Especially going the midterm/longterm furnished route 

The treatment of the short-term rental on your return will depend on if the property is considered 'active' or 'passive'.STR specific expenses/costs include cleaning fees, airbnb/vrbo commissions, furnishings, utilities, etc

I'm in eagle mountain and thought about furnishing our basement apartment for a MTR as well.I know A MTR manager that operates around 40 doors in the area, and he thinks we could get anywhere from 2200-2500 a month.

You are not obligated to use Keycheck when using Furnished finder.

I rehabbed it and furnished it and rented it to friends.

However, would it be better to rent furnished staging and stay at one of the houses instead?

I was actually furnishing a letter to send out, but stopped to see how successful this was.

You can also house hack SFR but you'll have a bunch of roommates.3) Conventional financing should be adequate.4) I was a professional leasing agent before entering the investment world, but actually I specialize in Airbnb / STR / MTR so we just furnish the properties and put them online for short or midterm rental. 5) Buy in a good location!

Then in turn we furnish the homes and rent the house out room by room.

Have you looked at how your competition is priced on furnished finder?