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Author: Mark Ainely | Partner GC Realty & Development & Co-Host Straight Up Chicago Investor Podcast
We want to share a tale of two flats. Once upon a time (last spring), two identical two-bedroom rental properties hit the Chicago rental market. Both accepted pets.
One filled in nine days after attracting 24 qualified applicants.
The other sat vacant for 46 days and only had three applications.
The owner reduced the rent by $150 per month to secure a lease. Over the next year, that difference cost nearly $3,000 in lost income and extra carrying costs.
Plus, the owner didn’t have stringent screening. So, those tenants of questionable quality do what questionable quality tenants do: they paid late each month and left the place a wreck when they moved out.
Both properties were in the same Lakeview neighborhood. The difference came down to two metrics every Chicagoland investor should track:
Applications per listing (a measure of demand and tenant quality)
Days on market (DOM) (a measure of operational efficiency and cash-flow stability)
In Chicago’s competitive rental market, these two numbers determine whether a property consistently produces income or quietly drains profits. This is also why it’s so important to find the right Chicago property management company with the expertise that impacts these metrics.
The Power of Applications per Listing
A healthy flow of rental applications gives owners leverage. More applicants create choice, and choice protects your cash flow and investment.
When several qualified tenants compete for the same property, the owner can:
Select the strongest applicant with a proven payment history
Maintain full market rent without offering concessions
Reduce vacancy time through quick decision-making
Lower long-term risk of late payments or turnover
It’s a basic numbers game: a property that averages 20 applicants offers stronger protection than one that gets just three.
Application Number Factors
Low application volume can indicate weak property marketing, overpricing for the market, or a lack of amenities attractive to potential tenants. Each of those factors cuts investor return.
Another interesting factor in low interest and applications in a property can also be the days on market. And ironically, the longer a rental property sits on the market, the fewer applications it will see. Why? Applicants can mistakenly think there’s something wrong with it (or with the landlord), which is why it hasn’t been leased yet.
Having a solid marketing game, with professional photos and wide posting on the best places to attract the interest of highly qualified applicants, can make all the difference. Appropriate pricing and listings that highlight the amenities tenants want will also score higher in searches. All these factors will minimize the number of days a property sits on the market, negating the “what’s wrong with this place?” questions.
Pet Power
Did you know one of the most important “amenities” you offer is allowing pets? A landlord who doesn’t accept pets is immediately filtered out in the majority of rental searches, even if they don’t currently have a pet. That’s because half of Chicago renters have a pet and another 18% plan to get one.
Many property owners have imagined horror stories about what would happen if they allowed pets in their rental properties. Yet, in reality, any damage caused by pets is more likely due to lower quality tenants allowing the behavior.
While a good screening and filter out riskier tenants, someone searchin for a new rental will filter out any properties that don’t allow pets. This shrinks property exposure, potentially causing the landlord to lose thousands while delaying placement of the 32% of renters who don’t have (or want) a pet.
Time of Year Impact
Of course, investors cannot ignore the obvious impact of the number of applications and days on market: Chicago’s infamously harsh winters. Unless absolutely necessary, far fewer tenants are willing to move during the coldest, windiest months of the year. Chicago winters can make you think twice about just going out to your car, let alone moving all your stuff in the rain, snow, and slush. Just like house sales, March through August (before school years start) are typically the busy season for new leases.
For example, GC Realty processed 118 applications in February 2025. But then we saw a spike in applications in March 2025 (188) and a peak of 241 in August 2025.
How Days on Market Determine Yield
Days on market tracks how long a unit stays vacant from listing to lease signing. Every empty day burns cash. Again, this is a numbers game. The fewer DOMs your property has, the faster it creates cash flow for you. A longer DOM timeframe signals rising costs, weaker rent growth, and lower ROI.
For example, if a $2,000 rental sits vacant for one month, the owner loses $2,000 in income while still paying mortgage, taxes, insurance, and utilities. For a ten-unit portfolio, a single extra week of vacancy per unit can wipe out more than $5,000 in annual net income.
Factors that Impact DOM
When you use a property management company to list your rental, there should be a well-oiled machine ready to follow the most efficient and effective process to place tenants. From confirming the home's compliance and rent-ready conditions to marketing and screening applicants, everything should happen smoothly.
Knowing where to list, what amenities to highlight, and setting competitive rent rates drives tenant interest. The more places a rental is posted with appropriate rent and descriptions, the more interest it gathers. The more interest a place gathers, the more inquiries and applications it attracts. Smooth, efficient processes will identify the highest qualified applicants from the pool and have lease agreements signed quickly. Any breakdowns create delays that increase days on market and getting that first rent payment.
At GC Realty, we work to place highly qualified tenants as efficiently as possible. Even with typical seasonal fluctuations, we average 16.8 days from list to lease signing. In fact, we average 97% occupancy across our entire portfolio of properties.
DOM vs. Eviction Impact
A word of caution: ensure you have a solid screening process for your applications. Even if you’re worried about DOM for your listing, it’s better to take the extra time to conduct thorough checks. Rushing to place the first person who gives you a check could lead to a lengthy, incredibly expensive eviction process if you place the wrong tenants.
At GC Realty, we understand the importance of a thorough screening process while minimizing DOM. We continually adjust our screening process to comply with requirements and identify the most qualified tenants. This process resulted in zero tenant evictions in 2023.
We think this process is so important that even if you’re a self-managing landlord, we offer to screen your applicants as a standalone service.
Want to protect your rental and avoid costly tenant issues? Our Chicago-focused screening system helps you place the right resident the first time. Click below to learn more.
👉Learn More About Our Chicago Tenant Screening
Operational Levers That Influence Applications and DOM
1. Property Condition
Having high rent-ready standards can make all the difference. Our maintenance teams prepare units to our functional, safety, and cleanliness benchmarks, or what we call the GC Property Standards™. Turn-key condition generates stronger applicant interest and faster leasing.
2. Marketing Quality
Professional photography, accurate descriptions, and fast online response times drive application volume. GC Realty & Development, LLC lists on all major rental sites and uses internal tracking to monitor inquiry-to-application ratios. We have a private database of over 11,000 investors and tenants in the area, and we consistently market to them.
3. Pricing Discipline
Overpricing adds days on market; underpricing leaves money on the table. We take a just-right Goldilocks approach using data-driven pricing tools. We know we’re listing at the right rent rate, aligned with neighborhood trends, to maximize your ROI.
4. Screening Process
High applicant volume enables strict screening without risking long vacancy. GC Realty’s 27-point applicant measurement system filters out risk while maintaining compliance with fair-housing standards.
5. Renewal Management
Low DOM at initial lease matters, but retention saves more. Each year a tenant renews, the investor avoids another vacancy cycle and the associated turnover costs. GC Realty’s renewal strategies achieve roughly 83 percent tenant retention, which compounds investor ROI over time.
Our Proven Process to Maximize Owner ROI
We manage over 1,500 residential properties throughout Chicagoland. During that time, we’ve developed a proven process to maximize our clients’ investment returns by maximizing applications and minimizing days on market.
We start with an initial discussion with every new investor client.
First, we want to determine if we’re a good fit for each other.
Then, we walk through the GC Realty property management process.
After that, we’ll preview the property to gather a rough assessment of its conditions.
Our experts walk the property again and recommend any upgrades or maintenance needed to meet our rent-ready standards.
It’s time to get started!
We walk all new clients through an owner orientation, including property onboarding and data collection reviews.
We’ll answer any questions the owner has and give them an introduction to our owner portal, including how to access and use our proprietary system.
This step concludes with a launch call between the owner and their dedicated property manager.
We prepare and execute rent-ready scopes of work to meet our stringent GC Realty Property Standards™.
This work enhances the tenant experience and reduces the number of maintenance calls and work orders.
Our marketing team goes into full swing, taking professional-grade photos and conducting virtual and IRL tours. We also use a listing syndicate to reach the highest number of interested and qualified potential tenants.
Once we start receiving applications, we go through our stringent tenant screening program. We stay up to date on changes to federal, state, and local screening processes while still ensuring we find the most qualified tenants for your properties. Our process includes:
Credit, eviction, and background checks
A 27-point applicant measurement
Objective approval/denial criteria and notifications
Processes for lease signing and move-in timelines
Our work doesn’t end once we’ve successfully placed tenants in your rental property. We continue to support your best interests through:
Continued oversight of issues and issue prevention
Monthly owner payouts and updates
Emergency response
As we mentioned before, the best way to minimize DOM and maximize ROI is to keep great tenants in your rental property longer. That’s why we start our retention process 75 days before the lease ends. That includes:
Discussion with you as the owner on renewal
Review next steps with you
Begin the process to resign with residents until the day after we are told no
If either the owner or the tenant decides not to renew the lease, a proactive move-out process becomes critical. We want the existing tenants to remove all their belongings by the agreed-upon date and time and to leave the rental in the best shape possible. This helps minimize turnover project timelines and costs. Once we conduct the final walk-through and security deposit disposition, we immediately restart Step 3 to prep for new residents.
The Investor Advantage
Applications per listing and days on market might appear like simple leasing statistics, but they serve as early indicators of cash flow stability and property performance. Average applications and days on market drive real returns for Chicago rental investors. More applications mean stronger tenant pools and higher rent confidence. Fewer days on market mean faster cash flow and less vacancy loss.
Our data speaks for itself: 16.8 days average DOM, 97 percent occupancy, and zero evictions among screened tenants in 2024. This shows how disciplined property management, using data-driven decisions, turns local demand into measurable ROI for our clients.
Ready to cut your vacancy time and attract stronger tenants?
Connect with our team at GC Realty & Development, LLC for a free consultation (That’s Step 1 above). We’re Chicago’s premier property management team, providing investor peace of mind. We’d love to help you next!
Who Is On Your Team?
We’ve shared a lot of information here on investing in real estate locally in Chicagoland. If you live outside the area, it may seem overwhelming for those wanting to invest in the Chicago market. But we just look at it as a team sport.
Who’s on your investing team? Do you even have a team? GC Realty & Development, LLC has a dedicated team of professionals willing to share decades of experience in all facets of real estate investment. We handle everything from brokerage, leasing, and property management. Whether you hire us or not, we’re happy to provide our resources and expertise.
What gets me up in the morning and keeps me going 12 hours a day is the ability to add value to local area investors in Chicago and beyond! Those who connect with me often hear me say that our goal is to bring value to everyone we come in contact with.
We hope that in return, they will one day hire us for our tenant placement or property management services, refer us to someone they know, or leave a review about our services. We would clearly love all three; however, we’re happy whenever we get the opportunity to help!
Reach out today!
Partner / Co-Host of Straight Up Chicago Investor Podcast
