Quote from @James Carlson:
@Alexander Knox
We get investor clients wanting an MTR in Denver or Colorado Springs and they always ask about targeting insurance companies or travel nurse groups, but I think that's overthinking it. The vast majority of medium term renters will look on the big platforms -- Airbnb, Zillow Rental Manager and Furnished Finders. So be where the eyeballs are, that's what I think.
You do have to think about each platform a little differently, though. For Airbnb, for instance, you should put "30+ day rental" in the headline to differentiate yourself from other listings that will show up in a search for a 3-month stay, but are really just short-term rentals with STR pricing.
For Zillow, which doesn't have headlines for its listings, you'll want to doctor your first photo to put "30+ day rental" overtop it in some way so that MTR renters can easily differentiate you from the mostly LTR listings on there.
Furnished Finders ... I still think it's worth posting there, but I'll say that none of our Colorado medium-term rentals, nor our clients midterm rentals, have gotten tenants from FF in awhile. I think they changed something in their algorithm, and something's off.
Anyway, I wish you luck!
I think this is very valuable info and will definitely use in future. Thank you!
My experience just this very second with our very first unit (still waiting on sent lease to my 10/1-12/31 MTR people to be signed): I also furnished to attract Traveling Nurses (Knoxville, TN) and put our rental on Furnished Finder, FB Marketplace, and Airbnb. I got nothing at all for 10 straight days so out of a bit of worry, I accepted an airbnb guest for one week in mid-Oct and then immediately regretted it. I had continually reached out to all the 'almost' Furnished Finder people with a message about what my unit offered as the 'leads' came in, and usually offered them $200 off my rate/month for their travel period. That finally worked yesterday but I also had to accept a pet which makes me have some anxiety. But it's hypothetically rented, so whatever hump this was, we have pushed it three months down the road. I did cancel the Airbnb guy and while I profusely apologized, realized in the cancel process that Airbnb truly is a harder platform and likely best used for those of us that can do STR before the accepted MTR moves in (in my case, offer it for the next 10 days). We'll see how it all goes, again, this is our first experience with the three platforms in furnished scenario. I got no inquiries from any of the three for 30+ days on their own without effort in changing my requirements.
Last comment: it seemed in looking at Furnished Finder leads (people submitting housing requests that do not match your parameters (usually priced lower than you want))-most people in our market were looking for 1 bedrooms for $1200 or less. As a Realtor, I cannot find properties (SFR or Multi's) that can support that price. In researching other properties that were booked in my area- most were snapped up when an owner occupant advertised a singe-room in their house and could do for much lower than made financial sense for us. Best of luck!
