Why vacancy costs more than most owners calculate
A month of vacancy on a $1,600 property is not a $1,600 problem. It is $1,600 of lost rent, plus utilities you now pay, plus lawn care, plus the risk that an empty house attracts the kind of attention empty houses attract. Owners tend to price vacancy as lost rent alone and under-react to it.
That is why we would rather lease a property quickly at a defensible number than hold out for an optimistic one. A property listed 8% over market that sits for six weeks earns less across the year than one listed correctly that leases in ten days.
How we actually get it leased
- Photography that does the work. Listings live or die on the first three images. Professional photos, shot after the unit is genuinely ready, not phone snaps of a half-cleaned kitchen.
- Syndication to 80+ rental sites. Zillow, Trulia, HotPads, Apartments.com and the rest, plus AffordableHousing.com and VoucherMatch where the property is voucher-friendly — those are where voucher holders actually look.
- Showings handled. We show it. You do not drive out to meet a stranger who may not turn up.
- Screening before the lease, not after. Full detail on the tenant screening page.
- Texas-compliant lease execution with the disclosures and addenda the state requires, signed electronically.
Pricing it right in the first place
Before anything is listed we run comparable rentals in the immediate area — not the ZIP code average, which in Houston can span two very different neighborhoods. School attendance zone, flood history, whether it backs onto a feeder road, garage or carport: these move the number more than square footage does.
If the property is going to be marketed to voucher holders, the payment standard for that bedroom count is a hard input, because it caps what the authority will approve regardless of what the open market would pay. That is covered on the payment standards page.