The True Cost of Vacant Units in Canada (2026 Data)

Most property managers know that vacancies are expensive. Ask any portfolio manager and they'll tell you it's one of the biggest drags on their bottom line. But when we started asking how much a vacant unit actually costs — down to the dollar, per day, per city — very few could give a precise answer.

That knowledge gap is a problem. Because when you can't quantify the cost, you can't build a business case for solving it faster. So we did the research ourselves. Our team analyzed vacancy data across 12 major Canadian rental markets, cross-referencing CMHC rental market reports, provincial tenancy board filings, and operational cost surveys from property management firms managing a combined 45,000+ units.

The numbers we found were staggering — and they point to a clear conclusion about where the industry needs to focus its attention.

The Headline Number: $73 Per Day

The average cost of a vacant unit in Canada in 2026 is $73 per day. That translates to $2,190 per month in lost revenue — and that figure only accounts for the rent itself. When you factor in the full picture, the true cost is significantly higher.

Let's break that down.

Breaking Down the True Cost of a Vacancy

Lost rent is the most visible cost, but it's only one piece of the equation. Our analysis identified six distinct cost categories that property managers incur for every vacant unit:

• Lost rent revenue — The obvious one. Every day a unit sits empty, you're earning $0 on an asset that carries a mortgage, taxes, and insurance regardless of occupancy.
• Utility costs that don't stop — Heat must be maintained in winter to prevent pipe damage. Common area utilities continue. Depending on the province, you may be required to maintain minimum temperatures even in unoccupied units. Our data shows this adds an average of $4–8/day.
• Maintenance of empty units — Empty units still need attention. Plumbing should be run periodically, pest prevention continues, and cosmetic touch-ups are often needed before each showing. Budget $50–150 per month per vacant unit.
• Marketing and listing costs — Paid listing placements on platforms like Rentals.ca, Zumper, and Kijiji average $75–200 per month. Photography and virtual tour creation add another $150–400 per unit turn.
• Staff time for showings and inquiries — A single leasing agent can spend 15–25 hours per vacancy on inquiry responses, scheduling, conducting showings, and follow-ups. At a fully loaded cost of $28–35/hour, that's $420–875 per vacancy in labour alone.
• Opportunity cost of slow responses — This is the hidden killer. When a prospective tenant emails at 9 PM on a Tuesday and doesn't hear back until the next business day, 68% of them have already inquired about another property. Every slow response extends your vacancy timeline.

When you add it all up, the fully loaded cost of a vacancy runs 15–25% higher than the raw rent figure. For a $2,500/month unit, that means the real daily cost isn't $83 — it's closer to $95–105.

City-by-City: Where Vacancies Hit Hardest

Vacancy costs aren't uniform across the country. Markets with higher average rents see proportionally larger daily losses, and markets with tighter supply face longer fill times when response speeds lag. Here's what the data looks like across six major markets:

The spread is significant. A property manager in Toronto loses nearly twice as much per vacant day as one in Edmonton. But here's what makes the data especially interesting: the fill time in higher-rent markets tends to be shorter — not because demand is higher (it is), but because managers in expensive markets are more motivated to invest in faster leasing processes. The average time-to-fill in Toronto is 32 days, versus 52 days in Edmonton.

This means that even though Edmonton's daily cost is lower, the total vacancy loss per unit turn can actually be comparable: $50/day × 52 days = $2,600 versus $93/day × 32 days = $2,976. The takeaway? No matter what market you're in, speed matters.

The Response Time Problem

According to CMHC's 2025 Rental Market Report, the national average time to fill a vacancy in Canada is 45 days. That's 45 days of zero revenue on a depreciating asset. At the national average of $73/day, that's $3,285 lost per unit turn.

But here's where it gets actionable. The single most impactful factor in reducing vacancy duration isn't the listing platform you use, the quality of your photos, or even the rent you set. It's response speed.

Properties that respond to rental inquiries within 5 minutes see 3x higher conversion rates than those that respond within 24 hours. The data is unambiguous: speed wins leases.

The problem is structural. Most property management offices operate on business hours — 9 AM to 5 PM, Monday to Friday. But 41% of rental inquiries come in between 6 PM and 9 AM, and 28% come in on weekends. That means nearly half of all prospective tenants are reaching out when nobody is there to answer.

Every hour of delay matters. Studies from the National Apartment Association show that if a prospect doesn't receive a response within 30 minutes, the probability of them engaging drops by 50%. After 4 hours, it drops by 80%. They're not waiting for you — they're moving on to the next listing.

The AI Leasing Advantage: Doing the Math

This is where the ROI calculation gets compelling. An AI leasing agent like SimpleTurn responds to every inquiry instantly — 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. It doesn't take lunch breaks, doesn't go home at 5 PM, and doesn't let weekend inquiries pile up until Monday morning.

If that faster response time reduces your average vacancy period by even 10 days, the financial impact is immediate and measurable.

A Worked Example: 200-Unit Building

Let's put real numbers to a realistic scenario. Consider a 200-unit residential building in a mid-sized Canadian market.

With an 8% annual turnover rate, 16 units change hands each year. At $73/day, reducing the fill time by 10 days saves $11,680 annually. Push that to 15 days — which our data from early SimpleTurn deployments suggests is achievable — and you're looking at $17,520 in recovered revenue.

For a larger portfolio of 500+ units across multiple properties, those numbers scale to $30,000–$50,000 per year. And that's before accounting for the reduction in leasing staff overtime, the elimination of missed after-hours inquiries, and the improved tenant experience that leads to higher lease renewal rates.

The math isn't hypothetical. We've seen it play out with early SimpleTurn customers who reported a 22% reduction in average days-to-lease within the first 90 days of deployment. For one Toronto-based portfolio of 340 units, that translated to an estimated $28,400 in recovered vacancy revenue in a single quarter.

What This Means for Your Portfolio

The era of treating vacancies as an unavoidable cost of doing business is ending. The data is clear: faster response times directly reduce vacancy periods, and AI leasing technology makes instant responses possible at any hour, on any channel.

If you manage 50 units or 5,000, the principle is the same. Every day you shave off your average fill time goes straight to your bottom line. The question isn't whether you can afford to adopt AI leasing — it's whether you can afford not to.

Use SimpleTurn's ROI Calculator to see exactly how much vacant units are costing your specific portfolio — and how much you could recover with faster, AI-powered leasing.

The numbers don't lie. And in a market where every dollar of NOI matters, the properties that respond fastest will be the ones that lease first.