Platform · Glossary
Vacancy.
The expected share of rent lost to vacant units over a year. The in-product intake-form tooltip frames it usefully: "Expected share of rent lost to vacancy. Tighter rental markets may support lower vacancy."
A market with 8% vacancy has 8 out of every 100 rentable units sitting empty — between tenants, in turnover, or unable to find a renter at current asking rents.
Why vacancy matters more than headline rent
A submarket can show strong nominal rent growth and still produce weak landlord economics if vacancy is creeping up. Landlords feel vacancy directly: every empty month is one month of taxes, insurance, maintenance, and debt service with no rent to cover them. A 5% vacancy on a $1,500/month rental is $900 of annual lost income — meaningful at the property level and material in the aggregate.
Vacancy vs. vacant ratio
These are different measures and both appear in 3Y reports:
- Vacancy (rental) — share of rental-available units that are empty. The number a landlord cares about directly. Default in a 3Y analysis is typically 5–8% depending on the market.
- Vacant ratio (Census) — share of all housing units classified vacant, including seasonal homes, units held off market, and units in transition. Always larger than rental vacancy and a broader signal of housing market slack.
Use rental vacancy for property-level underwriting. Use vacant ratio to understand whether a market has structural slack that may pressure rents over time.