Every owner asks it the same way. The tenant gives notice, the house is about to go empty, and the question is how long until somebody is paying rent again.
Midtown and Rose Hill — the 31904 side of Columbus — is a harder ZIP to answer that question in than most, and it is worth understanding why before you set a price.
How long will my rental sit vacant in Midtown Columbus?
About 21 days, when the house is priced right. That condition is doing all the work in that sentence — price is what moves the clock here, not the season and not luck. Right now four of the thirteen homes we have vacant are in 31904, and they range from $900 to $2,300 a month, the widest spread of any ZIP we manage.
Why 31904 is not one rental market
Compare our current vacancy board. In North Columbus, along Veterans Parkway in 31909, we have three homes open and they run $1,550 to $2,200 — a range of about 1.4 times from bottom to top. In Midtown and Rose Hill the same board runs $900 to $2,300. That is 2.6 times.
Two of those four Midtown homes are two-bedroom, one-bath houses priced at exactly $900. There is nothing in our North Columbus inventory anywhere near that number. The floor up there is $1,550.
So when somebody tells you what "Columbus rentals" are doing, ask them which Columbus. A $900 two-bedroom off 29th Street and a $2,300 four-bedroom a few miles away are not competing for the same tenant, are not marketed the same way, and do not fill on the same schedule.
What actually moves the clock
Four things, in the order they matter.
| Lever | Why it moves the clock |
|---|---|
| Price against what actually leased | Not what the neighbor is asking. What signed. An asking price nobody signed is just a number. |
| Photos and the first showing | Renters decide from their phone. A dark hallway photo costs you weeks. |
| Condition at listing, not at move-in | Listing a house "once the carpet is in" means listing it late. Market it while the work is scheduled. |
| How fast an application gets answered | Good applicants are applying to more than one house. Slow beats you. |
Notice what is not on that list: the season, and luck. Both get blamed constantly. Neither is usually the problem.
What an empty month actually costs
Run it on your own house before you argue over rent. A home at $1,400 that sits one extra month has given up $1,400 — and you cannot earn it back later, because a lease that starts a month late ends a month late. Holding out for another $50 a month takes over two years to repay a single empty month.
That arithmetic is why we would rather price a house correctly on day one than defend an optimistic number into week six. We do not charge a management fee in a month the house is vacant, so an empty house is not earning us anything either. Our interests line up on this one.
What we do about it
We price against what has actually leased nearby, not against what is sitting unrented. We photograph properly. We answer inquiries the day they come in, and we screen quickly enough that a good applicant does not go somewhere else while we think about it. Then we tell you the truth about what the market is saying, including when the truth is that the price is wrong.
If you own in Midtown, Rose Hill or anywhere else in Columbus and want a straight answer on what your house should rent for and how it is likely to move, send us the address. We will tell you what we think, whether or not you hire us.
More reading: what full-service management covers for owners, our current Columbus rental listings, and the rest of our Columbus property management guides.
Written by Carlos Alex Rozwadowski, Premier Realtors of Columbus Property Management. Former U.S. Army Ranger, 75th Ranger Regiment. Managing Columbus rentals since 2007.
Related: we ran the same exercise on the other side of town in what your house will actually rent for in East Columbus.
One more thing worth saying plainly, because it is the argument we have with owners most often. Twenty-one days is what a correctly priced house does. A house priced above the market does not lease in twenty-one days and then catch up. It sits, and every week it sits it looks staler to the people watching the listing.
