My belief is you should monitor your multifamily property’s KPIs daily to catch surprises before they turn into larger problems. Not all KPIs are useful daily but some are. It's not simple to turn around a poorly run property. Building a discipline around KPI management including addressing the issues in a collaborative manner with the property manager is the foundation of strong asset management.
Daily KPIs
Occupancy/Vacancy rate
Monitoring this daily keeps your finger on the pulse of the property. Any sudden drops warrants an immediate conversation with management. Compare your occupancy rate to the market to see where you stand.
Average Arrears
It's critical to ensure you are collecting the rent on time. The average arrears shows what the average number of days rent is in arrears for.
Delinquency
You are in business to collect rent. Daily monitoring of delinquency is key to ensuring bad debt doesn’t get out of hand. I have seen properties with bad debt of $160,000 or more. How does that happen? Owners not paying attention.
Leasing KPIs
Reviewing leasing KPIs daily gives you good insight on how effective the team is at leasing out units. The foundation of performance is activity. These KPIs show the leasing activity level:
- Number of leads
- Number of showings
- Number of rental applications
- Number of leases signed
Weekly KPIs
Number of Renovations in Progress
I think it is more of a weekly KPI than a daily KPI. The number of renovations doesn’t change much on a daily basis.
Unit Turnover Time to Completion
You should measure the time it takes to complete each step of a unit turnover.
Unit Turnover cost
You should track the budget vs actual cost for each unit turnover.
Average Days-to-Lease
Provides the number of days it took to lease an empty unit.
Total Rent Collected
You could argue this is a monthly KPI but not all tenants pay on time. It is the inverse of the delinquency KPI.
Monthly KPIs
NOI
What was NOI for the month? This fluctuates monthly so understanding how revenue and expense changes impact the NOI number is critical.
Expenses
Compare budget to actual expenses for each line item. You need to understand which costs are embedded in each expense account.
Revenue
Compare budget to actual revenue for each line item.
Tenant Turnover
Low turnover is better than high turnover unless the turnover is accompanied by solid rent increases. Landlords today are working harder to keep their tenants in place.
Customer Satisfaction Scores
What other KPIs do you look at as an investor? Property managers provide weekly reports. Daily reports are possible if you have access to software which reports daily.