Facing increased vacancy rates, a high tenant fluctuation and increased competition, customer relationship management (CRM) has attracted the expanded attention of practitioners and scholars in the residential real estate business. The preservation of existing tenants has become more important in comparison to the acquisition of new customers. In that the success of a residential real estate company depends significantly on satisfied tenants and the retention of these. Therefore more and more companies are adopting customer-centric strategies, programs, tools and technology for efficient and effective customer management. Nevertheless a lot of these measures taken fail to really attract and retain the tenant. Hence it is essential to gain in-depth and integrated customer knowledge in order to develop a strategically founded tenant retention program. The aim of this study is to define such a retention strategy. This is done by analyzing tenants and marketing measures of tenant retention in order to define effective retention instruments for profitable tenant segments and thereby guaranteeing the efficient employment of the companyís resources.