3 Ways to Advertise Medium-Term Rentals

As many of my Denver real estate clients can attest to, medium-term rentals (aka subletting aka furnished rentals) are a great way to go in terms of investment properties. This is for a lot of reasons, including they attract a good client base, earn good money, and cause less stress than a short-term rental.

But a hang up for a lot of people is how to find a medium-term renter. That’s why—drumroll—I’m writing this article! It’s actually quite easy to find medium-term renters, and I’ll explain below how I’ve done it.

How to Find Medium-Term Renters

1. Airbnb

Huh? What? Airbnb?

Enemy of all cities and neighborhood associations alike? Yes, that Airbnb.

When you decide short-term rentals are too much work or your city decides for you, you can still utilize Airbnb as a tool to find medium-term renters. Airbnb allows you to specify minimums for your stay, so in this case, you just move the stay length to 30-plus days on Airbnb.

This is actually our primary resource for acquiring medium-term renters. It has been good to us.

Two caveats on this though:

Airbnb still takes their 3% on the entire stay if you end up booking through the site.
Put anyone that stays for 30-plus days at your property on a proper lease. This will help you avoid any squatting issues. And for this long of a relationship, it’s just good to have it formalized with an outside contract.

2. Craigslist/Facebook Marketplace

Even though I feel like Craigslist is dying a rapid death to Facebook Marketplace, it was/has been good to us for medium-term rentals. It was our primary source for acquiring medium-term renters before it occurred to us that we could still actually use Airbnb.

So, Craigslist is still an option, but I would vet your tenants that come through Craigslist more strenuously. No, we have not had issues with any Craigslist tenants, but we just feel like Craigslist doesn’t have some of the gatekeeping that Airbnb does. Be cautious.

Facebook Marketplace also allows you to find renters. A word to the wise: we haven’t used it to acquire renters yet, but everyone and their mother loves it for furniture. I feel like the same would hold true for renters. And yes, in both cases, put these people on a lease.

3. Paid Sites

FurnishedFinder, Wanderly, and CorporateHousingByOwner are all sites that cater to finding you tenants who want a furnished, 30-plus-day rental. Again, I’ve never used one of these products though. I felt the fees were too high and/or I had no need to move out of my usual resources (Airbnb and Craigslist). But I do know people who have used these sites and been happy with them.

The Bottom Line

Medium-term rentals are a great way to ease your way in or out of short-term rentals. An added benefit is that you get paid more than a long-term renter but with less work than a short-term rental.

Do you have any other questions for me about medium-term rentals?

Ask me in a comment below.

Note By BiggerPockets: These are opinions written by the author and do not necessarily represent the opinions of BiggerPockets.