Glossary

Tenant Retention Rate

Also known as: Resident Retention Rate

The percentage of tenants, or of leased square footage or units, whose leases expire in a given period and who renew rather than vacate, calculated as renewals divided by total expirations over that period.

Retention is a core asset management KPI tracked at the property, portfolio, and market level, and is distinct from renewal conversion rate, which measures negotiation success on leases actively in the pipeline, and from occupancy, a point-in-time snapshot. Retention drives direct cost avoidance, since every renewal skips the vacancy downtime, tenant improvement allowance, leasing commission, and marketing cost of signing a new tenant, which is why many institutional owners track an explicit cost-of-turnover figure alongside the retention percentage to quantify a retention program's economic value. A headcount-based retention rate can mask a weak underlying result if the tenants who left were the largest or most creditworthy occupants, so sophisticated reporting weighs retention by square footage or rent contribution rather than lease count alone, and segments it by tenant size to surface concentration risk in exactly who is staying versus leaving.