MTR or LTR for a house hack

[Mose Gebremeskel]

Hey all, we have our first rental and we're trying to decide whether to use Furnished Finder for a mid-term rental or to go the long term rental route. I know that mid-term rentals have a higher up front cost because we have to furnish the place but are there other things I'm not taking into consideration in terms of costs? Also who has done MTR and what advantages have you seen?

[Bonnie Low]

You have a house that you plan on house hacking and enting out the extra unit as either LTR or MTR or you're looking to purchase a separate unit for LTR or MTR? If it's the househack unit, definitely think hard about your layout, location and who your ideal guest is before taking on MTR. Not every property lends itself to MTR. Can you describe your property a little more so people can weigh in? I don't think you're going to get much useful information without sharing more. 

As far as using Furnished Finder to market your MTR, I am a strong supporter of FF but please understand that it doesn't work like Airbnb or the other OTAs. FF is a lead gen source only. Guests can't book your property on FF. You have to take your transaction offline. This isn't a bad thing - it just means that you have to do a lot more legwork to follow up with interested parties and you need systems and tools in place to manage your bookings. I really like midterms if you have the right property. You have a wide variety of guest types you can market to within this niche, rents are usually higher than LTR and you have less wear and tear on the property. You're right, you do incur the expense of furnishings but, again, depending on the size of property you're furnishing, it can be done pretty reasonably. The rule of thumb many MTR investors use is somewhere around $10k for a 1 bedroom and then add $2-5k/bedroom depending on the quality of the furnishings you're using.