All Forum Posts by: Erin Spradlin

Hey- I usually advise my consulting clients to pay attention to the walk score in any market. This will be a good indicator of the different demographics that will want your place regardless of the rental model. While midterm renters shop like short-term renters, they act like long-term renters. What this means for you is that you want a property that will appeal to both sets and it is my opinion that the Zillow walk score is a good way to gauge how hot the property is regardless of the market. 

Hey Khushbu - We have been doing midterm rentals (aka, medium-term or corporate rentals) since 2017 and used to have a lot of success on Furnished Finder, but are finding that we have gotten 70% of our last 10 rentals from Airbnb... 5 of those stays have been traveling nurses. Our midterm rentals are located in Colorado Springs and Denver, but my consulting clients through the US seem to have the most success on Airbnb. 

Hey Praveen- It will depend on how your city regulates. The best thing to do is to google "Miami Planner of the Day" and a local government phone number will show up. Tell them you are looking to do a 30+ day rental and want to know if you need to register it. That should give you the information you need. This is how we have handled our medium-term rentals in Denver and Colorado Springs. 

I really don't find that you need to automate the calendars as much with a medium-term rental. The reason for this is you have plenty of notice to relist and can just do email reminders. We do this across our investments in Colorado Springs, Denver and Puerto Vallarta. 

I would also recommend adding your listing to Zillow Rental Manager. We've been having a lot of midterm rental success on Zillow. 

Your vacancy rate on midterm rentals / medium term rentals, should only be 10% or lower if you are doing them right. And by right, I mean posting across a couple different sites and dropping your price aggressively as the date gets closer. I think our vacancy rate since 2017 has been 8%. If you want to combine this with STR rentals, you want to do medium-term, 30+ day furnished rentals during your slow season and STR during your hot season, but you don't want to be doing them both at the same time. That will create vacancy issues and a lot of headaches.

I do a lot of consulting in the medium-term rental space and I've not heard of this. I would cancel the lease and if you've collected a deposit on it, I would hold it unless they ask for it back. 

The cash on cash is impacted by the furniture. (I'm sure you know this, hence the question.) I've estimated an 18 mos-24 mos return on investment for the furniture on midterm rentals- but of course this has to do with how nicely you furnish it, etc. I think as far as cash on cash with midterm rentals, it will depend on where you are at, type of property and season. 

I work out of Denver and Colorado Springs, but do midterm rental consulting nationwide and just had one for Houston. That client is converting a quadplex into the midterm rental and felt confident that it was going to work. I think what you need to ask yourself is: who would rent this? What would that subset need? What considerations locally do I have (seasonal patterns, watering schedule, events.) A note: midterm renters act like long-term renters, but the price they pay matches the short-term renter trends. 

We work with a lot of midterm rental investors as clients and as consulting clients in Denver and Colorado Springs, and I think there are a few things to consider: do you want to pay for furniture? Have you run the numbers? Do they make sense? Is there any reason you are unhappy with your long-term rental? I feel like a lot of my consulting clients ask about making the change because it's the new sexy investment model but they already have a great, hands off long-term rental and the switch to a midterm rental or furnished rental doesn't necessarily make sense.