The curve flattens long before the building fills
Three hundred units, 45 of them occupied, 22 move-ins a month and 6 percent of the occupied units leaving each month. The straight-line answer is that 255 empty units at 22 a month takes twelve months. The actual curve reaches 214 units in month 12 — 71 percent — and gets to the 88 percent mark in month 19. The difference is not a fudge factor. Every unit you fill adds to the number of units that can empty next month, so the drain grows in step with the fill.
Where it settles, and why the horizon does not matter
Next month is this month, plus whatever move-ins the vacancy allows, minus the move-out rate applied to what is already occupied. Set next month equal to this month and the level falls straight out: move-ins divided by the move-out rate. At 22 and 6 percent that is 367 units, which is more than the building has, so a second limit takes over — you cannot take 22 move-ins a month out of a vacancy that has shrunk to nothing. The binding level becomes the building divided by one plus the rate, or 283 units, which is 94.3 percent. The simulation on the page reaches exactly that and then stops moving, in month 24 and in month 600 alike.
That is worth saying plainly because it is the most common mistake in a lease-up plan. If the settling level is below your target, no amount of patience gets you there and the horizon is irrelevant. Only two things move it: more move-ins a month, or a lower move-out rate.
Eleven hundred move-ins to add two hundred units
Over the sixty months the page runs, the model records 1,128 move-ins and 890 move-outs to take the building from 45 units to 283. Each of those 890 is a unit to sweep out, a lock to cut, a listing to refresh and a card to charge. Lease-up is not 238 rentals; it is more than a thousand of them, and the staffing and the turn cost follow the larger number.
What the model does not have
Move-ins are held flat, and real ones are seasonal and highest right after opening when the marketing spend is highest. The move-out rate is held flat too, and in reality it is much higher among tenants in their first three months than among tenants in their third year, which makes a real early curve steeper and a real late curve flatter than this one. And at a move-out rate of a full 100 percent a month the balance does not settle at all — it steps over the level instead of approaching it, and the page says so rather than printing a number.
Questions people ask
How long does a self-storage facility take to lease up?
That depends entirely on your own move-in and move-out rates, which is what the page asks for. At the figures in the form — 300 units, 45 occupied, 22 move-ins a month and 6 percent monthly move-outs — it crosses 88 percent in month 19 and settles at 283 units. Change the move-out rate to 8 percent and the arithmetic changes completely. Nothing here is a benchmark for how a facility ought to fill.
Why does the occupancy curve flatten out?
Because move-outs are a percentage of the units already occupied, so the drain grows as the building fills while the move-ins stay flat. The two meet at move-ins divided by the move-out rate, and once there the count stops changing. At 22 move-ins and 6 percent that level would be 367 units, above the 300 in the building, so the real limit becomes the vacancy left to move into.
What is stabilized occupancy?
Whatever you or your lender have defined it as, which is why it is a field on the form rather than a constant in the code. Some use a fixed physical occupancy, some economic occupancy, some a rent per square foot. This page has no definition of its own and states none.
What if the target is higher than the level the rates settle at?
Then it is never reached and no horizon helps. The page says so explicitly and prints the two ways out: the move-ins a month that would reach the target at the same move-out rate, or the move-out rate that would reach it at the same move-ins. Those are the only two levers in the model.
How many move-outs happen during lease-up?
More than people plan for. Filling from 45 units to 283 at these rates takes 1,128 move-ins across sixty months and produces 890 move-outs on the way. Each one is a unit to clean, relist and re-rent, so the labour and the turn cost track the gross number rather than the net gain of 238.