All Forum Posts by: Erin Spradlin

I read somewhere that Mashvisor and Furnished Finder were going to combine data at some point to help support MTR listings. That said, there needs to be a filtering of rent by the room and midterm rentals because I think they are often conflated and the rental pricing data is very different for the two sources. I think Airbnb is your best bet for cobbling together MTR pricing. 

@Stacy Stilwater - I will DM you, but I do this for a handful of clients nationwide and have a youtube channel (BP won't let me share the link, but you can find me under my name on YouTube) that is strictly about midterm rental property management, midterm rental cohosting, midterm rental pricing, midterm rental strategy, Airbnb v. Furnished Finder, etc. 

I am curious if anyone has had success getting midterm renters off of niche sites that cater specifically to a demographic. This would be if you've reached out to Corporate Housing by Owner, AYA, Vivian, anyone that caters to insurance claims? Do you think it is worth it to be on these niche sites? 

@Clayton Silva @steve 

@Steve H.

Hey Clayton & Steve- Couple lots of thoughts on this. You may have already tried these, but if not, I've found these to be helpful for some of my midterm rental clients. 

Most places should rent, but the issue comes down to marketing and pricing the midterm rental. For marketing, best practices are:

+listed it on two sites, one of which is Airbnb and the other is a long-term unfurnished site like Zillow, Turbo Tenant or Avail (people convert well on those sites)
+Write the listing broad and avoid any preference for traveling nurses, medical professionals, insurance folks, etc. You want to have a solid listing on the platform with no preference for a tenant pool.
+Make sure the first photo is of the kitchen or the exterior. 
+Make sure the headline includes useful details (ex. free parking, dog-friendly, W/D in unit, 3 blocks to downtown) rather than generic words (ex. comfy, spacious, light-filled).
+Whether you are dog-friendly or no-dog lean into the preference because there are people looking for both types of units.
+For Airbnb, list at the beginning what your set up is (2 bed/2 bath), since the filters return everything that is 2 beds+ when someone puts in this filter. It sends everything rather than just the 2 bedroom properties. 

And, finally, drop your prices if no one is booking. Some money is better than no money. 

 @Bonnie Low Rant away. I have so many thoughts about Furnished Finder, and most of them have to do with the company needing some kind of re-organization. It's particularly ironic that we are saying this about them when you source all your clientele from them and I have written books singing their praises- and, yet, now both of us are on a popular, public midterm rental forum saying they do not do a good job, they are not helping their hosts, they are leaving money on the table. Wake up, Furnished Finder. 

@Boffill Yosleys Yeah, the typical property management experience does not work for midterm rentals. It's hard for the PM to make their costs if they can't charge half the first month's rent, and charging half of the first month's rent won't work for the tenant landlord if each rental is only 3 months long. For this reason, I coach a lot of my midterm rental consulting clients to learn how to do Airbnb and Zillow and embrace self-property management. You can always get a PM after that if you are not successful doing it on your own. 

 @Bonnie Low THIS. I feel like Furnished Finder could make some very basic changes that would help them and their landlord hosts a lot, but they don't do it. For this reason, I feel like they are falling behind a little bit. It's interesting that you have been getting 100% of your guests from them because that was true for me until about 18 months ago and now it's all Airbnb and Zillow. LOL. Wherever they come from, I don't care as long as they are responsible and pay the bills. 

@Vishal Chandan @Bonnie Low- Second what Bonnie has to say. The market for midterm rentals is much broader than medical professionals. You can also source for people getting divorced, people new to a state or area, college kids, remote workers. There are many different midterm rental tenant types. 
I would avoid aggressively pursuing traveling nurses. The reason for this is that there is outsized competition with your fellow landlord hosts, who are also pursuing nurses, and a shrinking demographic of traveling nurses (cost cutting, covid cuts, etc.)

 @Russell Brazil Excellent answer. This helps prevent any fair housing issues and most cities do have laws around the number of unrelated people allowed to live together... and, typically, this number is shockingly low. 

 Thank you for the mention, @James Carlson. And, couldn't agree more. We are having a lot more success finding midterm rental clients on Airbnb and Zillow, including nurses. 5 out of our past 7 rentals on Airbnb have been nurses.