Glossary
Occupancy
The share of units that are rented, against all rentable units at a facility, at a given moment.
Occupancy is the first number any operator looks at, and the one most often misread. It is the share of rented units against all units available to rent — not against the total number of doors, because service rooms and units withdrawn from letting do not belong in the denominator.
Occupancy on its own says little about money. A facility can sit at 95% and still earn less than a neighbour at 80%, if the neighbour rents larger units at a better rate. That is why it is worth reading occupancy by unit size: the number tells you which category to reprice and which to build more of.
An example. A site has 200 rentable units and 170 of them are rented, which is 85% occupancy. But the 4 m² units are at 97% while the 12 m² units sit at 55%. The site is not short of customers; it is short of small units — and it is carrying large ones that nobody wants at the current price.
Occupancy is worth watching together with churn. High occupancy with high churn means the facility keeps losing and replacing tenants, which costs more than keeping the ones it has.