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Your rental vacancy rate is the percentage of time a unit, or your whole portfolio, sits empty and earns no rent. The national average rental vacancy rate was 7.3% in the first quarter of 2026, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s Housing Vacancy Survey, and a rate meaningfully above that in your market usually points to a pricing, marketing, or retention problem rather than bad luck. A single vacant month on a $1,500 unit is $1,500 gone, while taxes, insurance, and maintenance keep billing you regardless. Minimizing it comes down to three levers: price and market the unit before it sits empty, screen carefully, and give residents a reason to renew instead of leave.
What Is a Rental Vacancy Rate?
A unit is vacant when it’s ready to rent but sitting empty, whether that’s one property or a whole building. The mirror measure is occupancy rate: if your vacancy rate is 10%, your occupancy rate is 90%, and the two always add up to 100%.
Two mix-ups trip up even experienced owners. First, a unit under renovation or otherwise not ready to show shouldn’t count toward your vacancy rate at all. The official rate only includes marketable units, ones a renter could move into today. Second, vacancy and turnover measure different things. Turnover tracks how often residents move out. Vacancy tracks how long the unit actually sits empty afterward, and a property can lose residents every year while still posting a low vacancy rate, as long as the next one moves in fast.
How Do You Calculate Vacancy Rate?
You can calculate vacancy rate three ways, depending on what you’re measuring: a market area, one property, or your entire portfolio. Each uses the same basic idea, vacant time divided by total available time, applied at a different scale.
Area Vacancy Rate
Area vacancy rate shows how tight or loose a rental market is. Divide the number of vacant units in an area by the total rental units there, then multiply by 100.
A neighborhood with 500 rental units and 25 currently vacant works out to (25 / 500) × 100 = 5%, a rate that points to healthy demand, since units are getting filled rather than piling up empty.
Unit Vacancy Rate
Unit vacancy rate measures how long one property sat empty over a period, usually a year. Divide vacant days by total days in the period, then multiply by 100.
A property vacant for 45 days out of a 365-day year comes to (45 / 365) × 100, or roughly 12.3%. That result is worth digging into: check whether the listing price, the condition, or the marketing kept residents away.
Portfolio Vacancy Rate
Portfolio vacancy rate rolls every property you own into one number. Add up the vacant days across all units, then divide by total unit-days (units multiplied by days in the period).
Three properties illustrate it well:
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Property A: 2 units, one vacant for 50 days
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Property B: 4 units, two vacant for 30 days each
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Property C: 1 unit, vacant for 10 days
Total possible rental days come to 2,555 (7 units × 365 days), and total vacant unit-days come to 120 (50 + 60 + 10). That’s (120 / 2,555) × 100, or about 4.7%, a solid portfolio-wide number that still leaves room to check which unit dragged the average down.
What Counts as a Good Vacancy Rate?
There’s no universal target. What’s good depends on your location, property type, and the season you’re measuring, so the more useful question is how your rate compares to your specific market rather than a flat national number.
That 7.3% national figure is a workable starting benchmark if you don’t have better local data yet. Below it, you’re generally in good shape. Above it, something in your pricing, marketing, or property condition is worth a second look.
Location shifts the bar considerably. Urban markets near jobs, transit, or universities typically run vacancy rates well under the national average, since demand outpaces supply there. Suburban and rural properties commonly sit higher, simply because fewer renters are competing for the same units. Seasonal and vacation rentals swing hardest of all: often near-full in peak months, empty for stretches in the off-season. Judge those against their own seasonal pattern rather than a flat annual figure.
A handful of factors decide what’s realistic for your property specifically: how much rental demand exists nearby, the property’s condition, whether rent is priced to the comps, how hard you’re marketing the listing, and how seasonal your local market runs. A well-located, well-priced, well-marketed unit should land below the local average. If yours doesn’t, the fix is usually one of those five things.
How Do You Find Vacancy Rates for Your Market?
Pull local numbers before you judge your own rate in isolation. Market reports from sites like Zillow, Apartments.com, and Rent.com publish area-level vacancy and rent trend data. Local property managers see turnover and demand across dozens of units in real time and can tell you what’s typical block by block. Census Bureau data is useful for broad metro and national trends, even though it lags current conditions.
Once you have a local benchmark, compare your own number against it. A rate that beats the local average validates your pricing and marketing. A rate that trails it is your cue to revisit both, along with resident screening if you can trace the vacancy back to early move-outs.
How Do You Cut Vacancy Before a Unit Sits Empty?
Most vacancy gets decided before anyone applies, in how the property is priced, presented, and marketed.
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Boost curb appeal. A renter’s first impression forms at the curb, and fresh paint, tidy landscaping, and updated exterior fixtures cost little while shortening how long a listing stays active.
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Invest in targeted upgrades rather than a full remodel. Energy-efficient windows, updated kitchen appliances, new flooring, or swapped light fixtures and hardware can separate your unit from comparable listings nearby. Our guide to renovating a rental property breaks down which upgrades actually pay for themselves.
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Write a listing that sells the unit. Professional photos and a description built around what a renter actually cares about (natural light, storage, commute, nearby amenities) pull more qualified inquiries than a bare-bones listing ever does. See rental property description examples that attract quality tenants for language that works.
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Screen carefully. An applicant who clears a real background, credit, and reference check is more likely to become a resident who pays on time, stays put, and renews.
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Price at the market, not above it. Pull comps on similar units nearby before you set rent. Overpricing stretches your vacancy while you wait for a renter willing to overpay, and underpricing fills the unit fast while leaving income on the table. Our guide to how to increase rental property income covers this lever and several others worth stacking on top of it.
How Do You Keep a Unit Occupied Once a Resident Moves In?
Once someone moves in, keeping them costs far less than replacing them.
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Stay on top of maintenance. Residents who get fast, competent repairs renew far more often than residents chasing down a work order for weeks. A preventive maintenance schedule catches small problems before they turn into move-out reasons.
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Communicate before problems escalate. Residents who can reach you, or your property manager, and get a real answer tend to stay. Silence, not the occasional inconvenience, is usually what starts someone apartment-hunting.
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Offer a reason to renew. A new appliance, a small discount on the renewal term, or a complimentary cleaning costs far less than turning the unit and marketing it all over again.
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Offer lease-term flexibility where it fits. A six-month or month-to-month option can capture residents who won’t commit to a full year but would otherwise walk away, particularly in markets with seasonal demand.
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Consider professional management if self-managing is stretching you thin. A manager brings full-time attention to maintenance response, renewal timing, and pricing that’s hard to match part-time, and it shows up directly in occupancy. See 5 reasons professional property management maximizes your rental income for the specifics.
What Does a High Vacancy Rate Cost You?
The lost rent is the obvious cost, and often not the biggest one.
Every vacant month is rent you’ll never recover, not deferred income, gone for good. Layer on the cost of getting the unit rented again: new photos, staging, and ad spend on top of the platforms you’re already paying for. A property is also more likely to deteriorate while it sits empty. A slow leak or a pest problem can go unnoticed without a resident there to report it, and an obviously vacant unit is a more attractive target for vandalism or a break-in. For owners with multiple properties, a portfolio running chronically high vacancy reads as risk to lenders and buyers alike, which can mean a harder refinance or a lower sale price when you’re ready to exit.
FAQ
What’s the difference between vacancy rate and occupancy rate?
They’re two sides of the same number. Occupancy rate is the percentage of time a property is rented, and vacancy rate is the percentage of time it isn’t. A 10% vacancy rate always means a 90% occupancy rate.
Is a 0% vacancy rate realistic?
No, not consistently. Every property needs some turnover time between residents for cleaning, minor repairs, and re-marketing. Treat zero as the direction to aim for, not a number you should expect to hit and hold.
How often should I calculate my vacancy rate?
At least once a year, and monthly or quarterly if you’re actively working to lower it. Frequent checks catch a slipping property faster, before a few empty months turn into a real income problem.
What vacancy rate is too high for my market?
Anything meaningfully above your local average is worth investigating. The national average sits around 7.3%, but urban markets often run well under that and rural or seasonal markets often run higher, so compare against your specific area rather than the national figure alone.
Does a high turnover rate mean my vacancy rate will be high too?
Not necessarily. Turnover measures how often residents leave. Vacancy measures how long the unit sits empty afterward. A property with frequent turnover but fast re-leasing can still post a low vacancy rate, while a property with rare turnover but one long empty stretch can post a high one.
