If you own a few rental properties, having zero vacancy can feel really good. Knowing your happy tenants are snugly tucked away in their homes makes it much easier for you to sleep well at night too.

But did you know that zero vacancy is never really the goal for larger landlords? If you have 100 units or more, with zero vacancy, you’re just not charging enough rent!

Having said that, your goal, whether you own one rental unit or hundreds of them, is still to maximize revenue through occupancy and rent. There are 4 ways to do that — and all 4 must work together perfectly — for best results. They are:

• Product
• Promotion
• People
• Price

Product means the entire property where you want to rent. In addition to the unit itself, this includes curb appeal (how it looks from the outside when someone drives or walks by), and common areas (hallways, laundry room, amenities). Carefully examine and eliminate any ‘cringe factors’. Anything not quite right will negatively impact your ability to maximize occupancy and rent. You’ll want to be sure your product competes favourably with the competition in your niche.

Promotion is all about how you present your product to the marketplace. Where are you advertising? What platforms are you using? Are you really maximizing your marketing dollars by using those platforms properly? Pay attention to things like attention-grabbing customer-facing headlines and content, loads of pictures and video, and an effective call-to-action.

People: Even if you have the best product in your marketplace and the most magnetic marketing, having the wrong people representing you can derail it all. The people representing you must instantly generate feelings of like, respect, and trust. And if you, personally, don’t come across as friendly and flexible, well, you’re going to have to find someone else who does!

Price is probably the last thing I’d adjust if I’m not getting the results I’m looking for. Yes, obviously you’ll need to be competitively priced. However, if you perfect the first 3 P’s — Product, Promotion, and People — it’s very likely you’ll attract more highly qualified tenants, willing to pay a premium, to do business with you.

And THAT is the secret recipe to maximizing revenue in any rental portfolio:

• Product
• Promotion
• People
• Price

* You can find a video of this post on YouTube.