As real estate investors continuously seek innovative strategies to maximize returns, the concept of converting long-term rentals into monthly (midterm) rentals has gained remarkable traction. When long-term rentals stopped making sense, Cameron Carrozza pivoted to monthly rentals and the numbers speak for themselves. Cam went from collecting $925 in monthly rent to bringing in $2,500 for one unit by converting his duplexes into fully furnished monthly rentals. With six properties on Furnished Finder (opens in new tab) and average guest stays of 9–10 months, Cam hits the 1% rule (and beyond), loves the types of guests he’s hosting, and has built a high-cashflow, low-maintenance real estate business.
The journey to real estate investing
Cam Carrozza’s venture into real estate began in a rather unexpected way, during a conversation at a family birthday party. It was here that he was introduced to the notion of acquiring properties to rent out for more than the mortgage payment, initially feeling too good to be true. This realization sparked his journey into real estate, starting with house hacking in California and later transitioning to Kentucky, a region that might not be on everyone's radar but offered immense potential.
A strategic shift in focus
Having acquired several duplexes in Kentucky, Cam found himself at a crossroads when rising interest rates and property prices made it challenging to sustain the traditional long-term rental model. It was the discovery of monthly rentals that set the wheels in motion for his strategic pivot.
With guidance from the Furnished Finder platform (opens in new tab), Cam was able to leverage monthly rentals to achieve a cash return far exceeding the traditional 1% rule that dictates rents should be at least 1% of the property's purchase price. Cam and his wife took the bold step of tapping into a burgeoning market of remote workers, travel nurses, relocating families seeking quality monthly accommodations.
Calculating the rewards
Cam's firsthand experience exemplifies the financial upside of this rental strategy. By investing approximately $7,000 in furniture and minor renovations, Cam was able to transition one of his duplex units from generating $925 a month in rent to an impressive $2,500. After expenses, this conversion produced an additional $1,400 in monthly cash flow, yielding an impressive 239% cash-on-cash return. This 'light bulb moment' demonstrated the lucrative potential of monthly rentals, with Cam now steadily expanding this model across his other properties.
Embracing monthly rentals with confidence
The transition from long-term to monthly rentals may initially seem daunting, particularly for those accustomed to the predictability of long-term tenancies. However, Cam's success story highlights the critical role of platforms like Furnished Finder in facilitating this shift. By positioning properties in front of a growing audience actively seeking monthly accommodations, real estate investors can confidently navigate market demands, aim for similar occupancy to long-term rentals and optimize rental returns.
Where to start? Understanding the market
For investors eyeing the monthly rental market, leveraging data and insights from resources like the Furnished Finder Stats Page (opens in new tab) is instrumental. Engaging with local economic development initiatives, understanding regional growth trends, and tapping into the robust network of healthcare professionals, construction workers, and other traveling professionals can provide valuable indicators of market viability.
The monthly rental landscape has evolved to accommodate a diverse client base, expanding beyond the traditional travel nurse demographic. Insurance-displaced families, traveling professionals, and corporate employees are increasingly seeking furnished accommodations for multi-month stays, contributing to the demand and profitability of this rental model.
Practical considerations for investors
While strategic financial gains and decreased property turnover characterize the monthly rental approach, conscious efforts in tenant screening and management remain pivotal. Utilizing Furnished Finder tools like tenant screening, lease templates, and online rent payments can streamline operations, enabling investors to focus on building lasting tenant relationships.
The monthly approach simplifies the landlord experience. With longer stays, reduced turnover, and often higher-quality tenants, the monthly rental model presents an attractive proposition for investors aiming to increase cash flow while minimizing management complexities.
Listen to the full episode
For a deeper dive into Cam's journey and more practical insights into making the monthly rental model work for you, listen to the complete episode (opens in new tab) on Furnished Finder’s podcast, Landlord Diaries (opens in new tab). Gain comprehensive strategies and expert advice that'll underscore the true potential lying within your rental portfolio.
Explore more with Furnished Finder
Furnished Finder offers a range of tools and resources designed specifically to support landlords in successfully transitioning to monthly rentals. Visit Furnished Finder (opens in new tab) for more insights, and connect with a community reimagining the rental landscape, one connection at a time.
Converting long-term rentals into monthly stays isn't merely a trend; it's an evolving strategy that promises substantial financial rewards and business growth. The opportunity to engage a variety of tenants in an accommodating, service-oriented manner is here. Will you seize it?
Episode 153 Transcript
It was one of our duplexes actually, that we've, that we converted over because our duplexes we bought back in 2018 were, we still have four, three and a half to 4% interest rates on it. And, rents have gone up over time. But when we were looking at, okay, it's a lot of money to, to purchase a new hound.
You got 20, 25% down then plus the furnishing costs. My wife was like, we have all these duplexes that the one side already pays for the whole mortgage and everything. Why don't we start converting these over. So I thought, okay, let's do that. So on one of the units that we had, duplex units, we were getting $925 a month in rent.
We spent about $7,000 to buy furniture, fix it up, and get it all listed. And so we were able to rent, raise the rent from $925 to $2,500 a month with that. Now then after you take out all the expenses of, now you're paying for utilities and then internet and what have you. It comes out to be about $1,400 extra that we're getting per month, on that.
And then if I'm a numbers guy, he times that out for the year. And then you divide that by the $7,000 that you're getting or that you initially put in. It's a 239% return, cash on cash return. So again, that was a light bulb moment of, okay, if we were able to do this in day one, we had a guest to stay in it and we're a hundred percent booked.
Let's start converting all these over.
Welcome to the Landlord Diaries, the official podcast of Furnished Finder. Your trusted companion for building success and monthly rental. I'm Kelly Bailey with eight Cash Flowing Monthly Rentals in Texas. And I'm Katie Lyon, marketing director at Furnished Finder and real estate Investor with 13 furnished rentals across multiple states.
In every episode, we share real stories, practical tips, and expert insights to help you grow with confidence from securing better bookings to maximizing your rental income. So follow up the show and let varnish finder be your partner in building a thriving monthly rental business.
Meet Cameron Carrozza, the owner of Home Sweet Housing who turned long-term rentals in small town Kentucky into cash flowing midterm rentals with six properties on Furnished Finder and average stays of nine to 10 months. Cam is proof that you don't need a hot metro market to win big with monthly midterm rentals.
In this episode, we'll break down how midterm rentals helped Cam achieve the 1% rule, boost cash flow, and create a remote business model that's both profitable, surprisingly low maintenance. Cam, thanks for joining us today. First off, I'd love to understand how did you get started in real estate and what led you to small town Kentucky?
Yeah, that's a full question. And it actually started at my niece's, I think it was her fifth birthday party where I was talking to one of the other dads that was there and he told me about you could buy a property. We were living in California at the time. You could buy a property up in this area called Yuba City and you could rent it out for more than what the payment would be.
And this is the first time I was ever introduced to that, and I didn't think it was possible. But starting to look into it, we realized, this is actually possible. I talked with my wife and we ended up buying our first rental property out in Sacramento, and what we found out was that the only way we could qualify for this property is if we lived in it.
And this was a duplex out there. So we lived in one side and then we rented out the other side. And coming from a more affluent area to downtown South Sacramento, it was quite of a shock to most of our family. And I'll never forget, my dad said, if you stick it out for the full year, 'cause we did the FHA.
He goes, I'll commend you to stick into your goals, but if you leave before that first year, I'll commend you for, wising up and making the right decision for your family. So we ended up staying the whole year. We had several cops come knocking on our door. My car got stolen three times and my wife was pregnant at the time too.
So we we went through our paces and we had, it was quite a story but we got hooked on the bug. And 365 days to the day we moved out and we rented out that other side and got into it. Got into another property where we did live in flips. And then where we came into Kentucky, we decided that we wanted to move out to Tennessee.
And so knowing this, I started looking all over and on Craigslist. I found this duplex that was for sale by owner on Craigslist of all places. And so as we. Caravan cross country. We stopped in this little town in Kentucky and we looked at it. We met the owner, did a handshake agreement that this is what we wanted to do.
And it turned out to be a really good investment property and we just loved the town. And this was back in 2018 we just kept buying duplexes and so we own about seven duplexes in that area right now. And then after COVID happened and interest rates started going up, and prices started, going from there, we really were stuck if we wanted to continue to buy properties, but we couldn't make that 1% rule work.
And so we didn't wanna just throw money just for the sake of, spending money. So we had to switch focuses and that's when, back in 2023, almost two years to the day that we learned about midterm rental and jumped into that game. So that's how we've gotten here. It's long story, but yeah. So out of your current portfolio, how many of those long-term rentals have you converted to midterm rentals now?
So two of them have been, and in fact I have a U-Haul truck in my driveway right now. We're going to convert the, our third one tomorrow. And then we have the hopes of converting nine total of those long term into into midterm. Awesome. I love that. And I think you have seven duplexes total and four single family homes, right?
Is that your full portfolio? Correct. Yeah, that's our full portfolio. So 18 doors total and the single family homes is what we started with the midterm. So tell us what was the moment like when you realized that your long-term rentals weren't cutting it and you wanted to give this midterm rental thing A try.
Yeah, so great question. So I'd been stuck and I joined a real estate group and they had this guest come on named Jesse Vasquez, and he talked about midterm rentals. And I remember after that I shut the laptop down and I went to my wife and I was like, we're changing our whole strategy. This is what we're doing.
And she was like what? And I was like, just trust me. We're gonna do this. And you know about researched it for about three months, watching every single YouTube video watching, listening to your guys' podcast, which again, is so surreal that I'm on this right now. As a result of that we just said, okay, this is what we want to do.
And we looked on the furnished finer stats page and there looked like there was a demand for it. And this was in a completely different town than what our duplexes were, but it was close enough. And so we just. Jumped in. And I always liked the Richard Branson statement. He, if you have an idea, he just says, screw it.
Let's do it. And thankfully I have a wife that's on board with that too. And so that, that's what we did and we got it. And from day one off of Furnished Finder, we had a tenant who was a travel nurse, stayed with us for almost two years. So it was fantastic. Yeah. That is incredible. Yeah.
Sometimes you just gotta try it, right? Sometimes the only way to know if something is gonna work or not is to try it. And I feel like sometimes people think that shifting to a midterm rental is intimidating or difficult, especially if you're coming from long-term rental. 'cause you're thinking, oh, I've gotta furnish this whole thing, but.
It's not so bad. Give it a try. Give it a try. I love that you went in. It's like you did your, did, you did your research, but you can only research and learn so much before you've just gotta see if it's gonna work for you. Yeah. What do they say? Like analysis or paralysis by analysis? Yeah. You just have to do it.
But here's the one thing that I'll say. Is, I went into it thinking we're gonna do travel nurses, we're gonna this is what our clientele is gonna be. But what I did not realize is how many other people also need midterm rentals, construction workers, supervisors we've, we do have doctors and nurses staying with us, but the, insurance displaced families, it is just unbelievable.
So it's man, there's a bigger opportunity than what I originally thought getting into it. Yeah, and I think one of the things originally that made you even start looking in the first place for a different strategy was your long-term rentals were no longer cash flowing, and you wanted to find something that made sense for, your.
Investment strategy. Yeah. And it led you to the midterm rentals, which you've been pleasantly surprised that you can hit the 1% rule. So tell us, why don't you explain to us what the 1% rule is and how many of your current rentals are accomplishing that right now? Yeah, so basically the 1% rule is you want your rents to be at least 1% of the purchase price.
So if you buy a home for a hundred thousand dollars, tell me where you're buying that. I'd love to find that out. And then if you could also get at a purchase price of a hundred thousand, rent it out for at least a thousand dollars. It's a good rule of thumb. With insurance going up the way that it's been it's not always an accurate statement to see if it's a good property, but it's a good starting point.
If it doesn't meet that. But what we found with midterm rentals is we're actually looking around two, two point half percent in, in our area. Again, this has just completely opened the door. You have to pay a little bit more on the upfront cost of just furnishing it. But you're gonna get the rents complete.
So much better with that. And then not only that, the the level or the quality of the guest is in our experience substantially better and more. I guess you can count on that a little bit more paying on time. I think you have an example from one of your single family homes of how it actually breaks down too, if you wanna share that with everybody.
Yeah. So this was actually one of it, it was one of our duplexes actually, that we converted over. Because our duplexes we bought back in 2018 were, we still have four, three and a half to 4% interest rates on it. And, rents have gone up over time. But when we were looking at, okay, it's a lot of money to, to purchase a new home.
You got 20, 25% down then, plus the furnishing costs. My wife was like, we have all these duplexes that the one side already pays for the whole mortgage and everything. Why don't we start converting these over? So I thought, okay, let's do that. So on one of the units that we had. Duplex units.
We were getting $925 a month in rent. We spent about $7,000 to buy furniture, fix it up, and get it all listed. And so we were able to rent, raise the rent from $925 to $2,500 a month with that. And then after you take out all the expenses of, now you're paying for utilities and then internet and what have you it comes out to be about $1,400 extra that we're getting per month.
On that. And then if I'm a numbers guy, he times that out for the year. And then you divide that by the $7,000 that you're getting or that you initially put in. It's a 239% return, cash on cash return. So again, that was a light bulb moment of, okay, if we were able to do this in day one, we had a guest to stay in it and we're a hundred percent booked.
Let's start converting all these others over. And so that's been our strategy right now. Like I said, we're gonna be doing that loading up tonight and driving down to Kentucky to put that in there. And have those neighborhoods still worked Okay. For you, are you in safer neighborhoods now? 'cause I know safer, safe neighborhoods and environments are really important to those midterm travelers.
Yeah, absolutely. And so these duplexes that we have, they're all brick and they just so happen to be. Just over a mile away from the local hospital. So I said we have a doctor in there right now, and it's, they're in the back of a cul-de-sac, so we have three on one street. So it works out really good.
And the town that we live in was rated the friendliest town to live in by USA today. So it's it's a good town. Oh yeah. That's incredible. Yeah. It's really rare to be able to hit that 1% rule. I feel like that rule is, just in theory pretty outdated. It's like pretty, it's co.
Pre COVI, right? That like a lot of times you could get that number to work. So a lot of times you're forced to do an MTR or a short term rental strategy just to be able to hit those numbers. So to know that you're able to hit that 1% rule. And surpass it by so much is really encouraging, plus getting the return on that investment with that furnishing.
'cause it is, it's an upfront investment, but it's an investment, right? You wanna get that return on it. I think that is incredibly encouraging and really cool to hear that you've actually taken the time to calculate it out and see how that has panned out for you just over that short period of time.
Yeah, absolutely. Not only that, it it scratches the itch. My, my wife loves to shop. And to decorate. So I say, here's the company credit card. Go big game busters. And so she loves that. And you mentioned furnishing a couple times so far and that you accomplished that furnishing for around $7,000.
What we haven't discussed is what size are your duplexes? So what size are these properties that you're turning into midterm rentals? And I think you reach quite a nice cash on cash return with your furnishings as well. So tell us about that. Yeah. There, our duplex units are probably a three bedroom, two bath.
That's what they're all gonna be with that. We have do have one that's a two bedroom, one bath. But for the most part, that's what our duplex units are. Our other houses are, we've got a three bed, two bath, a three bed, one bath, a two bedroom, one bath, and then a studio, which was a cool story how we got that studio.
Let's hear it. We always want a cool story. Okay, so the, sorry, the the first midterm that we bought. Was a single family. It's a two bedroom, one bath, 1200 square foot house, and it had a detached garage. And we thought, oh, this is gonna be great. We can offer, parking, with that.
But it was detached enough where I started thinking, what if we just put a fence in between and we converted that garage over into a studio unit. And so that's exactly what we did. We worked with the city, we petitioned them and we got that taken care of. And so it's about a 500 square foot studio unit.
And we built it from the ground up. We put granite countertops, tile, shower, makes it look super nice. The day we finished furnishing it, we handed the keys over to a travel nurse, and she's been there for over a year and absolutely loves it. And so the cool thing with that is the main house we bought the property for $140,000.
The main house we rent out for $2,000, which we're getting ready to raise that up. And then the studio unit is a 1650. So for $140,000, we're getting 36 50 a month off of that. So again, over 2% rule. Yep. That is quite the accomplishment and those rules are in place because they make a signal for, a great deal and a good investment.
I think those are, you have to use them in different ways and maybe we used them 10 years ago, but they're still really good signals. Yeah. And for anybody who is not familiar with. Cash on cash return or these, 1%, 2% rules. They're just guidelines. Cash on cash is a simple way to measure how much cash you're getting back on the actual cash you've invested.
They're signals, right? And they're gonna change. But, it's really interesting to hear that you've taken the time to really thoughtfully calculate those because they can be really good signals, but also something like cashflow, right? Just hearing that you have that cashflow obviously that's a positive signal and occupancy, that's a big signal.
So don't feel like you have to be really sophisticated with the numbers to know if your investment's good or not. At the end of the day. If you're getting some monthly cashflow, fantastic. You're also paying down the equity, or I'm sorry, you're paying down the debt of your property and you are getting more appreciation on your property as time goes by.
So that's why I love real estate. I don't know about you guys, but it's like you're really generating wealth in multiple different ways, right? It's like some months when I'm like, man, we didn't get much for cash flow this month. It's okay, but I have to remind myself we're getting tax benefits.
Someone else is paying down my mortgage for me, and at the same time. That property is worth more and more every single day. So there's a lot of factors in play with real estate, and they are all, things that can benefit you in the long term. All right, cam, we've alluded to this, but let's talk about how long your average midterm rental tenant has stayed and some of the different tenant types that you have been able to host.
Looking for a simple professional way to manage your monthly rental. Furnish, finder's, landlord tools brings everything together, tenant screening, lease templates, and online rent payments all in one place. Stay organized, save time, and stay in control. For more information, explore landlord tools today.
So going through a Furnished Finder, hands down. The tenants stay longer. If you get 'em off of some of the other bookings, it's usually like maybe a month. Two months with that. But what we found is Furnished Finder, they're there for a reason and they're there for a long time. So I said our first tenant was there just one month, shy of two years which was fantastic.
And then the garage that we converted right beside it or behind it she was there. Oh, she's still there. And we're going on about a year and a half. We ended up, we liking the street in the neighborhood, so we bought the house two doors down, just happened to come up for sale. We've had a little bit more turnover with that, but they're still about three to four months, at a time.
And then the gentleman that we have at the original house, he's just put in his notice. He'll be out in September, so that's nine months. Stay with that. That's just what we've been able to come to. And it doesn't stay vacant long. Maybe two weeks and then we have someone else coming in.
So it's, again, it's been a great experience for us. We, I feel like it's more of a long-term strategy, even though it's quote unquote midterm. The people are staying for a long period of time and we're getting those short-term prices, which is just fantastic. Yeah, definitely. And we can't talk about midterm rentals without letting you share.
Furnished Finder has been an impactful part of that journey because as most of Furnished Finder has been in business since 2014. We've grown to over 300,000 listings nationwide and 225,000 landlords look for tenants on our site. So it's it's a great place for you to be in control and to connect with quality tenants.
So how has Furnished Finder been an impactful part of that journey for you, cam, you wanna go where the people are. And coming into this midterm, not having any experience the one constant that I heard over and over again was Furnished Finder. And so when we posted it up there, I kid you not the first day we were getting hits on it.
And we put all of our properties on a Furnished Finder because that's where we know people are looking for it. We've been trying to, the guests that we have, especially businesses trying to coordinate with them so if they have additional employees coming through, can book through there.
But the biggest impact for me not knowing how to market my property, not knowing where to go, Furnished Finder is where these clientele are going to. So go there and be there. And so that's given us a headstart of. Of getting our places booked. Katie and I are right here in the trenches with you. So a reminder, we both have midterm rental properties ourselves.
So this show is all about providing the necessary tools for you to be successful in the midterm rental journey and letting guests share those experiences. Cam we're so happy that you're here to share your experience. So I think the perfect place to go next is. How do you find the right properties?
That's the biggest questions we get is how do I know how to price my rental and how do I know that my market is the right area? So what advice do you have using the Furnished Finder stats page or the market insights of, how someone should look for their market? Yeah, that's a great question.
So obviously the stats page was a huge confidence builder for myself of knowing Hey, is there actually a demand here? But then just knowing the market and I took a little bit more of a business approach to this where I looked, got connected with the local business economic development to see, Hey, are there any new businesses coming into play?
What size are the hospitals that are in town? And once I found out that this is a growing area, it gave me the confidence. To actually, purchase our first one. But I'll say you can have all the stats Katie, you alluded to this. You have all the stats, all the information, but until you actually purchase the property, you're never gonna fully know.
And again I keep coming back to it and I've talked to several of my friends and getting them into it is that you don't know. But once you get in there, you realize there are so many different clientele. That need this midterm, hou or furnished housing for a longer period of time. And I think you actually test out markets first, right?
Before you dive in completely. How do you do that? Yeah, so one of the things that we did when we were trying to get an idea of if we should convert our duplexes over, we had the intention of converting one over, but we hadn't. Made the full commitment. And was it $199 to get a listing on Furnished Finder?
And we put one of our duplex units up just as completely it was vacant, no furnishings. And we just said, this will be, furnished by this date. And. Because according to the Furnished Finder stats, there really wasn't a market for this area. And there weren't any other rentals on the market for there, but as soon as we put that up, within a month, I probably had five dings.
Say, Hey, here's your place available. Can we get this? And what I found out was just because there's no stats information page, because there were no other rentals in the area, we were the only game in town. And so we could name our price of what we had. I don't think you had even furnished it at that point.
I think you just put it up with the anticipation of furnishing do. So how did you mark it as a long-term rental, knowing that you wanted to convert it to a midterm rental? If the demand was there. Yeah we just posted the pictures of it being empty and just said it will be furnished by the time that it's available.
We put it a few months out, with that. And so then once we were getting hits of, Hey, is this gonna be ready at this time? That gave me the confidence to say, all right, let's go in and we convert this. And so that's what we did. And like I said, the day after that, we had it done. We had a doctor moving in with us.
Yep. There's ways for you to test right before you have to jump all the way in, especially if you already have the property. You already have it as a long-term rental, that investment to see what kind of leads you're gonna get, just make your listing accurate like Cam did, right? Like putting that it's available in the future, a date that you could realistically have it available and that, furnishings coming soon That is.
That's such a smart way to just go ahead and test and see what's realistically in this market because it's, you can get all this information from the stats page and looking at other listings and talking to people, but sometimes you just gotta get into it. Get in the pool to see how the water feels.
Yeah. The thing that drives me nuts with some people is they say, it's $180, $180 that you're just spending and you don't know if you're gonna return. And I'm thinking for $180 you get to do market research. I know it's the little Starbucks effect, but it's like. That's nothing to find out if something's gonna work out before you put in this huge investment of all that.
So it is a steal by, worth the money. And when it works out like it did for you, then you already have your first tenant, right? As a part of that. It's not then it's okay, now you've proven the market. Now it's time to move up with that. So I, yeah I agree. I tend to put all of my properties on Furnished Finder as well, even.
Before we've closed on them. If I'm confident we're gonna close. I'll put it on there. And just Hey, furnishings coming soon. It gives you a deadline too. I love having a deadline. If I don't have a deadline it won't get done. It's like things get done with deadlines if you don't have a deadline on it.
It'll stay on my list. It's like stuff that comes up in my personal life. Man, I have a window downstairs that has one broken pan for a couple years now. 'cause there's no deadline. Yeah. Yeah. We need deadlines. So give yourself one and give yourself a deadline to try it or to feel really good about the stats or to connect with a la another landlord.
Give yourself some deadlines to, to. Get yourself moving. One of the other things, Katie, I know you've talked about this on the podcast before, and I think Kelly, you as well, is even if you have two units that are exactly the same, the same furniture with everything, you list both of them.
And I think I found that to be. So awesome because I had one of my tenant who I found out he was looking for another place between two options, and he messaged me twice and I was like, oh yeah, that's also mine. Yep. And it was like, oh, okay. All right. So it gives a little bit more credibility, not like I'm just this one off type of thing.
And it says so much. So for anyone out there, don't be cheap, for every unit have a U or have a listing for that. Because if they call you like, yeah, that's still me. We got you taken care of. Yep. That's the best. I'd love to hear, for those that are considering moving from long-term rentals to midterm rentals, what's been the time difference or the impact on your home?
Has it felt like more work more damage to home, less stress, less s at home? What's the balance there? Definitely less damage. And it's interesting, when I was first talking with my property manager about this to see Hey, will you be able to do this? And she was initially like, I don't know, because then you get into, like damage to furniture and then you know, whose fault is it and it's this or the other.
And that kind of dissuaded me. But then everything else I was hearing is, these are long term tenants. They're not partiers, for like short term coming in for a weekend. And they use, utilize this as their home. And that has definitely been the case. We have not had any place trashed out. Things get dirty over time.
But, no, no torn beds, no holes in sheet rock. And it's, for the most part, we've given all the deposits back because there, there hasn't been an issue. And you cultivate this relationship with them over time too. So you become, you get these friends from your business and then. There's that incentive too.
I don't wanna trash it for, Cam's a good guy and, going with that. So we haven't had any issues, knock on wood, but how about the management, right? We always talk about long-term management is the turnovers are really hard 'cause someone's been in there for at least a year and they moving furniture in and out.
And who knows if they put stuff on the wall or mounted teeth? Who knows? Who knows what the yard is gonna look like if you have a yard. But we talk about that a lot. But what we don't talk about quite as much is when you are a long-term rental landlord, typically you're getting those tenants in there and then unless the water heater breaks, the furnace goes out, something big happens, you usually don't hear much, which is one of the perks about long-term rentals.
How has that been for you with shifting over to midterms that like day-to-day management? Has it felt like, oh man, this is a lot more, or has it felt. Pretty comparable and manageable. All of our long-term we've had as a, with a property management company and they've done a phenomenal job, so they haven't done anything.
The four units, single family units that we have, we started off with our midterm, we're actually managing that. So going from no involvement to some, literally none. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So yes, there, there is a difference with that. But what I've found is that if you're responsive to these folks, like no one expects everything to be you.
Perfect. But as long as you respond to 'em quickly, you can let the house like burn down and be like, don't worry, I'll get you a new place tomorrow. Okay, alright, everything's fine. But again I've always taken it, maybe this is it is more than what I've used to. And I've, played with the thought of maybe I just hand this off to my property management.
'cause she said she would manage these for me. And I just find the guests going forward. But at the same time I've made really good relationships with our guests. So that's, it's not so much an adversarial oh, landlord to, just the tenant. I know that's a rambling answer, but no, it's good.
It is more than you doing nothing. That's good. It's more than nothing, right? Like we, nobody Correct. Can deny that. But at least what I've found, and Kelly, it'd be interesting to hear from your perspective too, is if a water heater's gonna break, it's gonna break no matter what type of tenant is in there, right?
Correct. But my at tenants are typically not bothering me for the stuff that I would find to be a really big nuance like. I don't know. I don't, I always use the beach towel example. I need a really, I need a new example, but oh, there's not enough beach towels here. The beach towels. I don't have enough beach towels.
I picture that with a short term rental. But I, you're absolutely right Cam that. These tenants are understanding and they know that things happen a lot of times their property owners or renters themselves back, wherever their permanent residence is, if they have one.
But it's that communication, right? Yeah. But I like how you've taken it as an opportunity to make that relationship. I think that's really cool because you can see something like that as a burden. Ugh, I've gotta message that tenant back. Or you can say, oh, yeah let's, take a second to figure out what's going on.
Exactly. I still get the pit in my stomach ah, how much is it gonna cost me? But, but it's gonna cost you a lot worse if you don't address it right away. Like with anything in life, right? You have an issue, you get it done right away, they're incredibly happy with it. Yeah, I think oftentimes it being a landlord feels complicated, but it doesn't have to.
It's actually pretty simple. So with a midterm rental, you really need to be able to have a. Remote self-management where you don't need to be at the property very often and you can check on it, a couple times a year, but all you need is a reliable, cleaner. And a handyman. So it always takes a little extra time to find that team at first, your realtor Facebook groups.
We've got our Furnished Finder Facebook group of over 150,000 members. So it's always a good tool to ask questions there. But in general it's, once you find your team. You don't really have any need to be there. Like right now while we're doing this podcast, my cleaner is at one of our properties and right before this, she was sending pictures, asking questions.
She said, Hey the hamper ISS missing. So I went and got a new one. Here's the picture of it. Great. Thank you so much. There's just stuff like that where once you find your team, then you're good to go. Any other things that you found from like a self-management especially being a couple hours away from your property any self-management tips that you have really found helpful or how you found that cleaner and handyman that was reliable for you?
Yeah that's one important thing. Like we, we invest outta state. I live in just outside of. Nashville and Murfreesboro, Tennessee. And so all of our stuff is in Kentucky. Two and a half hours away. You're a hundred percent right, cleaner. And that was the one thing of like, how do you find a good cleaner?
How do you trust 'em? And so you just asked for referrals. Hey, who have you used? So I asked my property management. She's Hey, who do you know? And she's I don't know, but someone's recommended this lady. And she is absolutely phenomenal. I also have a guy named Derek who he started off as my property manager.
Has now become my realtor. And then he also owned a property maintenance. So he was like my handyman. He had a company with that and then he opened up a building supply store. So literally he is my hub for anything and everything that I need. And so said, Hey, who do you know for needs a hvac.
I'll pull some favors. Here you go. Without him, we would not be able to scale what we had. So find yourself a Derrick is what I was trying to say is, and but that only comes over time, right? And so we've been doing this since 2018, investing out there. So we've had a time to build and learn who works good and who, who doesn't.
But that is phenomenal to spend as much time as it takes to find the good people. When you find them, pay them well, pay them quick and tell them how much you appreciate them. Yep. And I will add that once you find that right person, give them some independence and free choice to make those decisions.
I think like you're saying, and I think it was you, Kelly that said about the hamper, right? I have just started working with a new cleaner and she was like, Hey, we found that, the toilet. Had seen better days. It just looked really old or whatever. I just went ahead and replaced it. Hope that's okay.
And I'm like, yes, wait a hundred percent, that's okay. Please, as long as it's not something that's $500, do it. Someone who understands how you wanna present your properties and just give them the authority to make those decisions. It will pay in dividends because ours are.
For the most part long distance as well. And it's tricky because I can't just go over and I can't just look at how the cleaner did. I'm relying on their pictures or their walkthrough video or what it is. So don't get discouraged if you haven't found your, what did you say his name is? Derek Di.
Don't get discouraged if you haven't found your Derek. Yeah, I have gone through a few non derricks and I feel like, yeah. Knock on wood. I might've found my Derrick, but it takes some time, takes some patience and it's worth it once you get there. Alright, cam, let's talk a little bit more about the day to day because I think this is, again, it's something that can be a little intimidating if you're thinking about coming from long term or just coming from nothing, from no, no properties or investments. So how, what is your approach to leases, screenings, renewals. With your midterm tenants. Yeah, so Key Check has played a huge role in this for me, because not knowing what to do on anything. It's like I, I don't know where to go. How do you even do a background check and, what are you looking for?
So utilizing Key Check based on your guys' recommendation has been just so phenomenal for me because it takes all the guesswork out of it. You just put in the information. And then with the background checks, it pretty much is self-explanatory. Green means good. They should be good, and verify that income get some referrals, call them, but at the same time, they're not staying for years.
At a time. So it is a shorter period of time of what they have, but just make sure you get that documented in those contracts in place, and one of the things we hear most most common about midterm rental guests is that need for flexible lease terms, right? You want to be able to move on to your next assignment or if.
Your job says, Hey, we want you to go here now, or we want you to go home, then you're ready to do that. So how have you made sure, through your processes that you're staying flexible and really advocating for those midterm monthly rental guests? Yeah, so like I said, most of our stays are like nine to 10 months at a time.
So it's not, we don't really set it up for nine to 10 months at a time. It's okay. What do you know your contract's going for? Three months said, okay. And then after that they've always asked, can we just do a month to month after that? Absolutely. It's no problem. And that's already written into the contract.
So then you don't have to keep renewing it over and over again. Just keep having that, month to month after there and just give it 30 days notice is what we ask. So I like that. Before we wrap up with our rapid fire section, which is a fun set of questions that you just get to provide, whatever comes to mind what advice would you give to others that are looking to get started in this space, whether coming from long-term rentals or never being a landlord before?
Yeah. Don't overthink it. I know you'll have all these questions just. Do it right, do the hard things. One, one of the things about myself is married. We have three kids. I still work a full-time job that go travel three different cover, three different states, none of which are my properties are in, all my kids are in sports.
I coach my son's baseball. You can manage it all. That's the nice thing about these midterm rentals is you're not getting calls every single day. And everyone always says, what about the toilet overflows in the middle of the night? Call a plumber. That's all you have to do. Yeah, I haven't had one of those calls, but we've had a hundred a call, when we were on vacation just call a plumber and they'll go and do it.
You're not gonna go in there, snake the, snake the drain. So just don't let your fears, overweigh you just do one, start with one. And then where they say rental properties are like tattoos. No one just has one. You get one and then go from there. Yeah. Yeah. I really like that sentiment of keeping it simple.
It's very easy to make this stuff complicated, and it does not have to be guys. I think with short-term rentals, you get forced into the complicated a little bit with the constant turnover. You're gonna have different PMS systems and you're gonna want integrations and automations and all of these different things.
With midterm rentals, it's like you can take a deep breath and you don't need a lot of that. Don't overcomplicate this. Keep it about the relationships. I can even see in, me and my family's rental business where I'm like, you know what? I think we've overprocessed some of these things a little bit where we need to become a little bit more human and just send a text instead of here's your, automatic email with your QR code or whatnot. I was like, let's just become a little bit more human. We could all just use a simpl, a little simplification. So I think that is a. Great message for anybody. 'cause it is, it's doable. It's doable, guys. It's not, we're not doing rocket science over here, right?
No. We're giving good homes to people who need good places to stay. Alright. Are you ready for rapid fire? Let's do it. This is our newest edition to the podcast. It is my favorite new edition. Perhaps because my brain on average goes about 400 miles an hour, and now I feel like this section keeps up, so it's so great.
All right, first rapid fire question. What is the most surprising item a midterm rental guest has ever left behind? Ooh, it's surprise. It's not really surprise, just kids toys. Just leaving kids toys. I'm like, don't you? Don't you think your kids would want to take that with you? Okay. We had one day, fair day.
It was a dog kennel. Oh, huh. Yep. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. I was like, how do you lose a dog kennel? I think they just tucked up underneath something. Yep. All go for it. Kids were, maybe, they were loud and obnoxious and they were just like, we're done with these I know. Yeah. Go away. Alright. What's the one thing you will never put in a furnished rental again?
Ooh. That's a good question. Never put in furniture or all I hate to say it, maybe an air mattress because they pop and then they're just upset about it, yeah, that's fair. And yeah, probably air mattress. That's fair. Oh, this is a fun one. All right. If your properties had a theme song that played every time you got a new lease signed.
What would it be? O Every time oh, what's that song? Every time that Monte Jordan, this is how we do it. Oh, yeah. Fun fact, Kelly, I don't even think you know this which is interesting 'cause Kelly made these rapid fire questions for today. But every time we get a new lease signed, I have a horn and we honk the horn.
That's awesome. And my husband's office is in the basement and I'm up upstairs. So I'll literally just hear him honk, honk and then I know, hey, we got a new lease signed, or, anything significant we got, we have the horns drives our kids crazy. This has been a fun episode. Cam.
Thanks so much for joining us. If anyone wants to connect, they can of course find your listings in the show notes. If there's any other way you'd like them to connect, please feel free to share it. Otherwise, is there anything you wanna wrap up our episode with? Just do it. So thankful for Furnished Finder.
Without you, I do not believe I'd be where I am today so grateful for y'all. Awesome. Please add anything that came to mind in the comments. We love being able to help you in your midterm rental journey, and we'll catch you again next time. Bye everybody.
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