How to ask AI which units are vacant and what vacancy costs you
Ask "Which units are vacant, how many days, and what did it cost?" The assistant lists units by status and reads days vacant and vacancy loss for a period you name. A day counts as vacant when no lease covers it, and the loss is that unit's market rent, or its last lease rent, for those days, prorated by month. You can also ask for the report as a file.
Three questions with three different answers
| You ask | You get |
|---|---|
| Which units are vacant right now? | A list of units with status vacant, notice, occupied or offline, with bedrooms and market rent. |
| How many days was each unit vacant this year? | Days vacant per unit for the period, and whether it was vacant on the last day and since when. |
| What did vacancy cost me? | Vacancy loss per unit and in total, in dollars, for the same period. |
The first is a snapshot. The other two cover a window. Name the window: "since January 1" or "the last 90 days". The window can be up to 731 days and cannot run past today.
How vacancy loss is worked out
A day is vacant when no lease covers it. Units marked offline, such as one being renovated, are left out. The loss for a unit is its market rent (or, if none is set, its last lease rent) for the vacant days, prorated by the number of days in each month. This is the same rule as the vacancy line on a T12, so the two reports agree.
Example a made-up unit with market rent of $1,500 is vacant for 15 days of a 30-day month. The loss is $1,500 x 15 / 30 = $750. If it is vacant for 10 days of a 31-day month at $1,550, the loss is $1,550 x 10 / 31 = $500.
Check one unit by hand. If the assistant's number does not match your own, ask it to show the dates it counted. Common causes are a lease that ended a day before the next began, a unit you marked offline for a repair, or a lease start date entered a few days off.
What to do with the answer
- Rank units by days vacant. A unit that is vacant much longer than the others is a pricing, condition or listing problem worth a look. The causes are covered in reducing days vacant.
- Compare vacancy loss with the cost of the fix. If a $600 repair finishes a unit that loses $50 a day, it pays back in 12 days of rent.
- Look at the units on notice. They are your next vacancies. Start the make-ready work from the order of work for a vacant unit.
- Do not tell the assistant to cut rent just because a unit is empty. Ask for the days, the market rent and what similar units rent for, then decide.
The per-day math behind that second line is in the cost of a vacant apartment per day.
Getting it as a file
Ask for the vacancy report as a CSV, Excel or PDF file. You get a download link that works for 15 minutes, and anyone with the link can open the file while it lasts, so open it yourself and do not paste the link anywhere. Keep the file with your year-end records next to the T12.
How DoorKeeping handles it
Unit lists and the vacancy report are read-only tools that work across one property, one LLC or the whole portfolio. Rent stays in your own bank account, and anything involving money waits for your approval. Asking about vacancy changes nothing in your records.
Sources
- DoorKeeping: Connect Claude or ChatGPT (steps and tools list), read Oct 30, 2026
- Model Context Protocol: Architecture overview (tools, resources, prompts), read Oct 30, 2026
Questions
- Does an offline unit count as vacant?
- No. Units marked offline are left out of vacancy days and loss.
- What rent is used for vacancy loss?
- The unit's market rent, or its last lease rent if no market rent is set, for each vacant day, prorated by the days in the month.
- How far back can I look?
- Up to 731 days, and never past today. The default is January 1 to today.
- Can I get this as a spreadsheet?
- Yes. Ask for the vacancy report as CSV or Excel and you get a short-lived download link.