How to fill a void in 14 days, not 40

Average re-let time is one of the loudest operational signals a housing landlord produces. The RSH publishes it. Boards ask about it monthly. Tenants with a nominations agreement watch it. And it's one of the first numbers a prospective customer of ours asks us about.

Sector average sits stubbornly around 35–45 days. The teams we see do best are closer to 14. Here's what they do differently.

Start the clock before the keys come back

The single biggest lever is how quickly the voids team knows a property is coming empty. Teams averaging 40+ days usually find out when the keys are handed in. Teams averaging 14 days have a standard 28-day notice to quit feeding directly into a voids workflow — inspection booked, works scoped, and contractor pencilled in before the tenant has moved.

Pre-inspect on the notice, not on the empty

A pre-void inspection done in the last week of the outgoing tenancy costs you nothing and saves you a week. You know exactly what work is needed, you raise the orders, and the contractor is on site the day after handover — not two weeks later after a post-void inspection.

Standardise the spec

Every property doesn't need a bespoke void specification. Most high-performers have three standard specs (minor, medium, full) and scope 90% of voids into one of them on sight. Bespoke work sits on top — it doesn't replace the standard.

Parallelise allocations

Voids teams that wait for works to finish before starting allocations are adding a week for nothing. Start the matching and viewing process the moment the void spec is signed off. The new tenant can be ready to sign the day the property is.

Measure the right thing, weekly

Three numbers on a wall every Monday:

• Open voids by age band (0–7, 8–14, 15–28, 28+).
• Average days for voids closed last week.
• Blockers list — each open void with a reason it's not moving.

The blockers list is the one. Everything else is a lagging indicator. If you can't articulate why a property is still empty at day 20, it's going to be empty at day 40.

Where software actually helps

Software doesn't fix a voids process. It does three things well: it makes the current state visible, it sequences the handoffs so nothing slips between teams, and it stops anyone forgetting a property exists. If you're exporting to Excel to see your voids performance, that's your bottleneck.

What 14 days looks like

• Day -28: Notice received. Voids workflow opens. Pre-inspection scheduled for last week of tenancy.
• Day -5: Pre-inspection done. Spec agreed. Allocations started in parallel.
• Day 0: Keys in. Standard works begin same day.
• Day 7: Works complete. Final inspection. Viewings done in parallel.
• Day 14: New tenant signs up. Rent starts.

None of this requires more money. It requires the workflow to exist and every handoff to have a named owner and a deadline.