaving a unit empty longer than it needed to be. It has no invoice, so it never gets managed, and on a $2,200 unit it costs about $72 for every day it continues.
Should I raise rent to market at every renewal?
Not automatically. Compare the annual gain against the cost of a turnover, including lost rent and the work between tenants. A reliable tenant slightly under market is often the better financial outcome.
What is a reasonable time from listing to signed lease?
In a normal Ontario market, two to three weeks. Consistently longer usually points at response time rather than price.
Sources
Run every rental from one place.
Every lead from phone, text, WhatsApp, Messenger and Instagram in one inbox. Leases signed online, rent tracked to the day, repairs handled, and a year-end organised on the CRA T776. List your rentals free, manage up to 4 units free, then a price set by the size of your portfolio.
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