Say you're finishing a 96-unit building. Construction is two months from delivery, the loan has an interest-only period that's already ticking, and the leasing office is an empty room with a folding table. Every vacant unit is a unit that earns nothing and costs you interest, taxes and insurance.
This is why a good lease up strategy gets written long before the certificate of occupancy shows up. The lease-up period is when your building sets its rents, its reputation and its first residents, and mistakes made here tend to follow you for years. A rushed discount, a thin team or a late start on marketing can cost more than any construction overrun you'll fight over.
Here's how we'd plan it, in the order things actually happen, with the marketing side built in from the start.
Build your lease up strategy from the numbers, not the launch party
Before any marketing, get clear on what the lease-up has to accomplish. That means a target absorption pace (how many units you need to lease per month), a date you expect to stabilize, and the cost of each month it takes longer.
Your underwriting probably already has a number in it. Check where it came from. Was it based on comparable new buildings in your submarket that actually leased up recently? Or was it a hopeful round figure? If you have a financial model, stress it: what happens if you lease up at two-thirds of that pace? A financial model that shows what a slower lease-up does to your interest reserve, your debt coverage and your equity is much better to have before opening day than after.
Then look hard at the competition. Which other buildings are opening or still leasing nearby? What are they charging, and what are they giving away? New supply in a submarket changes your pace fast. Your plan should reflect the actual neighborhood, not a regional average.
The most expensive lease-up mistake is a good plan for a market that doesn't exist.
Begin pre-leasing early, and be honest about your date
Pre-leasing means signing leases before the building is ready, with move-in dates on or after delivery. Done right, it gives you a base of committed residents on day one, so you open at some occupancy instead of zero.
Start as early as your approvals and your schedule allow. Many teams begin three to six months out, once the building has a visible presence, renderings are final and the model unit or a sales gallery is ready. Pre-leasing needs something for people to see. If you have no model, invest in good renderings, a clear floor plan set, a finished amenity preview and a short video that tells the story.
The warning label: construction dates slip. Every developer knows it. If you sign residents for May 1 and deliver on June 15, you will lose some of them, and you'll owe the rest a conversation. So:
- Be honest in your lease paperwork about what happens if delivery is delayed, and have your attorney review that language.
- Give prospects a realistic move-in window rather than a single date.
- Keep a running list of backup options, like temporary housing partnerships or a rent credit policy, in case you need them.
- Update people regularly. A short monthly note with photos of progress keeps them from drifting away.
Fair housing rules apply from the first inquiry. Train everyone who speaks with prospects on the Fair Housing Act, which covers race, color, national origin, religion, sex, familial status and disability. HUD's overview is a good starting point, and it's one you can hand to a new hire on day one.
Set a pricing cadence you can defend
Pricing a new building is mostly educated guessing until real prospects respond. The way to handle that isn't to guess harder. It's to set a clear process for adjusting.
Start with opening rents for each floor plan, based on comparable new buildings and the features that set yours apart. Then decide how often you'll review them. Weekly works well during lease-up. Each week, look at the same few numbers: traffic (tours and inquiries), applications, leases signed, and the pace against your target.
Then use simple rules. If tours are strong but applications are weak, the price may be too high or the unit isn't matching its photos. If tours are weak across the board, the issue is awareness and marketing, not price. If one floor plan is flying off the shelf and the others aren't, raise that one and hold the rest. Lease-up pricing works best when you move in small steps, with a reason, instead of a big cut when you feel nervous.
A few more habits help:
- Price units individually when you can. Higher floors, better views and corner locations usually earn a premium.
- Stagger your lease expiration dates so you aren't facing a wave of move-outs at once a year later.
- Raise rents as you hit milestones. Early residents get the best deal, and later ones pay more as the building fills and the amenities come online.
Think hard before reaching for concessions
Concessions are the quickest way to move units. A month free, a reduced deposit or a move-in credit gets applications. It's tempting, and in some markets it's the right call.
But they carry costs that don't show up in this month's leasing report. A concession lowers your effective rent, and lenders and buyers look at that. It can also set the expectation for the whole market that your price is negotiable, and it trains shoppers to wait for the next special. And if your first residents sign at a discounted rate, their renewals start from a lower base, or you have to raise their rent sharply the next year and risk losing them.
Here's a quick example, for illustration only. Say a unit rents for $1,800 on a 12-month lease. One month free means that resident effectively pays $1,650 per month, about 8% below the sticker price, for the entire year. Across 96 units, that's a lot of revenue you've given away to fill the building, and it might not have been necessary.
So treat concessions as a tool of last resort, not a default. Try these first:
- Check whether the issue is price or visibility. Fix the marketing before you cut the rent.
- Improve the experience: easier tours, faster follow-up, better presentation of the unit.
- Offer targeted, specific incentives, like a waived fee for a short list of units that are harder to lease, rather than a blanket discount.
- If you do need a concession, make it measured and time-limited, and track whether it actually moves applications.
Avoiding concessions can pay because the lease you sign at full rent supports your value for the next several years. Holding the price and spending the effort on better marketing, better tours and better follow-up is often the smarter trade. That said, if a nearby building is giving away two months free and you've done everything else right, you may have to respond. Decide your limit in advance, not in a panic.
Staff the lease-up like it matters
A lease-up team does something different from a stabilized building's team. They're opening the doors to a building nobody has seen. They answer the same questions hundreds of times, give tours constantly, and keep the units ready to show.
Plan staffing around the busiest hours, not the average ones. Evenings and weekends are when many prospects visit. You'll need enough people to greet every visitor, and enough follow-up capacity to answer inquiries quickly. Technology can handle the first reply, scheduling and reminders, but a prospect standing in your lobby should always meet a person who knows the answer.
Hire early and train thoroughly. Your team should know the floor plans, the pricing logic, the neighborhood, the amenities, the fair housing basics and the deal you can and can't offer. Give them a short script for the common questions, and encourage them to speak naturally.
Don't forget the back of house. As units come online, they need cleaning, punch-list repairs, inspections and a smooth hand-off from construction to operations. This is where having operations people involved during construction pays off, since someone who has run buildings will catch the missing outlet cover or the door that doesn't close before a resident does. That's why we like to be involved early through construction management.
Build the marketing timeline backward from opening
Think of marketing as a calendar working backward from your first move-in date.
Six to nine months out: Lock in your brand, name, website and a simple "coming soon" page with an interest list. Get your Google Business Profile started and your photography and renderings in order.
Three to six months out: Open pre-leasing. Start paid search and paid social to your interest list and your local area. Build relationships with nearby employers and local brokers. Publish progress updates.
One to three months out: Finish the model unit and amenity areas. Take professional photos and video. Run tours by appointment. Get on the listing sites with accurate floor plans.
Opening and the first 90 days: Run your full mix, from search and social to listing sites, referrals and events. Review the numbers weekly. Many of the tactics here are covered in our guide to apartment marketing ideas, and the same rules apply: track every lead from source to signed lease.
Final push to stabilization: The last 10 percent of a lease-up is often the slowest, because the best units are gone. Focus on the units that are harder to lease, adjust pricing, and keep up the follow-up with every prospect.
Watch a short list of numbers every week
A lease-up moves too fast to review monthly. Pick a one-page weekly report and read it every Monday. It doesn't need to be fancy. It needs to be honest.
The page should show leads, tours, applications, approvals, leases signed and move-ins, each compared to the week before and to your target pace. Add the source of each lead, the average time to first reply, and your current asking rents by floor plan. Include the units that have been ready the longest without a lease, because those tell you where the price or the product is off.
Then act on it. If leads are fine and tours are low, look at your follow-up. If tours are fine and applications are low, look at the price, the unit presentation and the application process itself. Is it easy to apply on a phone? Does it take more than fifteen minutes? Lease-ups often lose people at that step for no good reason.
Share the report with everyone involved, including the owner, the lender if required and the leasing team. When everyone sees the same numbers, decisions about pricing and spending go faster and arguments get shorter.
Plan the handoff to a stabilized building
The lease-up ends when you reach stabilization, but it doesn't end the work. The residents you sign now become the community, so think ahead to renewals. Set up your renewal process in the first months. Gather feedback early, from the first move-in survey onward. Fix small issues quickly so the first residents become your best references.
Keep a few of your best early residents close, too. Ask if they'd be willing to leave a review or refer a friend once they're settled in. A new building with real, recent reviews has a much easier time with the last units.
Review how it went. What pace did you hit, and where did you miss? Which channels produced leases? Which concession, if any, worked? Write it down. The next lease-up, yours or someone else's, will be better for it.
If you do one thing this week, open your lease-up plan and ask three questions. What's the pace we need? What do we do if we miss it by a third? And who is on the team, trained and ready, before the doors open? If the answers aren't clear, that's where the work starts.
