Concessions And Discounts For Rentals
If you’re a landlord looking to fill a vacancy in your units, you might be considering offering a rental concession or other discount to entice tenants. This could mean anything from a month or two of free rent to discounted amenity use. Many landlords will subtract this discount from the rent price and list their unit under the newer, lower price, also known as effective rent.
Although advertising rental units with effective rent is a fairly common practice in the real estate industry, it continues to confuse tenants and sometimes landlords, too. That’s why we’re here to help break down net effective rent, how to calculate it, and why it may be useful for your rental business.
Understanding Effective Rent Versus Gross Rent
You may have heard the terms “effective rent” and “gross rent” before, or it may be completely new to you. Either way, it’s important to understand the difference between the two so you can better advertise to tenants and find which method makes rent collection simpler for you. Let’s walk through the definitions of each term.
Gross Rent
You’re probably familiar with gross rent, and that’s because it’s easy to understand. Gross rent is simply the flat rent amount that a tenant will pay throughout the duration of their lease term to live on your property. This cost includes the base rent amount found on the lease agreement as well as charges for utilities, maintenance, and any other fees for amenities like laundry services or storage units.
Effective Rent
So, what is effective rent and how does it differ from gross rent?
Effective rent is different from gross rent because it’s an average rent price that factors in any concessions or discounts you offer tenants, making the monthly cost lower than it would be for gross rent. Effective rent is closer to your actual monthly rent. Some landlords advertise the net effective rent on their unit listings to attract potential tenants who are eager for a good deal, but it’s generally used as a way to help organize and prepare costs for tenants and income for landlords.
There are two ways you can apply effective rent: Either charge the lower price across all months of the lease or charge the gross rent amount and let the renter skip rent payments for the discounted months. Both methods bring you the same amount of overall income but may affect how you budget from month to month.
Calculating Net Effective Rent
You may be wondering how to calculate effective rent, and although you can always use a net effective rent calculator, it’s fortunately a pretty simple calculation. Effective rent is equal to your gross rent minus any concessions divided by the term of the lease. The net effective rent formula looks like this:
Effective rent = (Gross rent – Concessions) / # of months/lease periods
For example, if your gross rent is $1,200 a month (or $14,400 yearly) and you offer two months of free rent ($2,400) for a 12-month lease, $14,400 – $2,400 = $12,000, and $12,000 / 12 equals an effective monthly rent of $1,000. Based on this net effective rent calculation, you can either charge your tenants $1,000 a month for all 12 months or $1,200 a month for 10 months.
Why You Might Use Rent Concessions and Effective Rent
Rent concessions can be a huge draw for tenants, especially in a rental market with high demand and high average rent prices. After all, according to 2024 Forbes statistics, 54% of renters receive some sort of rent concession. Discounts on amenities, utilities, or rent itself can make a difference in attracting tenants to your properties—a valuable tool when trying to fill vacancies quickly. By utilizing move-in specials and concessions, you can increase your tenant pool and reduce the time and money needed to market your units.
Rental discounts can also help reduce turnover in your units. Many landlords offer discounts for the first year only, but if you choose to keep preexisting deals for tenants looking to renew their leases, you’ll be more likely to convince them to sign an agreement for another year. Ultimately, turning renters into long-term tenants will bring you more profit.
Move-in specials with effective rent prices allow tenants to financially prepare and budget for the payments they will be making each month, whether it’s a lower payment for the entirety of the lease term or the gross rent amount with a discount at the very end. Even though you’ll end up with the same income either way, you and your tenants will need to budget differently depending on the method you choose, so be sure to be upfront and honest about the rent amount expected each month. What the tenant pays ultimately should be clearly specified in the lease and all communications.
Should You Advertise Gross Rent or Effective Rent?
There is no “right” answer to advertising gross rent versus effective rent. At the end of the day, effective rent is a great tool for marketing vacant units to potential tenants and can save renters vital cash, but it’s not a requirement for advertising units.
Before you decide which method to advertise with, you should research the rental market in your area to set a fair monthly rent price and evaluate how valuable concessions will be to a renter. If rental units are expensive and in high demand, a good deal can make all the difference. In this case, you may want to advertise effective rent and charge tenants that price for the duration of their lease.
Keep in mind, though, that if you decide to charge gross rent and give your discounts to tenants at the end of their lease, advertising effective rent may not be the best option. Tenants may be upset to learn that their monthly payments will be higher than advertised, which can scare off potential tenants interested in your properties.
How you decide to market your rental units is your choice, but you must clearly state in your lease agreement the rental payment amount expected each month and its due date to eliminate any confusion or legal action from tenants down the line.
Conclusion
Whether you’re a seasoned real estate investor or you’re just starting out in the real estate industry, understanding how rent concessions coexist with gross and net rent or effective rent can be confusing. By learning about how effective rent works and the reasons you might offer rent concessions to tenants, you can lessen your vacancies and reduce turnover, ultimately increasing your profits and growing your business.
