My tenant's lease runs out in six weeks and I haven't decided if I want to renew at all

The number that decides this is her actual alternative. If comparable three-beds in Garfield Heights are sitting for three or four weeks before they lease, she knows it too, and $1,200 is probably not the number that makes her walk. If they're moving in a week with multiple applications, her outside option is real and the risk calculus changes. The $1,175 versus $1,200 debate is only worth having once you know what absorption looks like right now in that specific pocket, because a $25 difference on a tenant who already swallowed $75 without pushback is less likely to be the breaking point than the December timing itself.

What's the average days-on-market for SFR rentals in that zip right now?

The assumption doing the most work in your post is that $1,200 risks her walking, but you have no evidence she would. She absorbed $75 without pushback in a market where tenants often counter or give notice. That tells you her switching cost is real, whether that is moving expenses, the hassle of a new application, or just not wanting to leave a place she has kept clean for two years. The question is not whether $1,200 is safe, it is whether you have tested her price tolerance at all, and your post suggests you have not.

The math you ran on 30-day vacancy is correct directionally, but it undersells the timing problem. December in Cleveland is not just slow, it is the kind of slow where you are choosing between a bad tenant in January or carrying the property empty until February. Assume 45 days vacant, a $900 clean and paint, and $300 in staging or photography, and your breakeven on the $90 annual difference between $1,110 and $1,200 stretches past three years before you recover. At $1,175 the breakeven on a turnover is similar because the turn cost does not change, only the numerator does. The fourplex diligence is a separate reason to not want the distraction, but even without it the arithmetic favors renewal. The real decision is whether to push to $1,200 and send her a short note explaining that market comps in the neighborhood have moved, which is true, and let her tell you she cannot do it, or assume she cannot and leave $90 a year on the table indefinitely. What's your read on whether she knows what a turnover unit in that zip is renting for right now?

The vacancy math already solved this, so the real question is whether $25 separates "she takes it" from "she looks."

What did she say when you raised her the $75? Not in writing, just the actual conversation or lack of one. A tenant who takes a bump with zero pushback in Garfield Heights, keeps the place clean, and has been there since late 2022 is almost certainly aware she is under market and is staying anyway because moving is expensive and disruptive and she doesn't want to either. I've pushed to $1,200 on properties where comps were tighter than yours and the ones who left had already been thinking about it before I handed them the notice. The $1,175 versus $1,200 math over twelve months is $300, which your December vacancy would eat in about four days.

Your $1,175 target is likely still under market by enough that she stays, so test $1,195 instead.

A tenant who absorbed a $75 increase without negotiating has already signaled her threshold is higher than you think. The revealed preference is the data point. Splitting the difference between $1,175 and $1,200 costs her $20 a month and recovers another $240 annually for you, and if she was going to walk over $25 she probably would have pushed back on the last raise. What you actually want to know before you pick a number is whether she has searched at all, because a tenant who has checked Zillow in the last 60 days and seen $1,250 asking prices will read $1,195 as a genuine deal and sign without a second thought. Have you had any conversation with her about renewal yet, and did she give any signal either way?

If she took $75 without pushback she might take $90 too, and the only way to know is to ask for $1,200 and watch what she does. What's the notice requirement in Ohio for a rent increase on a month-to-month versus a fixed renewal, because that changes your timeline by more than most people think.

The risk your numbers don't capture is what happens at month eight of her second renewal term if she leaves mid-lease because $1,175 still felt temporary and she found something at $1,200 with a landlord offering a two-year lock. A December vacancy is the scenario you priced, but a March or April vacancy after she's settled in and then decides to move is the one that actually costs you, because you absorbed the below-market rate through winter and still paid for the turn in a month when you could have filled it easily. The real question is whether $1,200 is a number she walks from or a number she negotiates from, and you can find that out by presenting it as the renewal figure before the six weeks close rather than as a demand. If she counters at $1,175 you've learned something, and you've still landed where you said you'd accept anyway.

What's the lease structure you're planning to offer, month-to-month or a fixed term, because that changes how much optionality you're trading away on the acquisition side if your reserves end up tied to a tenant you can't exit for twelve months?

The piece your vacancy math skips is the acquisition timing. If you and your brother are mid-diligence on a fourplex, the last thing you want is an open SFR carrying holding costs and a partial-month vacancy right when a lender is looking at your combined cash flow picture. A stabilized $1,175 on paper reads cleaner in a debt-service analysis than a unit that shows a gap month, even a short one. The $25 difference between $1,175 and $1,200 is $300 a year before vacancy risk, and if there is any real chance she walks at $1,200, that $300 disappears inside the first week she is gone. What I would ask yourself is whether you have actually tested her ceiling yet, because taking a $75 raise without a fight does not mean $90 breaks her, it means you do not know where the line is. A written renewal at $1,185 gives you a real number, keeps her in place through the fourplex close, and leaves you a clean rent roll to show a lender or equity partner without explaining a vacancy.

What does the fourplex timeline look like, and do you need this property's rent roll for a lender submission before the six weeks are up?