Listing MTRs on Apartments.com

[Jarrod Patterson]

Hi everyone. My wife and I are new to the MTR game. We listed on Apartments.com for their management tools (saw it recommended in a thread on here). We do plan to also list with ALE and some other sites, but curious if anyone that has used Apartments.com or a similar site has run into issues with screening potential tenants, since it's a much broader user group than something like FurnishedFinder or TravelNurseHousing.com. I'm finding that some of our inquiries are from locals who are for one reason or another seeking month to month leases. I'm a little concerned that someone local may be more prone to having lots of guests in and out.

Do you advertise (in the listing or in screening conversations) that you're specifically looking for traveling professionals? Do you set specific screening criteria to help narrow the scope? At the end of the day if someone passes background check and has proof of income it doesn't really matter, but just curious thoughts here. 

Thanks for any advice!

[Stephanie Walker]

I manage MTRs and have never been overly concerned with our guests having guests. As long as they aren't staying every night and there are no parties or other concerning activities. We don't advertise that we're looking for a certain criteria guest - I think that opens up too much liability for discrimination. However, you can word your listing to cater to that audience if that's what you're looking for. For example, if you're looking for travel nurses, you'd note that your listing has blackout curtains, a white noise machine and near hospitals (those are important details for them).

[Jarrod Patterson]

Yeah the discrimination liability is what I was concerned about. Thank you for the insight!

[Colleen F.]

@Jarrod Patterson  Depends on the reason for the temporary need from a local, also you have to screen financials some of these people may not be viable candidates even if they think they are.   State a max lease duration if your concern is that you will actually wind up with a long term rental with Susie and Susies boyfriend.  I usually use words that suggest a temporary occupancy sometimes a duration. In our area you also see a lot of rentals specify academic year, first semester, available until x date. 

[Jarrod Patterson]

That's very helpful! Thank you!

[Nick Zupec]

Hi Jarrod. We have an 8-unit apartment building that has 4 furnished MTR units in it. We originally listed on apartments.com because of the other 4 unfurnished units, but decided to put the furnished units on there too since it didn't cost us anything extra. We've been surprised at that number of leads that have come in for our furnished units too. They do tend to be more locals, but not exclusively. We've had 2 units rented long-term at our MTR rate which seems like a homerun to us because we have no vacancy, cleanings, turns, etc. Those tenants haven't been any more problematic than tenants from any other platform. We've also had a number of people relocating to the area reach out and say that they would prefer a furnished unit while they looked for a more permanent housing solution (often purchasing a home). 

We have a hospital nearby and some of the physicians work 7-on 7-off and live a few hours away. We've had some of them take units for longer periods and just stay there the 7 days that they're in town. They've been the best tenants because they are only there half the time and even then, they work all day and just sleep there. I've talked to the physicians about why they used apartments.com to find us and most of them have never heard of Furnished Finder because they aren't travelers and they didn't look at Airbnb because they thought it would be too expensive and they didn't want a different place each time they came. 

If you can do it for no or low cost, might as well. Its always good to bring as many leads into the funnel as possible, and then just maintain your usual criteria when screening. We don't list who we are looking for on any platform though. I agree that is walking a very fine line with Fair Housing Laws. We make our application criteria clear and those that meet them are usually quality tenants. My other disclosure is that I don't use any of our platforms to do the screening. We have our own internal application that we use regardless of the platform that the lead comes from. Hope some of this helps and good luck!