Whether you're new to real estate investing or a seasoned landlord seeking to diversify your portfolio, venturing into monthly rentals could be your pathway to enhanced profitability and stability. Platforms like Furnished Finder (opens in new tab) provide you with the tools and audience you need to capitalize on this opportunity. This blog will serve as your comprehensive guide to understanding what Furnished Finder offers and how to effectively get started with your listing(s).
Why choose monthly rentals?
Monthly rentals, often referred to as midterm rentals, cater to a unique demographic of tenants searching for stays of typically 30 days or more. Unlike short-term vacation rentals or traditional long-term leases, monthly rentals offer flexibility and a steady income stream without the constant turnover of short stays. At Furnished Finder, we focus solely on this niche, ensuring that our landlords and tenants receive specialized support and services. Learn more about the benefits of monthly rentals here (opens in new tab).
Ideal for new landlords
Monthly rentals are particularly appealing to new landlords due to their low-maintenance management needs. With longer tenancy periods, landlords can enjoy stable occupancy rates similar to traditional long-term rentals, while avoiding the high turnover and constant upkeep associated with short-term rentals. This allows for the possibility of self-management, eliminating the need for costly management services.
Moreover, the tenant type attracted to monthly rentals, such as traveling professionals and relocating families, tends to be respectful and gentle on your property, reducing wear and tear. These renters are on the move, making evictions unlikely compared to other rental types. Additionally, monthly rentals benefit communities by providing screened tenants who often fill crucial temporary employment needs, such as staffing hospitals that are short-handed or working on new construction projects like data centers and skyscrapers. Embracing monthly rentals with Furnished Finder provides new landlords a smoother, more reliable real estate investment experience.
Setting up your high-quality listing
The foundation of a successful rental on Furnished Finder starts with a well-crafted listing. Here's a step-by-step guide:
1. Crafting a compelling headline
Think of your headline as a banner ad for your property. Instead of generic descriptions like "Cozy Home," highlight unique features such as "Pet-Friendly Haven with All-New Furnishings." This captures attention and sets your property apart.
2. Detailed descriptions
Avoid vague descriptions. Instead, describe what makes your property unique and appealing. Is it centrally located? Does it have high-speed WiFi or a washer and dryer? Use tools like ChatGPT to help you draft engaging content.
3. Professional photos
A picture speaks a thousand words, and in the rental market, it's no different. Professional real estate photos can significantly boost your property's attraction. They are affordable and can quickly become a worthwhile investment.
4. Calendar management
Keep your calendar updated. When can you accommodate a tenant? Are there specific dates your property is unavailable? Keeping this meticulously updated can drastically improve the matching process with potential tenants.
5. Pricing strategy
Base rent typically ranges from one and a half to two times long-term rates. Research local market trends, consider your target tenants, and leverage Furnished Finder's market insights (opens in new tab) and pricing worksheet (opens in new tab) to refine your pricing strategy.
Understanding your dashboard and leads
Once your listing is live, your Furnished Finder dashboard becomes your command center. Here, you can track listing performance, view tenant leads, and manage communication with potential renters.
Direct Booking Requests & Messages: Highly engaged potential tenants interested specifically in your property.
General and Unmatched Housing Requests: Broader leads that are sent to other landlords in that area that may require additional contact and flexibility in terms. Put on your sales hat.
Respond promptly, thoroughly and professionally to inquiries, as this will improve your chances of securing a tenant.
Screenings, leases, and tools
Furnished Finder isn't a booking platform, you have control over every aspect of the rental process.
Here are the tools you need:
Tenant Screening: Utilize our partnership with TransUnion to conduct essential background, credit and eviction checks.
Lease and Payment Setup: Rocket Lawyer and Baselane partnerships offer services to craft leases and manage payments conveniently.
For detailed guides on these tools, you may explore the resources available on your Furnished Finder dashboard.
Additional resources
Stay engaged with the latest industry trends and tips:
Furnished Finder Podcast: Tune in to Landlord Diaries (opens in new tab) for insights from experienced monthly rental hosts.
Insurance: Check out affordable, comprehensive property insurance with Steadily.
Joining our community of over 150,000 landlords and tenants through the Furnished Finder Facebook group (opens in new tab) can also help you connect with other landlords to share experiences and advice.
Conclusion
Transitioning to a monthly rental model with Furnished Finder (opens in new tab) offers real estate investors, particularly new landlords, a lucrative and sustainable engagement. By following the steps outlined here, you can create a compelling listing, expertly manage your rental property, and ensure an exceptional experience for tenants. Dive into the world of monthly rentals and watch your real estate endeavors flourish.
For a more comprehensive dive into maximizing your rentals with Furnished Finder, check out the full Furnished Finder onboarding webinar (opens in new tab). This resource provides an exhaustive overview of best practices, tools, and strategies designed to get you started on the right foot.
For more information, feel free to explore the Help Center on our website or contact our support team. Happy Renting!
November 2025 Onboarding Webinar Transcript
Hello everybody. Welcome. I think everybody should be joining now. If you are in and you can see me and you can hear me, if you can put a hello or let us know where you're from in the chat that gets, lets us know you're in and let's be get to know you a little bit. Awesome. It looks like you all can hear me, you can see me.
I love it when technology works the way it is supposed to, especially on a Friday. So welcome everybody. Happy Friday. I'm gonna give everybody just a couple minutes to get in, join, get settled but we will get started very quickly here. I wanna be respectful of your time. Thanks for everybody for joining.
We are going to have a very productive hour and I think at the end of this, all of you are gonna feel so good with how you are gonna get started with furnished finder. Let's get started. Everybody else can join in as they join the room. My name is Katie Lyon. I will introduce myself a little bit more in just a minute here, but just a couple of details for you all.
First, this session is recorded and it will be automatically sent to the email you registered with after the session today. So if there's something that you missed or you wanna see again, or you meant to grab a screenshot and you didn't get it, whatever the case may be, don't worry. It will be sent to your email.
We will also post it on YouTube. We really wanna make sure that you get the resources that you need to be successful. If you hop to hop off early, anything like that, no worries. It will be recorded and sent to your email. If you don't see it in your email, make sure you check your spam or your junk folder and make sure you just keep an eye out for it because it usually sends pretty quickly after the recording.
I do have a poll open. If you click on that little polls button, it'll say. Have you rented before? I would love to know here who has rented before and who hasn't. That just helps me to really cater this session towards this audience and you guys' experience. And you know what I should talk about more specifically if you haven't rented before.
That's okay. Just hit no some, it seems like some of my answers are missing, but that's okay. We're gonna roll with it. I don't, my answer for no has disappeared. So if you're a first time renter, pop it in the chat. No. Or that you're a first time renter that'll let me know. But we are gonna cover everything regardless, so All good.
I also have a coworker and expert at midterm Rentals and Furnished Finder named Kate. So today you get Kate and Katie in the chat. So please feel free to ask any questions in the chat. My only ask is that we're gonna cover a lot. So keep in mind that if you have a question right now, maybe hold onto it to just see if it's something that we are going to cover.
And if not, or if you have a follow-up question on something I do cover, Kate is in the chat and she is ready to answer your questions. If you don't, if we don't get around to answering your questions, we will have a little bit of a live q and a at the end and she'll be marking some questions that I can answer live at the end of our time today together.
And then I'll also share with you some resources. If for some reason we don't. Get to your answer, but typically we do pretty good. We are also live. So have a little bit of grace if we have any tech hiccups or real life happens. I appreciate your grace and patience. Like I said, usually things go smoothly, but you never know.
So I just like to ask for that grace and patience upfront. My goal for today is for you to leave this hour feeling really good. I am a firm believer that webinars should be information packed and should be action packed. So I want you leaving today feeling like you know what to go do.
Whether that's you have one new tip or 10 new tips or a new frame of mind, I want to make sure that I leave you in a place where you're like, that was a great use of an hour of my Friday. I now know what to go do. So again, my name is Katie Line. I'm the marketing director at Furnished Finder, and I'm also a midterm rental landlord.
So I have 13 midterm rental properties. These pictures behind me, those are all of our midterm properties. Me and my family invest together. So I'm literally walking in your shoes as well as being on the Furnished Finder team, which I think gives me a unique perspective to be able to really understand any challenges or, achievements that you guys are going through.
As well as I know the ins and outs of Furnished Finder like the back of my hand. So my goals today, I want you to know how to get started on Furnished Finder. I want you to get familiar with Furnished Finder. I want you to know how to maximize your listing, okay? I want you to just not get your listing live, but really feel confident in it.
I want you to know the tenant types and the lead types that you are going to receive. I want you to have general midterm rental best practices. They're a little bit different than others, but they're not complicated. So I want you to just feel really confident with how that is going to go. And then, excuse me, I want you to know how to complete your first booking or your next booking if you have done that already.
So before we go into any of that wonderful content, I just wanna set the base right here and talk about why midterm rentals. You will hear us call them midterm rentals and monthly rentals. Same thing, typically. Landlords call them midterm rentals, and travelers are searching for monthly rentals. So I actually prefer to talk to them as in terms of monthly rentals, because that's how a tenant or traveler is searching for them.
They don't really know the term midterm rental, but you'll hear us use those interchangeably. So just keep a close eye on that. A furnished monthly rental of 30 days and up. So we have a 30 day minimum unfurnished finder. If you're looking for a short-term rental you're not gonna find that unfurnished finder.
We are a hundred percent midterm rentals completely dedicated to the space. That doesn't mean you can't do short-term rentals or long-term rentals in other times or seasonally or anything like that. But on furnished finder, that's what we list. And that's what our travelers are looking for. We have professional tenants.
You're not gonna have someone who's coming to your property to vacation for two months. It's very unlikely. We'll talk more about tenant types in a little bit, but you're looking more at, traveling medical professionals. You're looking at digital nomads, you're looking at relocating families.
You're looking at really high quality people who need this type of housing for some sort of a personal or professional reason. And all of these individuals are typically looking to support the community or you are supporting the community with your property. Okay? For instance, if you have a traveling medical professional, they're coming in to serve your community.
Same thing. Perhaps it's an academic or an intern who's coming in to learn something about the local area or business. Or maybe you have a family whose house has been. Damaged by fire or flood, you are looking to help that family as they get back on their feet and or maybe they're moving to the area and they're learning the different neighborhoods.
The other thing I want everybody to remember is that Furnished Finder is not a booking platform. Okay. You might be saying, what does that mean? A booking platform is Airbnb. It's vrbo. It's where a traveler can go on and they literally book their property with the website. If I go on Airbnb, I'm booking my property through Airbnb.
Now, we do this very intentionally. We have a different business model, and it is completely on purpose. Midterm rentals. We are firm believers that you as the landlord, need to be in control. There is a relationship between you and that tenant. Okay? Very similar to a long-term rental. If I'm gonna go rent an unfurnished house for two years and I go on Zillow, I'm gonna go through an application with the tenant or with the landlord.
I'm gonna go through a screening. I'm gonna sign a lease. I'm gonna do a deposit. That is also the booking process for a midterm rental, because it's not a weekend stay. It's not someone coming in for four or five nights, or even 10 or 12 nights, they are there for at least 30 days. So that relationship and that booking process needs to be really secure, from end to protect everybody, and really to give you that sense of control.
The other thing is we don't take those booking fees, okay? So Travelers know that about our site. They really value that about our site, that if they're booking a property for 90 days, they're not gonna have to pay hundreds or thousands of dollars in booking fees that go straight to Airbnb or straight to vrbo.
They're gonna pay you directly. So if you charge $2,000 of rent, you are going to get $2,000 of rent. We're not skimming the top. Okay? All of you probably already know this, but I just like to get everybody on the same page as we move forward. Okay? So today we're gonna go through three sections. I said I like to make webinars, really action packed, really informative.
I value your time today. So I like to make this really info packed. So we're gonna talk about creating your listing, understanding your dashboard, and then tools and best practices. Again, if you have questions, pop them in the chat. And remember, this is recorded and will be emailed to you.
So section one, creating a high quality listing. We're gonna talk about setting up your listing and your profile, understanding the tenants, different property types, and choosing your settings. There are three steps to getting your listing live and your listing live, meaning that it is showing up in our map and on our search results when a traveler searches something that would pull up your property.
Okay? Step one, you have all completed Pat on the back. You've done it. You are here. If you are here, it means you signed up at Furnished Finder and you have your annual listing reminder. It's an annual subscription and we don't take those booking fees, so you are going to save hundreds, if not thousands, with our model versus something like an Airbnb or a vrbo.
Okay? Step two, you're gonna complete your verification process. We have a verification process for landlords to help keep our marketplace secure. It's gonna confirm your identity. We just wanna know that you are who you say you are. It helps everybody have a more secure marketplace and feel better. We use a third party expert in this field called jio.
So if you receive an email from ju o that is legit, follow those instructions. This is a part of the verification system. You only have to do this once, and then you're gonna fill out your listing details. This is the fun part. This is where you get to tell us all about your property. You get to show us the photos, the amenities the bare minimum you have to be live to show up on our map is two photos, a city, a estate, a property type.
Please do more than that and I'll show you exactly how to do that. But that is the minimum. Your calendar. This is also where you're gonna set up your calendar availability. Okay, so how do you maximize your Furnished Finder listing? You're going in and you're entering, you have a two bed, two bath, and it's located in X, Y, Z neighborhood, and you're pet friendly.
These are the things that I want you to think of that are really key to not only completing your listing, but maximizing it. Okay? I want you to have a compelling headline. Too often I am scrolling the map on Furnished Finder and I see someone who writes new property or house on Main Street or Cozy two Bed, or just putting their address even in the headline.
I want you to think of your headline as what you would put on a banner. If you could only tell someone one thing about your property, what is the one thing you want them to know? Is it pet friendly? And a lot of areas in your property are not pet friendly. Is it that you have all new upscale furnishings?
What is it? Think about it. Use this space to brag and not to be shy. Okay? I want you to avoid generic descriptions. I do not want you to tell me your property is cozy. It's just a really nice way of telling me that your property is small. Okay. I want you to tell me what makes it different. Is it centrally located?
Is it easy to access public transportation? And you can switch that up. Okay. You can change it every once in a while as you feel like you should. Property type, I want you to be really clear with your property type. If it's an entire apartment, an entire condo, an entire place, meaning there is no sharing of anything.
Or if it's a room rental. Now we have about 60,000 room rentals on Furnished Finder. It's really common. It's also a good solution to affordability challenges. But you wanna make that clear. If you have a room rental make that clear. If you have an entire apartment, but let's say it's a basement apartment, I want you to select entire apartment in the description.
I want you to be really clear about what that means. Okay? Amenities and house rules. Amenities are really important to midterm travelers. So I want you to be clear about that. I want you and when you're thinking amenities, I want you to think less, bicycles and beach front access, and I want you to think more washer and dryer.
Pet friendliness. High-speed wifi. We have a checklist, so all you have to do is go in and check what you have, but I want you to be thoughtful about that because some of those will reflect how you show up in search. If you forget to say that you're pet friendly, but you are someone searches for pet friendly properties, you're not gonna show up unless you have checked that box.
Okay? The calendar availability, this is huge. This is huge. You have to tell us when your property is available. Think about your calendar availability as when. Can you accept a tenant? Okay. Now we have made it really easy for you to keep your calendar updated. All you have to do is tell us your minimum length of stay.
So is your minimum length of stay 30 days? Is it 60 days? Is it 90 days? Is it six months? And then tell us when you already have things booked. Or when you're not available. So let's say I have a 60 day minimum I'm gonna select that and I do have my water heater be being replaced next week, and I wanna get that done before I have a tenant come in.
I'm gonna block those dates on my calendar, okay? Then we will take that information and we'll say, okay, great. Then you should be available right after that, and we're gonna start matching you with travelers who are searching for that timeframe. This is really important because we want to match you with the best tenant leads, and we want tenants to see the best matching properties.
There's not much value if your property comes in up in a search for them, but they're looking for dates that you are already booked, or you're doing renovations, or you're replacing furniture, right? It needs to be a two-way match, and that all starts with the calendar. So please, anytime you have something that will make your property unavailable, whether it's a booking from Furnished Finder or something else, please make sure you enter that into your calendar.
That is critical. Okay. Complete descriptions. I also see people who, in their listing, it'll say property description and they'll say, this is a two bed, two bath condo. Okay, great. But tell me more. Entice me as a traveler to want to inquire about your property, what makes it different, what makes it great.
This is an awesome way to use chat, GBT or other AI tools if you are interested in that too. You can go in and you can say, Hey, I'm trying to make a property description for my Furnished Finder listing. And you can turn on that voice to text in chat, and you can just say, it's a two bed, two bath condo.
It's right by Minneapolis. It's close to the hospitals, it has a washer and dryer. List it off and it can craft the description for you if that's something that feels like a stretch for you. Thoughtful. And really this is your time to show it off, this is essentially the website for your property.
This is your marketing. What's nice about Furnished Finders, we are bringing. Millions of travelers to our website and searching. Okay? All we need you to do is to make your listing great. So don't worry about how people are gonna find it. That's what we do. We just need you to make your listing really awesome.
Okay? Parking, if possible, I want you to include parking for free. And if you do, I want you to brag about it. If you're somewhere where a garage is beneficial, I want you to talk about that. These tenants really frequently come with a car or a vehicle, unlike short-term renters. Okay? If it's, if you live in an area where parking is typically paid totally fine.
Just be transparent. And what that means. What type of parking is it? How much does it cost? And so on pets, roughly 40% of midterm travelers travel with a pet, at least one. Okay? So if you are making the decision, do I accept pets? Do I not, I want you to remember that if you choose not to accept pets, you are immediately eliminating 40% of the demand.
Now, that doesn't mean you have to accept pets, it just means to think about it. We'll talk later about how to offset a little bit of the damage risk, per se. But just something to really consider and then reviews. If you've had people who have stayed with you before, invite them to leave a review and that can help your credibility.
Okay. Best practices to keep in mind, and these are all specific to monthly rentals. So these are something where whether you have rented before or you're coming from long term or short term these are all best practices to know. All utilities are included in the cost of rent. It is technically an option that you can mark that there are not utilities included, but it is very rare that in utilities are not included.
These people are not living there long enough to transfer them into their name. And a lot of them don't want to worry about what the water bill is. Now. Having a reasonable cap is okay. It's okay to say, Hey, my property is in Texas and I need to make sure that they're using the air conditioning responsibly.
In. The middle of the summer, right? So it's important. Look at your utility bills in the past. Just be reasonable and transparent with it, and that's something that you can put in your lease. Lawn care and snow care are expected to be included. Again, you don't have to, but it is definitely a best practice.
High speed wifi, basic furnishings. These pictures that you'll see during our presentation today, these are actually, most of them are properties that are in my personal portfolio, and I don't do this as a brag moment, quite frankly. I'm not a design expert. I do it to show you that the furnishings can be very.
Simple. You don't need a, not a lot of fluff. You don't need a lot of knickknacks. Basic furnishings, A lot of times these travelers will come with personal belongings, so they also want some space. A tenant screening and a digital lease are very expected. Like I mentioned, that booking process before is very similar to a long term rental, right?
Where you're gonna have a screening, you're gonna have a deposit. We'll talk more about that in a little bit here. And you'll have a digital lease. It's expected that the tenants pay for the tenant screening. It's a document that they can keep a copy of. It does a soft poll of their credit. It gives you a criminal background check and an eviction check.
And it just it gives you a holistic view of what type of traveler you're looking to work with. It's 44 99. It's valid for 60 days. I always explain to potential tenants that it's very similar to an application fee if you're gonna go to an apartment complex down the street. So that is very much expected.
What you don't need, you don't need unnecessary furniture or clutter. You don't need toiletries or paper supplies beyond a starter supply. You don't need to provide paper towels for a six month stay, give them a roll or two to get started. Regular housekeeping. Some landlords offer it as a bonus or a way to keep an eye on their property.
It's not expected. A professional cleaning upon move out or before move in is definitely expected. Themed rooms, extreme decorations, pickleball, courts are not, they're not expected. Okay? Maybe it's a bonus if you have a property that has it, but it is definitely not expected. The idea that I always like to go back to, especially when I am furnishing or designing a new property for our portfolio is that you wanna think about the fact that someone will be living there and not staying there.
Okay. So they're not staying there for a weekend where they might want a beach towel and, I don't know, extra decor to make them feel like if they're in Nashville they really get to look like they're in Nashville. But they need a cookie sheet for if they wanna do some baking and they might need a blender or an air fry fryer or extra sheets.
If I am going to an Airbnb for three or four days, I'm not washing the bedding, right? But if I'm staying somewhere for three months, I am. So things like that, I want you to think about what someone needs to live and not to stay. Okay. I want everybody to consider getting professional photos if you don't already.
This is one of the biggest drivers of demand is how your property looks. We live in a very visual society. We are we have, we have visuals thrown at us all day, especially with social media. Your goal is to stop the scroll, okay? Now, if your cover photo is a picture of the bathroom with the toilet lid open and the lights off, that's not gonna stop anybody's scroll.
Professional real estate photos are. Very affordable. If you don't know who to contact, ask someone on Facebook. You can go to Google, you can ask a realtor in the area. Real estate photos are some of the least expensive professional photos because they real estate photographers can turn them around so quickly.
And they just, they do it all day every day. They know exactly how to get them to you easily and quickly. And you will see a return on it. So quick. It's a must. It's definitely something where I get landlords all the time who will see at conferences or at meetups and things, and they're like you review my listing nine times outta 10.
I'm like, where are your professional photos? Because we want to get that traveler's visual interest right away. It's how you show off a property, right? You're gonna show it off with, look how good it looks. Okay. The other thing to consider is your landlord profile. I see a lot of landlords forget about this, okay?
Because it's not gonna change as much as your listings. But your landlord profile, it lists all your properties. If you have multiple, or even if you just have one, it's gonna show your property, but it's gonna show some personal information about you. And what I want you to share on this page is not only, my name's Katie.
I live in Denver. I have 13 midterms. I've been doing this for three years, but I want you to share what makes you a great landlord. Now, if you're sitting there I'm brand new landlord, I don't know what makes me a good landlord, that could make you a great landlord. Okay? You could say, I'm brand new to being a landlord, but I'm really looking forward to helping travelers coming to my area, have a safe and comfortable stay, or I'm very passionate about hospitality, or I've put a lot of hard work and effort into this property, and I can't wait to share it.
Something that makes you human and lets that traveler know what would it be like to have you as their landlord for three months? Okay? Because they're not dealing with you as a short-term rental host for a weekend. They're dealing with this relationship for multiple months, most likely. So let them know what that would be like.
Give them a peek behind the curtain and say, I'm a, I value myself on accommodating different types of guests and different types of scenarios, and I've worked really hard to furnish this apartment, so even my own family could stay there. Just make it so that you are a little bit human, okay?
Pricing your property. This is also one of the most common questions that we get. It's really it can feel overwhelming, and I don't want anybody to get overwhelmed when you're thinking about pricing your property. The great thing about pricing your property on Furnished Finder is you don't have to compensate for any commissions.
Okay. You don't have to think, okay, I need to pro price my property at $2,000 because then I take home 1700. Your price is what you are going to get paid, okay? We're not gonna take a commission off of it. I also want you to remember that you can change this as, as much and as often as you like, you are in control of your listing.
Okay? Rule of thumb, base rent for an MTR is about one and a half to two times long-term rates. Now this is a rule of thumb. You, I have seen markets where rental prices are f. 30% higher, 40% higher than long-term rates. And people are very successful. I've seen markets where rent is at much higher.
It's maybe two, two and a half x long-term rates. That's okay. Just a starting point. A deposit is typically one third to one halfs month of a rent. A lot of times these travelers have multiple deposits out at the same time. I know it's November. I know I'm moving again in December.
I have to put a deposit down for my next place, even though I haven't gotten this one back yet. It's rare that they are gonna be able to swallow, putting an entire months down and to somewhat, it's not expected 'cause they're not there for a full year. So it feels a little awkward to, to put a full month's rent down when maybe they're there for three months.
Okay? So again, if you have your deposit too high, that could really turn off some travelers and remember that utilities and internet are expected to be included. Then I want you to research your market, okay? I want you to search the map as if you're a traveler in that market. And I want you to look what is market rent?
What are properties similar to yours renting it? And do they look like they have some bookings? Look at their calendar, what's their availability? And then I also want you to think about your target tenant. Who are you looking to host? Okay. Do you have a condo that's right by the hospitals that you are super pumped to welcome travel nurses to what's the travel nurse budget like?
Are you more in the, three or four bedroom, family home relocation or displacement market? Okay, what's that budget like? And I want you to think about that so you're not just pulling a number out of the blue. I want you to consider seasonality, property size, amenities, specific locations. All of these things will alter your price a little.
I also want you to go to Furnished Finder.com/stats (opens in new tab). S-T-A-T-S. This is where we curate and really just pull together some data for you. You can type in your market and we will give you some information and data on your specific market that can be really insightful. Remember that cleanings are gonna be more expensive for you than a short-term rental.
'cause these people have been there longer. Your cleaner's gonna wanna go in and clean the microwave and wipe the baseboards and wipe the ceiling fans, right? It's much more of an in-depth cleaning. So you need to be charging more tenant screening. Make sure you list that in your fees. That it should be 44 99 that they should pay.
And then other fees, it's okay whatever fees you feel like you need to have if there's a parking fee, if there's a pet fee. But just be transparent, okay? You wanna be competitive and mini and keep your fees minimal. But it's okay to have them when you need them or if you feel like you want to have them just be transparent with it.
And sometimes combining fees so there's not a long list of them can also be beneficial. Okay. We just talked about thinking about those traveler types when you are pricing your property, let's talk about those traveler types just a little bit more. Traveling medical professionals, we all know travel nurses and other traveling medical professionals, they're typically looking for three to six months, maybe longer stays.
Some of them travel alone, some of them travel in Paris. Some of them find other travelers and rent a larger property together because it's more cost effective and less lonely for them. Corporate travelers and digital nomads, this is a hugely growing area. Huge. This is going to be corporate travelers from specific projects.
Opening up a data center being supervising the new Chick-fil-A, build out, things like that, all the way down to the skilled workers who are coming to actually build those places. Okay. So a large variety of different travelers within that category, but corporate travel is really big right now.
Academics and interns. I feel like this is one of the last kind of traveling perspectives to return post COVID, but it has definitely returned and in a strong force, interns will travel, for a few months to take the internship that they feel like will best benefit them. Academics, professors it's very common.
And then that displaced are relocating family a lot of times families with the housing market right now and interest rates. They might say, Hey, we're moving from Boston to, Houston and we wanna live in the neighborhood for a few months before we really commit to buying a house so that we can know that we like it.
Or, oh gosh, my daughter left the sink on accidentally all night and now our house flooded, so we need somewhere to stay nearby. While that's getting fixed, another tip I want you to know is that housing specialists, sometimes they call themselves placements agents, sometimes they call themselves lease facilitators.
Also use Furnished Finder as a tool to place travelers that they are managing. So if you get a lead from someone with a title similar to that that could very well be a good lead and a valid lead. So you won't always hear from the traveler themselves. Okay. Next thing I, the last thing I want you to do is I want you to preview your listing.
I would, you would be amazed how many people forget this step. And I get it. I get it. I'm, I'll be the first one to be like, oh, I got this project done. I'm all set. All done. This, I think, is the equivalent. We all remember when you are grade school, you finish your essay, you finish your test, it's going back and checking it.
Okay? And if you're anything like me in school, I wanted to skip that step. I was like, I finished my essay, I'm turning it in. But this is really important to go back and to look at what you've done. I even like to send it to a few friends or family members and say, Hey, can you look this over? What would you think if you were a traveler?
Or I'll say, Hey, I'm really going after traveling medical professionals. What would you think? If you saw this and you were one, would you be drawn to it? What do you think it's missing? How does it present? Just take a look at the formatting, how everything looks. Make sure your pricing is showing up, right?
Make sure your availability is in there, right? And make sure that the things that you want to brag about are you're able to brag about them, right? And they're coming through in your listing. Check how your photos look, this is just a really good best practice. Okay, that's the end of section one.
So at this point, everybody has or knows how to have a great listing. If you have any questions specifically about building out your listing that I haven't answered or Kate hasn't already answered, now's a good time to pop those in the chat 'cause we're gonna move along to your dashboard. But don't forget that again, you'll get this recording.
In case there was anything that I went too fast or you want to see again.
Okay, dashboard time. When you log onto Furnish Viner and you click dashboard, you're gonna see something like this. Okay? The dashboard is your hub. This is your place that you are going to live, and we have all of the tools for you as a landlord. So quick things you're gonna see here is your listing performance panel.
Tips for improving your listing, shortcuts to tools, editing your listing and your tenant leads. Everything you need to manage your Furnished Finder is in your dashboard. Okay? And you guys, again, if Kate doesn't get to your question, she will mark it and I will answer it live towards the end. Okay. Your listing performance panel, we just rolled this out at the beginning of the year.
It's super exciting. It's gonna give you data on your specific listing. It's gonna tell you how many days it's been live it's been live the number of tenant leads you've had, the number of impressions that you have made in our map. So if you're searching and I don't see my property showing up, right?
Go look at the impressions and that data you can trust because every time you search, there's gonna be different things that'll pull different listings. But your impressions within your listing performance panel will give you really critical insight to this. And then my favorite part about the listing performance panel, and again, you don't have to click on anything.
This is what's gonna show up by default when you go to your dashboard is this section down here in light blue. Those are all tips. Okay? So if you're like, man, I don't know, may am I priced too high? You can click there and it's gonna take you to somewhere that talks about pricing. Other things you're gonna see in your dashboard and be able to do.
You're gonna be able to rep, reply to messages, view your messages, view your leads, update your listing. You're gonna access all of your tools. You're gonna see your tenant tracking, you're gonna get reviews, and you're gonna have support. Okay? Again, remember, this is not a booking site. You're not gonna wake up, you're not gonna pick up your phone and say, oh look, I just got a booking.
Joe is coming to my house in two days. Because we want you to have control. We want you to have that relationship. This is a longer experience. So you're gonna get leads, you're gonna get messages, you're gonna get booking inquiries. We will go over all of those. Don't worry if I just overwhelmed you.
So here we are. Let's talk about 'em. Let's talk about the lead types. This is something really critical that you understand with Furnished Finder. 'cause this is different on Furnished Finder than any other sites. So we have split up your lead types into three types. Our goal on Furnished Finder is to connect travelers and landlords successfully.
Okay? We want a traveler to find a property that works for them, and we wanna find a landlord that, and we wanna have a landlord be able to find a traveler that fits what they need out of a tenant. Okay? So we're trying to match on both sides. We have made a lot of different paths to connection, okay? On your listing, someone can reach out and they can message you.
They can just send you a message through the platform. They could text you, they can call you, they could send you an email. Okay? All of these things, an email through our system, through the messaging system, okay? Or they can come through one of these three ways of leads that we call them. A direct booking request is when someone has gone to your specific listing and clicked send booking request or send booking inquiry.
Now this is important because this traveler is interested in your specific property. Okay. They are not they. They want to book you. They're very engaged. They are very interested. They might have questions, but they are ready to learn more, have things confirmed, and potentially book your property. Okay?
So these are the hottest of the leads. Then you have general housing requests, or sometimes we call them active housing requests. And these tie in with housing requests. Now housing requests is something very unique to Furnished Finder. This is a form that we have available to Travelers. You'll see it on the right hand side of the screen here.
This form is available for travelers who maybe they're working to place someone else, maybe they're just a little bit too overwhelmed to search the map. Maybe they're a mom who's tight on time and needs a little help. So they tell us, they tell Furnished Finder what they are looking for, and then our system automatically, it provides their information, their request to landlords based on how good of a match it is.
Okay, so this is another reason. It's important to have your listing your property type, your availability, your calendar, and those amenities up to date on your listing. Okay? So we know how to match you. So these active housing requests our. Someone has put in a request for housing and you have everything they need.
It is a perfect match on paper. Okay? But here's the thing, it is up to you to reply to them. It's up to you to send a message or to send them a text message or to call them or email them. When you click on that lead, it will say their information, their contact information. It'll also tell you how they prefer to be contacted.
Okay? So this lead could go out to two landlords or it could go out to 20 landlords based on how many landlords or properties really fit their needs that they have submitted in that housing request. So it is important that you reply quickly and thoroughly. Okay? Then we have unmatched housing requests, and this is where a traveler has put in their housing request details.
And you might be a fit. Okay, maybe the dates are off a little bit. Maybe the budget is off a little bit. Maybe they have a pet and you don't typically accept pets. Maybe they're looking for a two bedroom, but you have a three bedroom. Okay? It's off just a little bit. And we serve these to you in case there's still potential because some of those things are, you can work around them, right?
Some of it might be like, Hey, I know you're looking for a three bedroom. I have a two bedroom and a loft. Do you need three bedrooms with doors that close? So there is still potential here. Even if there, if you see leads here who you're like, I'm seeing these leads and there's not potential for me in them.
I want you to look for trends. You can see between them. Okay. This is also another important reason where if your property is booked, I still encourage landlords, Hey, keep your listing active and keep looking at those leads. 'cause you'll notice trends and you can't notice those trends if you're not seeing the leads.
You can notice, hey, a lot of people seem to be coming in for a data center. What's this data center? What's going on? Or man, it seems like it's gone from people traveling alone to people and traveling in twos or threes. I wonder what's going on there. And you can adapt your business and your property to that.
Very important. So these lead types compare. This is a great one to screenshot or to remember for later. Interested in your specific property. A direct booking request. Now remember, this is not comprehensive of a message, a text message someone who might pick up the phone and call you, things like that.
An active housing request as a complete match with your property. What you have is what they want, but there are potentials for a landlord tenant match with all three of these, there is potential, otherwise we wouldn't serve it to you. And if you look at that unmatched lead and you're like, this is not gonna happen.
See what else you can take from that, because there's a reason that we're serving it to you. And it might just be so you can learn more about the market. Okay. Outreach to potential tenants, right? You're hearing me say that it's important for you to respond quickly and thoroughly and be active on your dashboard if you are looking for that tenant.
What does that mean? It means that you need to respond quickly. You need to be thorough and you need to follow up. The other thing to remember is that people can respond directly. So if your phone rings or you get a text message and it says, Hey, this is Joe, I found your property on Furnished Finder, it's probably Joe who found your property Unfurnished finder.
They're not always gonna come through as one of those lead types that we just talked about in that chart. Okay? Here are some sample replies. I'm not gonna go through them individually for you. You can screenshot this or review it later, but it's really understanding when you are responding to these leads that there's different value to each of them and they're all in a different stage.
So you just wanna confirm as you're going through, okay. Section three. This is a pretty quick section, and then I am going to try to answer some of the questions. I see that we have quite a few questions, so I'm gonna try to go a little faster through this section so we can get to those. This is the booking process and tools to streamline your rental.
So you have a tenant, you're like, or I'm sorry, you have a traveler who is ready to become a tenant. You're like, Joe Smith is ready to be my tenant. Jane Doe is ready to go. You're gonna confirm all the details. You're gonna complete the screening, sign a lease, and send up set up payments. Now you have full control to do this in any way you want.
On Furnished Finder. You are in control. It's your business, your property, your rental, your booking. However, we do have tools that are built in through Furnished Finder and through our sister company Key Check by Furnished Finder so that we're not leaving you out in the dark. If you need some help with how to do those, we've partnered with experts in the industry to give you.
The best tools possible with Key Check by Furnished Finder, and they're all linked in your dashboard under Landlord Tools. So first you're gonna get a quote from steadily for your property insurance. If you're renting a property, you need a different level of coverage than a homeowner's policy. Then you can get your tenant screening.
That's through a partnership with TransUnion. Then you're gonna get your custom lease, that's a partnership with Rocket Lawyer. Then you can set up your online payments. That's a partnership with Stripe. Now, like I said, if you have a system already in place or you have a different way that you prefer to do it, by all means you are not obligated.
Okay? But we have put these steps and these partners in place because of their expertise and experience within their specific parts of the booking process. And you can get to any of them or all of them through the landlord tools. Resources. We have a pretty new help center. That is fantastic. And there's information being added to that help center almost daily.
So any question you have, you can probably find it answered. We also have a great chat that can give you a lot of answers as well. A podcast. We have about 150 episodes of a podcast myself and another landlord, Kelly host. If there's any type of landlord, we have talked to 'em. We've talked to people who have run room rentals or housing for displaced families or rented their basements or condos or built to rent.
We, we've talked to 'em all. So if you're like, I wish I could hear from someone in the northwest, cool. Hop onto the Landlord diaries and you'll find someone. And then we have a Facebook group, the Facebook group. My fam, my favorite way to use that group is to ask the. Other party, their preferences. So for example travelers, I like to say, Hey, what kind of coffee maker do you like?
Or what do you like for a pet deposit? Just to get their other perspective. But it's a great place for connection and resources. Okay, I'm gonna get to some of these questions. See how many I can answer. Kate, I'm just gonna go through the ones that you have marked as questions to answer live.
So if there are any others, just mark them. I'm gonna try to answer pretty quickly so we can get to everybody. And I'll keep this slide up. There are resources here as well. Okay. Can you explain the fraudulent notifications in more details? Janina, I'm not exactly sure what you mean about fraudulent notifications.
If you are referring to any type of fraud on Furnished Finder we have scammers and people who are attempting fraud in every area of every market right now. It's not a new thing. But we have built in a lot of protections for our landlords and our travelers. So that's why we have the ju o verification.
That's why we have the tenant screening offer. Obviously don't be wiring anybody money. But that's why we want this to be a relationship with you. And with you and the traveler. It's unlike Airbnb where it's like a blind booking, right? You can say, Hey, a part of my booking process is I like to give you a call and chat on the phone.
You can do that however you want. I hope I answered your question 'cause I'm not exactly sure what you were referring to, but we'll keep going. Okay. Are you able to update your property banner? This one is from Jamie. Jamie, I think you're referring to the headline which is like the title of your property, and absolutely you are.
And I would recommend, if your property's vacant or coming up on a vacancy, change it up every once in a while. That's what's nice about your listing is you can change it up as much as you want and see what sticks. It's an art and a science. It's just testing different things and saying, Hey, I know that it seems like a lot of people in my area like having pets.
I'm gonna put pet friendly in my headline right, or then change it up. You can also change that cover photo. Helps a lot. Okay, my listing is currently listed as an entire place, but I have the ability to rent out rooms separately. Am I able to update my property listing type banner, et cetera, to reflect this so that I can move back between property types, depending how it's currently rented out?
Erica? So Erica, what we would ask you to do is have two different listings, and here's why. From a traveler's perspective, it's very confusing if it flips back and forth. So what we would have you do is have two listings and whichever one you are using to turn on or off and you can temporarily hide your listing.
If you're not using it now, I know you're gonna be like then I have to buy multiple listings. I know, but it's totally worth it. Okay? Because you want to get the right tenants. The other thing is, if you are renting separate rooms, you want to have a listing for each room, okay? That's gonna help that clarity, that transparency, it's gonna make travelers feel like they know exactly what they're renting.
It's gonna give you more space to put photos and details about that specific room. And you can also tie them together. So you can have a master listing and then rooms so they can see, oh, if I rent this room, it looks like this. Mode. If I wanna rent this room, it looks like this and it's a different price.
And then, okay, let's say you have three bedrooms. They'll all be connected in a way that will really maximize your marketing for your property. What's a good number for impressions? That's like asking what's your favorite what's your favorite? Ice cream flavor Depends, mark? I think it depends.
I like to look less at what is a good number for impressions? I like to look more at changes. Okay. And our listing performance panel is a living, breathing and proving thing. The impressions are something we actually just added very recently, so that tool is gonna keep improving. And hopefully sometimes in the, sometime in the future, sooner than later, we'll be able to show you some historical data and like how your impressions have changed over time.
But I would be looking for more how they change. I would be looking for that more than what is a good number? Because you only need one. Okay. You need one good lead to be a tenant, you need one. That's it. That's it.
Okay. Angela. Two sessions. Receiving only tenant leads well under budget. Why? And how do I encourage Travelers closer to our listing price, which only covers our monthly cost? Two as an Airbnb listing, trying to migrate over to Furnished Finder or use for slow season. I'm curious in strategy around calendar and booking.
Okay, Angela, for question two, I want you to go to the Landlord Diaries and I want you, especially on YouTube, if you search, there's a whole playlist for hybrid. We call it hybrid, M-T-R-S-T-R. 'Cause there's two ways that you can manage those calendars. I don't have time to dive into them today, but really go there and listen.
We have some great stuff. As far as receiving tenant leads, well under the budget, I receive them too, especially in my unmatched leads Do not be discouraged. I like to look at those leads and instead of saying, this lead is way under my budget, like this has no value to me. I say, okay, what can I take from this?
A lot of times I will see someone put in a housing request and it'll be for 1200, and then I'll see them put in a new one for 1600, and then I'll see them put in one for higher. I think of a housing request as a wishlist. If I were filling out a wishlist, of course my number would be low. Be patient and emphasize your value.
So I want you to think of if you are in Louis Vuitton, they're not justifying their price, they're justifying their value. So I want you to talk about what you have. Do you have a washer and dryer on site? Are you professional, experienced, landlord? Is your location unbeatable? Okay. And then I want you to dig in to your pricing a little bit.
Make sure that you are where you should be, which I'm guessing you probably are, if you're only covering costs. And then just be patient. Okay? You only need one if the wrong fish bite on your fishing pole, that's okay. The bigger one will come along. Why doesn't the past booking requests appear? I am gonna go with the idea that you're thinking booking requests and not housing request.
Housing requests do expire. And someone does have the option to delete them. So it, let's say they put out a housing request and they found a place to live, they do have the option to delete it so they don't get more. Same thing with a booking request. So that is why. How do I add family members to manage my listing?
And how do you also, do you have a list of how many sheets and towels we would provide? Great question. Okay. Ti I hope I'm pronouncing your name right. I'm sorry if I am not right now there's not a great way for someone to log in as like a co-host or a manager. Obviously we discourage login sharing.
If it's a close family member and you're doing it together, that's probably up to your personal preference. That from a technology standpoint is something that is on our roadmap. I understand how you're feeling, I ha to manage with my family. So it's a challenge. And that is something that we are working on.
You guys are probably all, you're new to the platform, but we have come a long way. But we've got a long way to go. We are working our buns off over here with the technology side and essentially rebuilding from the ground up. And this is one of those things that is on that list of critical needs from our users.
And how many sheets and towels did we provide? I provide two sets of sheets for every bed, and I provide at least two towels per person. That's why I do, you can do whatever you want. That's what I would suggest. Katie, am I able to edit what is listed in closest facilities and attractions? Yes, you are. You can type in whatever you want there, full control.
All you have to do is it'll by default, depending on where you are and what is close fill in some, but you can add edit remove or add. Okay, lease agreement. How do you customize your lease agreement in advance of a booking? I've looked at the tool included for digital leases, but it's requesting the name of the tenant.
I want to have my customer lease format in advance to actually renting a room. How do I go about doing that? Julie you're taking away my thunder. We're about to come out with a resource for you that is like a, it's like a worksheet that you can have, and it's like a madlib where you would fill out all of the information to be prepared exactly like you're saying before you're ready.
Because you're right. You really can't start that lease without the name. But keep a close eye on that and it will be coming. Otherwise the lease is pretty basic. What you wanna think about is what your rules are. Okay. Just think about what would deem a deposit return? What would not, what are your house rules?
Smoking pets, quiet time, quiet times, things like that. Do you have to use all of the tools through Key Check or can you pick and choose? Mark? You can pick and choose any tips on screen insurance placement companies recently contacted, but I have no idea how to vet the legitimacy. AB you can absolutely screen anybody you want.
I have hosted someone with insurance and the insurance company is typically very happy to fund their tenant screening. We require a tenant screening for anyone over 18. Can you talk about insurance more? Mark? I could talk about insurance all day. Actually, I probably couldn't. I am not an insurance expert.
What I would recommend for insurance is if you have any questions about. Insurance specifically for your property insurance, reach out to steadily. They are fantastic. You will not find someone better who is familiar and experts with midterm properties. Okay. There's a lot of insurance companies for long-term rentals or short-term rentals steadily is fantastic with the midterm.
Click on their link on the property insurance link within your dash and you can even get a free quote. Okay. I'm hopping around guys. I'm sorry. We started our first listing approximately two months before first availability, and I've had several active requests and a couple of booking requests, but haven't secured our first rental.
Is this okay? Yeah, it's okay. It's normal. Don't worry. A little bit of patience. Remember, a longer stay is gonna require a little bit more patience, but especially if. Tenants are gonna book in advance too. So really your fir, your first booking is typically the hardest. 'cause you're dealing with that vacancy that you already have if you do have it.
And then 30 days or so before that tenant moves out, you're gonna start working on your next tenant. But right now you're in that awkward gap. So don't worry, it's like when you're fishing, you might get a couple bites. You might get a couple tugs, be patient, stay by the lake. Okay? If you already, if you only have one room rental and they want a partner because utilities are included, should you add an upcharge if you only have one room and they want a partner?
Charlene, I'm so sorry. I don't think I understand what you're asking because utilities are included, but. If you feel like you need to add a charge to cover your utilities you can do what's better? A digital keypad or an old fashioned key entry? We'll do like an ice cream sandwich or a bowl of ice cream.
Just kidding. George, that's a that's up to you. I like going digital anytime you can. I don't like the idea of people losing things, losing keys, leaving their keys inside of a unit, things like that. However, digital locks, then you're dealing with batteries and firmware updates. From my experience digital locks are much easier, but I'd say that's a personal preference.
Is there any way to change on our profile it says New to Furnished Finder and it makes us look like new landlords. So that's just your tenure on Furnished Finder. I would just focus on your landlord profile putting we are experienced landlords, okay, we're, we might be new to Furnished Finder, but we are experienced landlords and that's only their temporarily.
To show that you're new to Furnished Fire now a key here, don't let your listing expire or that's gonna show up every time. Okay. How can I tell that a message was read? Sometimes I see the double checks on the app, but I don't usually see them using the desk type site. Okay, so you guys, we are actively actively updating our messaging.
I'd say we're about 40% through updating our messaging. Pretty soon you're gonna be able to do cool stuff like Mark is unread and have emojis and reactions and stuff like that. There will be some things in the interim where you might be able to do one thing on mobile and one thing on desktop. And if you realize that, consider yourself a detective that you found something that 99.9% of people are not noticing while we're doing this tech transition.
The double check does mean that you have sent it and they have read it. But you might not see it on desktop for now. While our engineers are behind the scenes doing a whole lot of technical integration that's way over my head. Our rental home is 400 square feet park model and price closer to a room or private entry space and a whole larger home.
How much does home size impact pricing? I think home size affects pricing much less than amenities and location. Okay. And quality. Personally, many of my properties are teeny, teeny tiny. I'm talking like a 400 square foot. Yeah. Just like you studio apartment. That again could be the same price as a three bed, but my quality and my amenities are what I stand by.
You have to pick what you're gonna win on. Are you gonna win on size? Are you gonna win on amenities? Are you gonna win on all of it? Where are you gonna focus? Okay, you guys, I can't believe we did it. I think we got through all of the questions. I hope that was so helpful for everybody.
I want to thank all of you for being here. I know an hour out of your Friday is a really big commitment, but like we wanna welcome you to Furnish Finer. We want you to know you're in good hands. We truly care about the success of all of you. I am living and breathing midterm rentals all day, every day.
I would not be doing it if I didn't, not only see the potential in the business side of this, but just how we can give everybody a great place to stay and make this great for landlords. Please reach out if you have questions. We have so many resources for you. Keep an eye on your inbox for more webinars coming up.