Thinking of renting my home to traveling nurses

[Terra Ternet]

Would anyone have an advise regarding renting a home to traveling nurses? I have a 3 bedroom home and am looking to move in with my partner early 2024. I do not want to sell my home as I have children and was very close to being homeless with them when I first divorced my ex-husband. I do not want to be in that situation again. 

My home is located near the hospital and I like the idea of short term leases should I need to move back in. The home would be furnished and has a fenced in yard for potential pets.

I would love some advise regarding: determining a fair/affordable rent amount for potentially 3 tenants, creating a lease, insurance changes that are recommended, should I create an LLC or something similar, do I need a lawyer and/or accountant to assist with managing the property and doing my taxes, expected out of pocket expenses that I may need to plan for before receiving payment from tenants, and anything else I haven't even thought of yet!

Thank you in advance for any assistance you can provide. I am very excited to start this new adventure and will potentially have a second property to rent the same way as my partner and I would like to purchase a larger home and may rent his in the future. I want to provide financial stability for myself and my partner and our children and I want to make sure me and mine are protected (financial abuse occurred during my marriage and has made me conscious of the need to protect myself).

[James Carlson]

@Terra Ternet

Sounds like you're making a smart decision based on your situation. We have a few medium-term rentals in Denver and Colorado Springs (and have a lot of investors doing mid-term rentals as well.) A few thoughts on your questions:

PRICING
In our experience, MTRs get between 1.3-1.5x rent of a long-term rental. Go to Rentometer.com. They'll give you 3 or 5 free estimates. Plug in your address, see what the LTR rent is. Multiple by 1.3-1.5. This is a rough estimate of the rent you should charge. (Caveat: A lot of factors go into actually getting that 1.3-1.5 such as on-trend furnishings, professional RE photos, a solid listing, great communication, etc.) 

For instance, we have a 4br/2ba medium-term rental in Colorado Springs. Rentometer says we should get $2,300/mo in long-term rent. We're currently getting $3,400 as a mid-term. As another example, we have a 1br/1ba condo mid-term rental in Denver that is estimated to get $1,550 in LTR. We're getting $2,400. Now, we put in time to designing the space well and taking great photographs so that we stand out. 

LEASE
You'll use a traditional residential lease. You should be able to find one specific to your state online -- maybe for free, but more likely for a small fee to a lawyer or online service. You should be able to modify based on length of stay and then add in anything about personal property (couches, beds, etc.)

LLC
It's definitely the smartest route to go, but it's also more work. If you plan on taking the property back over after a few months or a year, maybe you risk it. But again, the smartest route is to form an LLC, quit-claim the property into the LLC, form a bank account for the LLC and conduct all business through the bank account and in the LLCs name. (For instance, the lease's landlord would say the LLC's name, and you'd sign on behalf of the LLC.)

NURSES V. OTHER RENTERS
You didn't ask about this, but don't focus on nurses. You can mention in your headline and description that you're X miles from the hospital, but a mistake we see first-time MTR landlords make is thinking they need to only go after a certain demographic. You don't care if your tenant is a nurse or a remote worker or whatever. You care that they have the money and are responsible. Full stop. We see people waste their time trying to connect with hospitals or travel nurse placement groups. Just post your listing on Zillow and Airbnb (Furnished Finders if you must, but we're seeing terrible leads from them the past year), and let the people come to you.

Good luck!