First Rate Property Management's Vacancy Rate:

Below is a chart showing FRPM's vacancy rate. As you can see, our vacancy this summer has been greater than years in the past. Yet, we have continually posted how great the rental market is. So why the higher vacancy?

We have always tried to run leases from summer to summer as this is the time most tenants are looking to move. We are able to get higher rents with a shorter vacancy period between tenants during the summer months. However, in years past, that wasn't a hard set rule and we allowed exceptions and we were not assertive with tenants who just wanted to remain on a month-to-month lease. After year after year of working towards summer lease terminations, this year we had nearly 80% of our leases come up for renewal this summer. Also, with a greatly improved rental market, we were much more aggressive with rent increases and requiring month-to-month tenants to renew their lease. As a combined result, we had a record turnover summer. The vacancy numbers posted on our graph, show a higher vacancy rate, but the truth is, it more reflects the turnover rate and most of these weekly rates represent the downtime between tenants. So with that said, I anticipate very low vacancy rates for the remainder of the year going into next Spring and I believe the annual vacancy rate will be lower with the one caveat being that we saw rent increases that we have not seen for over a decade.

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