Key Property Management Metrics Every Landlord Should Track

The metrics that show how well a rental is run are economic occupancy, days vacant, collection rate, operating expense ratio, maintenance cost per unit, turnover rate, and tenant tenure. Each one comes from your rent ledger and books, and each is most useful compared with your own budget, last year's figure, and your local market. Calculate them quarterly.

The seven metrics at a glance

The worked examples below use one 6-unit building with a market rent of $1,825 a month per unit, which is $60 a day ($1,825 x 12 / 365). Gross potential rent, the rent you would collect with every unit full at market rent all year, is 6 x $1,825 x 12 = $131,400.

Economic occupancy and days vacant

Physical occupancy counts occupied unit-days. Economic occupancy counts dollars: rent actually collected divided by gross potential rent. When every unit has the same market rent, the gap between the two shows rent lost while units were full, through below-market leases, concessions, and unpaid rent. With mixed rents, a vacancy in a higher-rent unit also widens the gap.

Example. Two units turned over, one vacant 30 days and one 45 days, for 75 vacant unit-days.

• Physical occupancy: (2,190 unit-days - 75) / 2,190 = 96.6%.
• Vacancy loss: 75 days x $60 = $4,500.
• Loss to lease: one long-term tenant pays $1,700, which is $125 a month or $1,500 a year under market.
• Unpaid rent written off: $1,800.
• Rent collected: $131,400 - $4,500 - $1,500 - $1,800 = $123,600.
• Economic occupancy: $123,600 / $131,400 = 94.1%.

The 2.5-point gap between 96.6% and 94.1% is pricing and collections, not vacancy. To compare vacancy with the market, the Census Bureau put the national rental vacancy rate at 7.3% for the second quarter of 2026 and publishes rates by state and for the 75 largest metro areas. Census counts units vacant and for rent as a share of the rental inventory, and counts a unit already leased but awaiting move-in separately. To compare, divide the days your units sat vacant and listed (not days leased but empty) by total unit-days; in the example, if all 75 days were listed, that is 3.4%.

Days vacant is the time from move-out to the next lease start. Split it into make-ready days (cleaning, paint, repairs) and marketing days, because each has a different fix. Use the daily rent to decide when to cut the asking rent. A $50 monthly cut on a 12-month lease costs $600, the same as 10 vacant days at $60 a day. The cut pays for itself only if it fills the unit at least 10 days sooner than holding the price would, so it makes sense when a listing has drawn few qualified applicants and comparable units nearby are renting for less.

Collection rate

Collection rate is rent collected divided by rent billed under your leases for the same period. Billed rent excludes vacant days and the below-market discount, so it isolates whether tenants pay.

Example. Billed rent was $131,400 - $4,500 - $1,500 = $125,400. Collected rent was $123,600, so the collection rate is $123,600 / $125,400 = 98.6%. The $1,800 missing is one tenant's unpaid month.

Track an on-time rate alongside it: payments received by the due date divided by payments due. A tenant who pays every month but a week late keeps the collection rate at 100% while the on-time rate falls. Act on any balance older than one rent cycle by following your lease and your state's notice rules. Rent collection systems and late-fee practices covers autopay and follow-up steps.

Unpaid rent also brings no tax deduction. Under IRS Publication 527, a cash-method landlord cannot deduct uncollected rent, because it was never reported as income.

Operating expense ratio

The operating expense ratio is operating expenses divided by operating income (rent collected plus fees and other income). Operating expenses are the costs of running the property: taxes, insurance, repairs and maintenance, utilities you pay, management, and professional fees. Leave out mortgage principal and interest, depreciation, and capital improvements. The IRS treats improvements as capital costs, separate from repairs, and including them would make one roof year look like a management failure.

Example.

Operating expense ratio: $34,500 / $123,600 = 27.9%. Net operating income (NOI) is $123,600 - $34,500 = $89,100. NOI is the input for cap rate. NOI minus loan payments and capital spending, such as a roof or furnace, is the cash flow used in cash-on-cash return.

This owner self-manages, so the management line is zero. To compare the building with a managed one, add what a manager would charge. Act when the ratio rises: find the line that grew faster than rent, such as a tax reassessment or an insurance renewal, and shop or appeal that line.

Maintenance cost per unit

Divide annual spending on repairs and maintenance of the units by the number of units. Leave out grounds work such as landscaping and snow removal, which does not vary by unit, and capital replacements such as a roof or furnace, so one large project does not distort the trend. In the example, $8,400 / 6 = $1,400 a year per unit.

Calculate it per unit as well as per building. If one unit runs $3,000 while the others run $1,000, pull its work orders. If the same water heater or appliance keeps failing, compare a year of service calls with the price of replacing it.

Turnover rate and tenant tenure

Turnover rate is move-outs in the past 12 months divided by units. Two move-outs in 6 units is 33%. Tenant tenure is the average length of completed tenancies in months; track your own trend, since a single building has too few leases to compare with a market average.

Turnover costs more than the vacant days. Count vacancy loss, make-ready work, and leasing costs together:

The two turnovers cost $9,500, or 7.2% of gross potential rent. Compare that with retention. Giving a renewing tenant a $75 smaller rent increase than planned costs $900 over a 12-month lease, a fraction of one $4,300 turnover. If tenure is shortening and exit reasons point to a fixable cause such as slow repairs, fix that first. Minimizing turnover costs breaks down the make-ready budget.

The figures come from the same ledger used in landlord accounting for Schedule E, so set your categories up once and the metrics follow. If you hire a manager, ask for these seven figures in each quarterly report; self-managing vs hiring a property manager compares the two approaches.