Eighty-two percent full and sixty-nine percent paid
The rent roll in the form is 244 units and 22,800 rentable square feet. Two hundred of the units are occupied, which is 82 percent, and that is the figure that gets quoted. Every unit at its street rate would bill 30,700 dollars a month. What is actually collected is 21,349.57, which is 69.5 percent of it, and the twelve and a half points between the two occupancies are made of four separate things: 6,095 dollars of units standing empty, 1,508 dollars of occupied units paying under the current rate card, 1,200 dollars of discounts written off, and 547.43 dollars billed and not collected.
Those four have nothing to do with each other operationally. Vacancy is a marketing and pricing problem. Loss to lease is a rate management problem. Discounts are a decision somebody made deliberately. Uncollected rent is a collections problem. Rolling them into one occupancy number and then arguing about the number is how facilities spend a year working on the wrong one.
Which occupancy you quote changes the story
Physical occupancy by unit is 82 percent here. By square foot it is 79.4. The gap is small but it points somewhere: the empty units are the larger ones, so the unit count is flattering the building. When square-foot occupancy runs above unit occupancy, the reverse is true and the vacancy is sitting in lockers that cost you very little each.
Economic occupancy on this page divides rent collected by gross potential rent at street rates. That is one definition. Others divide by rent at in-place rates, which removes loss to lease from the measure entirely and would report a noticeably higher number for exactly this rent roll. Neither is wrong and they are not comparable, so the only rule that matters is to say which one you are quoting.
Rent per square foot down the mix
At the in-place rates in the form, the 5 by 5 units earn 2.04 dollars a square foot a month, the 5 by 10 units 1.58, the 10 by 10 units 1.26, the 10 by 15 units 1.14 and the 10 by 20 units 1.07. That falling shape is normal, because rate cards are not linear in size, but it is a property of your rate card rather than a law of the business, and a facility that has pushed its large units hard while leaving locker rates alone for three years will show it reversed. The column is there to be read, not assumed.
Across the whole building the collected rent works out at 0.94 dollars per rentable square foot a month, against a ceiling of 1.35 if every unit were full at street rate. The distance between those two numbers is the same twelve and a half points, expressed in the unit that lets you compare this building with a different one.
Loss to lease is the invisible one
Nothing in the day to day shows it. It is the sum, across every occupied unit, of what the unit would rent for today less what the tenant in it actually pays, and it grows every time the street rate moves and the sitting tenant does not. On this page it is derived as the remainder of gross potential less vacancy less rent in place, so it closes to the cent against the lines above it, and it can come out negative — that means the in-place rates are above the current asking rates, which happens when existing rates have been pushed while street rates were cut to fill vacancy.
Questions people ask
What is economic occupancy in self-storage?
Rent actually collected divided by the rent the building could bill if every unit were full at its street rate. For the rent roll in the form that is 21,349.57 against 30,700, or 69.5 percent, while 82 percent of the units are occupied. Be aware that some operators divide by rent at in-place rates instead, which excludes loss to lease and gives a much higher number for the same building. Two figures on different definitions cannot be compared.
Why is my economic occupancy so much lower than my physical occupancy?
Four things sit between them and the page separates all four: units standing empty, occupied units paying under the current rate card, discounts and concessions written off the bill, and rent billed that never arrives. In the example those are 6,095, 1,508, 1,200 and 547.43 dollars a month. Which of the four is largest decides what you should actually be working on, and a single occupancy figure hides it.
What is loss to lease?
The gap between what your occupied units would rent for today and what the tenants in them pay, added up across the rent roll. It is derived here as gross potential rent less vacancy loss less the rent actually in place, so it always reconciles with the lines above it. It grows quietly whenever the street rate moves and the sitting tenant does not, and nothing in the daily operation displays it.
Should late fees and insurance commission count in occupancy?
Not in the occupancy figures on this page. Other income sits on its own line, outside the rent and outside all three occupancy measures, because it is not rent on a unit and including it makes the measure impossible to compare between facilities. It is added back only in the total income line at the bottom.
Can economic occupancy be above physical occupancy?
Yes, and it shows up here when the in-place rates sit above the street rates — the loss to lease line goes negative and the page relabels it. That combination usually means asking rates have been cut to fill vacancy while existing tenants are still on higher rates from earlier increases. It is not an error in the rent roll; it does mean the rate card and the rent roll disagree about what a unit is worth.