Short-term rentals are a powerful strategy in the right market. But for many investors, the biggest challenge is no longer demand. It is regulation.
As more cities cap, restrict, or heavily regulate short-term rentals, investors are looking for alternatives that still offer flexibility, stronger cash flow than traditional leases, and fewer legal headaches. That is exactly why monthly rentals are getting more attention.
In this episode (opens in new tab) on the Short Term Rental Riches podcast, Jeff Hurst, CEO of Furnished Finder (opens in new tab), points out that in many markets, the same property that cannot legally operate as a short-term rental can still operate as a monthly rental once the stay hits 30 days or more. For landlords and real estate investors, that makes monthly rentals more than a backup plan. It makes them a strategic response to the way the housing and regulatory landscape is shifting.
Monthly rentals sit in a valuable middle ground
One of the clearest takeaways from this episode is that monthly rentals occupy a space that neither short-term rental platforms nor traditional long-term rental platforms serve especially well.
On one side, you have Airbnb, Vrbo, and Booking.com, which are built around short stays, leisure demand, and nightly pricing. On the other side, you have Zillow and Apartments.com, which are focused on longer-term housing and year-long leases.
Monthly rentals sit in the middle.
They are furnished. They are flexible. They are designed for people staying 30 days or more. And they serve a very different renter than a vacation guest.
That renter might be:
a corporate traveler on assignment
a traveling healthcare professional
a relocating family
a professor or grad student
someone displaced by a home repair or insurance claim
This is what makes monthly rentals so compelling. They are not trying to compete only with hotels or vacation rentals. They are solving a real housing need.
Why regulation is pushing more investors toward monthly rentals
For many investors, the strongest argument for monthly rentals is not just economics. It is legality.
As Jeff pointed out, many places that restrict short-term rentals still allow monthly rentals. In practical terms, that means a property owner may lose the ability to operate nightly stays but still have a path forward with 30+ day furnished rentals.
That matters because regulation has become one of the biggest risks in the short-term rental space. A property can perform well for years and then suddenly face new permit rules, caps, HOA restrictions, or city-level enforcement. Monthly rentals often avoid much of that friction because they are treated more like housing than hospitality.
For landlords, that creates a more durable strategy in markets where short-term rules are becoming harder to navigate.
Not every short-term rental should become a monthly rental
This episode also made an important distinction that investors need to hear: not every short-term rental is a good fit for monthly rentals.
Properties designed for lakes, beaches, ski towns, or other pure leisure destinations do not automatically translate into strong monthly rental demand. The same goes for large five-bedroom vacation homes loaded with amenities. Those may still work best as short-term rentals.
Monthly rentals tend to perform better in places where people need to live temporarily, not vacation temporarily.
That usually means locations near:
hospitals and medical centers
good school districts
universities
commuter corridors
business hubs
smaller cities and suburbs with limited extended-stay options
The property profile is usually different too. Monthly rentals often work best as studios, one-bedrooms, two-bedrooms, and practical three-bedroom homes that solve a real life need. Comfort, parking, washer and dryer, pet friendliness, and functionality tend to matter more than flashy amenities.
Why monthly rentals can be so attractive for scaling
For investors thinking beyond one property, the monthly rental model has another advantage: it can be easier to scale.
Compared with short-term rentals, monthly rentals usually mean:
fewer turnovers
lower cleaning volume
lower management complexity
less need for constant calendar optimization
lower furnishing costs
That changes the math.
Instead of buying one high-cost vacation rental in a leisure market, an investor may be able to buy a duplex or quadplex in a suburb or secondary city and operate multiple monthly rental units from one location. That creates density, simplifies logistics, and gives landlords more flexibility to mix strategies across units if needed.
It also gives investors a stronger fallback plan. If a monthly rental underperforms, the property still works as a traditional long-term rental. That downside protection is part of what makes the model appealing.
Final thoughts
Monthly rentals are gaining traction for a reason. They offer a way for investors to stay in furnished rentals without taking on all the volatility, regulation risk, and operational intensity that now comes with many short-term markets.
They are not the right fit for every property. But in markets where short-term rentals are restricted, or where practical housing demand is stronger than leisure demand, monthly rentals can be one of the most overlooked opportunities in real estate.
That is especially true for landlords who are willing to think beyond the old assumption that furnished rentals are only for vacation guests.
In many cities today, the question is no longer whether furnished rentals work. It is whether you are solving a travel need or a housing need.
And more investors are realizing that housing need may be the more durable opportunity.
List your property on Furnished Finder:
https://www.furnishedfinder.com/list-your-property (opens in new tab)
Explore how much you could be earning monthly with Furnished Finder: https://www.furnishedfinder.com/stats (opens in new tab)
Transcript
Almost every place where short-term rentals are illegal or capped or regulated is at the basis a monthly rental. Like it becomes legal at 30 days. But here was a company with over 200,000 listings growing like a weed. You know, really serving this interesting niche. And we've got more inventory than either Co-Star or Zillow. And we've got more 30-day plus inventory than Airbnb. Airbnb found a niche, exploited it, you know, and became a behemoth. Welcome back to the rental riches podcast. I'm really happy you're here again. and we have a fabulous episode for you today. We're with Jeff Hurst, the CEO of Furnished Finder. Jeff's got a ton of experience. He was with Homeway for a decade. He was later the president of VRBO and afterwards was the COO for Expedia. So, a ton of experience. Jeff, really excited to dig into the details with you today. Welcome to the show. Thrilled to be here and uh thanks for all you do for the category. Yeah. Yeah. So, gosh, uh well, you're with Furnished Finder now. We've talked about Furnished Finder before on the channel. Uh, a really great tool for getting more midterm rentals, but why don't we just back up a step because before that you were with Expedia, you were their COO. Can you fill us in just with a few details there? Yeah, so my um short-term rental career basically began in 2010. I joined Home Away uh when it was a private company. Was on the strategy team, kind of worked my way through Home Away, helped with our transition to e-commerce. uh was eventually the chief strategy officer uh and helped sell the company to Expedia. I stayed on after the acquisition and was the chief commercial officer, basically our general manager and running all the sales teams for um almost 5 years after that. Became the president of VRBO and had that role up until early in the pandemic when we reorganized and I became the uh ran marketing for a brief period but became the COO of Expedia Brands. And so, you know, I've been around a long time and seen a lot of the short-term rental game. I actually have three short-term rentals on my own. I self-managed one on a Lake LBJ outside of Austin for 7 years before getting a property manager, but also have a beach property in South Padre with a manager and a ranch property outside of Gonzalez with a manager. And so, you know, definitely been um you know, just kind of eating the dog food along the way and learning the game and the um you know, the the categories changed so much um and the competitors have come and competitors have gone and that you know, Airbnb's changed immensely. uh you know, Verba maybe a little less so and joining Furnished Finder was really an extension of like I see trends that are emerging in the economy and in the category that really made this an exciting moment to uh do something the most familiar and in some sense you know I think was a uh you know opportunity to do things better the second time around. So was seeing that trend you know that midterm rentals the growth of mid-term rentals was that part of your reason for for joining first? Yeah, I mean absolutely. There were a few things in the decision process. So, first of all, you know, I left Expedia and really didn't think I'd get back into travel. I I wanted to be a CEO for the next gig. Uh I didn't think it was that likely I'd find something that was as enjoyable as what I did. Took a year off and um got introduced to the founders of Furnished Finder. I I couldn't believe this company existed. Like I could like I had never heard of it. Most people probably still haven't spite of our best efforts. But here was a company with over 200,000 listings. you know, this throwback subscription model that felt just like VRBO in 2005. Actually, was cheaper than VRBO was even in 2005, growing like a weed and uh, you know, really serving this interesting niche. And it reminded me a little bit of a handful of things. One, it reminded me how Airbnb was in this niche that Homeaway didn't care about. You know, that niche was urban room rentals. It was a much lower price point. We didn't think it was going to be possible to make money. We thought it was going to be a regulatory headache. and Airbnb found a niche, exploited it, you know, and became a behemoth that's probably got more to do with luxury now than it does with, you know, affordable room rentals. So, that was that was the first thing I saw there. The second thing was, you know, the US obviously has a housing shortage and it also has, you know, a very, you know, relatively high interest rate compared to the recent past. There's an affordability crisis. And so, furnish midterm rentals are solving two things there. You know, they're solving for someone who can't afford to buy, but they're also solving for someone who can't afford to buy furniture. And furniture is a really frequently a pretty terrible investment. And so it's a interesting opportunity to help do some societal good. And the third thing is short-term rentals have had a regulatory headwind forever. You know, basically since Airbnb got into it. And that headwind is actually the midterm rental tailwind. Almost every place where short-term rentals are illegal or capped or regulated is at the basis a monthly rental. Like it becomes legal at 30 days. Yeah, excellent points here. um the regulation one, you know, that's we're definitely seeing a lot about that. And we've we've talked about Furnished Finder before on this channel. We've talked about midterm rentals before, but maybe for those that are tuning in that haven't heard of Furnished Finder before. What's the main difference between like an Airbnb and a VRBO and Furnished Finder? Yeah, I I kind of describe it as we're in a valley between these peaks. You know, the peaks on one side are um Airbnb, Booking.com, and Furbo, and they cater to short-term leisure travelers. you know, average length of stay, you know, would typically be around five days. Uh, it's a typically a pretty important um experience. You know, it's somebody's spring break. It's often somebody's, you know, three night getaway. And so, they're willing to splurge a little bit more on it. And you're mainly competing with hotels. Um, and really the short-term rental value proposition for a long time was more for less. Now, I think it's probably more for same. Um, but that, you know, that's really what you're competing against. You know those companies, Airbnb is worth $70 billion. Booking.com $150 billion. Expedia $30 billion. Like huge organizations. On the opposite side, you've got Zillow, you've got the Co-Star Group with which runs, you know, Homes.com: Homes for Sale, Homes for Rent, Real Estate , Apartments.com: Apartments and Homes for Rent , those, you know, those marketplaces. They're really focused on year plus product. Um, different business model, but they also offer furnished monthly rentals. And in the middle there's us. And so we're this niche of, you know, flexible leases starting at a month and we're furnished. We've got more inventory than either Co-Star or Zillow. And we've got more 30-day plus inventory than Airbnb. You know, they have more inventory overall, obviously, but most of it is that kind of I call it like the Tetris game where you might need to book three different places if you're trying to stay 4 months. They built some features to facilitate that, you know, but people are really trying to make a higher nightly rate on shorter stays. So, we've got this thing in the middle. What's the most different about it is really I think it's kind of like the original internet promise where we're a classified site. You know, you pay us $179 a year and then we turn, you know, we power inquiries, put your phone number out. We're we're giving you the control for who you want to book, how you want to book, how they want to pay, no commission, no service fees. And so it's different. It's a little more work, but you also keep a lot more of the money and have a lot more control over how when you book. And we think it's the appropriate model for that niche because if you're booking on Airbnb or VRBO and paying, you know, whether it's a service fee or commission, it doesn't really matter. It's coming out of somebody's budget, but you might be paying 10%, say you're a traveling nurse 9 months a year, you know, it works out to over a week's takehome pay. You're willing to do some work to not pay that platform fee and we want to provide that service. Yeah, great point from the guest perspective. You know, those fees definitely add up. We've done a lot of midterm rentals before. I I've also done long-term rentals, you know, so I'm I'm on all sides of it. And I think one of the things for me that has been a little trickier and I'd love to hear your input and where you guys see this going is is it is sort of and you mentioned this before the call like midterm rentals kind of like Airbnb was like you know in 2008 like it's sort of a new trend and there's maybe not as many tools built to help us facilitate these types of rentals. there are challenges potentially, you know, when a guest becomes a tenant. So, quite a few things there, but why why don't you pick one and we'll we'll run with it. I mean, first of all, the uh the tools perspective is why we're here. You know, this is not a um this is a known problem space. You know, you've had you had Marcus from Hostaway on, you know, you frequently mention a lot of the different providers like this is not an unsolvable problem. We just have to go build it. And so most of my tenure here, which is almost 2 years now, has been hiring a technical team to rebuild our platform so that we can start to integrate with, you know, the hostaways, the guesties, the host police, but also the players on the long-term side, the turbo tenants, the rent readies, and just make it easier. Like there's no reason this should be this hard. We're not trying to make it hard. We just have to rebuild our architecture so that we can make it easier for people to connect, serve messages, serve rates, and power better availability, and get the content in. And so we're going to do that. um we're working on it. You know, I expect by the end of next year we will have made a whole lot of progress on it. But there were things we had to do first to fix the technology so we could be ready for it. So, you know, I would expect parody there. Um with the exception of I don't think it's as much of an instant book category. I think the booking cycle feels more like long-term. You know, someone's going to be there for, you know, on average over 90 days. They often want to FaceTime tour or they want to actually talk to the landlord frequently. And I mean like very frequently way double digit percentage. They want to visit the place and look around. And that is not at all compatible with VRBO, Airbnb, and Bookings business model because it's too easy to get around a commission when you do that, which is why Zillow and Co-Star don't have that model for rentals except on the multif family side. So we think we'll end up somewhere in the middle there. and we just want to go really fast and build parody tools so that people can put their inventory in the channel and uh and and and make it basically make it more viable. So that's where we're going with it. I know that was the first part of your question. What was the second part again Tim? Regulations. So from the tenant or guest perspective, you know, when someone has landlord, right, or tenant, right? Yeah. I the um I think it is it it's an issue. I don't think it is a uh it's not something we hear a lot about because the tenant rights aren't sneaking up on you like they do in a short term rental. Um you know, you have a signed lease, you have done a tenant screening, you have frequently met them in person, you have managed the payments in a different method than that they're being held by Airbnb or VRBO and hopefully coming to you at some point in time. And so I don't think the tenant rights is any trickier than on the long-term side. And what I think might makes it a little bit, you know, probably less risky than long-term is that the tenant profile of someone who's staying through Furnished Finder is a different profile than someone who's living there as a permanent resident. So in order, you know, our top category, and this has changed a lot from where people might have tried Furnished Finder 2, three years ago in the pandemic, the platform was basically all traveling medical professionals. That's that's how we grew up. It's not that way anymore. Over a third of our travelers are corporate and that's some combination of skilled trade maybe building data centers or skyrises and then it's also more uh more white collar you know it's a traveling salesperson it's an entrepreneur it's somebody who's relocating for consulting so that's over a third uh the next biggest use case is traveling medical that's about a quarter of it um the next use case is actually relocating families and this is the fastest growing and I think the most interesting because it's someone who might be moving from um you know from Arizona to Austin they don't know the neighborhoods housing's expensive right Now, they may not want to move their furniture twice. And so, they're going to rent a place in the school district they like for 6 months and then look to buy and that's growing over 100% yearon year. And so, that dynamic is changing a lot. And then the the last use case is really academic and it's mainly grad students and professors. They have to move around a lot, especially professors, and they're on a budget. And so when you think about those tenant types, it's definitely a different risk profile than one, you know, the bachelorette party, which is who you, you know, bachelor bachelorette party or extended family reunion on the short-term side, but it's also a different risk profile than a long-term tenant who we may be more worried about. You know, basically squatterers rights or are they going to leave? Because in general, the majority of Furnished Finder tenants are definitely trying to leave. You know, they're there for a defined period of time for a contract and they're on a stipend and then they want to go home. Great insights. Um it's it's always really interesting hearing the data points and how things change over time. And so yeah, we haven't had any issues with Furnished Finder. In fact, most all of our midterm rentals um you know, we have had really good results. I think the challenge for some people out there though that are considering midterm rentals coming from the short-term rental world is that they don't do the background check. What would you say to those folks? You got to do it. I mean, I think that's all there is to it. You know, I I I mean, I don't encourage people to be um many of our most successful customers are single channel with Furnished Finder. Many of our customers come from the short-term side and they're they're not spending enough time on two things. The first thing is, is midterm actually a good idea for this. And a lot of short-term properties, it's just not a fit. You know, a fivebedroom on 30A is not a great fit for most of the use cases I just described. And so, you've got to be sure, one, you've got a property and price point that works. You've got to really think through who's my customer and how I'm going to do it. But the second thing is you've got to have a slightly different operating. You've got to be more willing to engage and talk to people, not just to market your property and get them in the door, but also to be sure they're right for your property. And then to do the things that help it be secure for you, and that's definitely a tenant screening. It's often a credit check and it's definitely a signed lease. And so we power products to make those things easier. Um, but you've got to embrace a different workflow. We've had some of the largest short-term managers have done pilots with us and I think the main reason it didn't work was because it was incompatible with their internal operating model and you know that's going to be some of the discord that you know managers work through and I think the smaller managers and especially the furbos are going to be more nimble in how they embrace that and make this possible and then the tech and the tools and frankly our platform will catch up to make it easier but you you've got to treat the booking process more like a long term because you know that um that tenant risk is more like long-term it justice for which totally agree. Totally agree. Um curious uh you know your thoughts on you mentioned the different sort of profiles guest profiles the corporate travelers travel nurses which is you know what you guys started with uh and then also some short-term rental operators where it didn't really work and maybe that's because the properties didn't fit. Do you see certain types of properties that just do a much better job on furnishinder? I mean is it like urban or can you do you have any other insights around that? you know, think about the um you know, obviously I know VRBO and Furnished Finder best. Uh you know, I always said VRBO was best at lakes, rivers, beaches, mountains, and then urban core. You know, is it close to downtown? Is it Austin east side? Is it a place where there's a ton of leisure activity? Um the use case we always talked about complex family, you know, it was typically either large groups of friends, you know, four couples, or it was three generations. It was grandparents, parents, and kids. And so you were serving typically five to seven nights, typically five plus people. And you know, I'd say the sweet plus was sweet spot was three or more bedrooms with some interesting amenities. You know, foosball table, pickle ball, multiple TVs, great view, whatever that looked like. And you know, the the weekly rate would have been on average probably somewhere between $2500 and $3,000. So think about that on one side. Now think about Furnished Finder. You know, the average tenant um is going to be closer to two people. I think it's actually about 1.8. You know, 70% of our inventory is two-bedrooms or less. And we do not do well on lakes and rivers and beaches and ski in, ski out. It's around hospitals. It's around good school districts. It's around commuter corridors. And it's in a lot of places that I'd call are small mid cities or suburbs where there are not as many leisure options or hotel options. So, a lot of what we compete with, you know, I'd say a good barometer, how close are you to an extended stay America? How close are you to one of the um extended stay properties from Marriott or Hilton that's designed for somebody trying to stay 30 days or more? And if there's one of those nearby, you know, which are frequently $2,500, $3,000 a month instead of a week, can you provide a way better value with your studio or onebedroom than a, you know, 610 foot efficiency apartment that doesn't have an oven? Usually you can. You can actually usually make a lot of money on a duplex or a quadplex in one of these tertiary markets compared to that hotel model. That's what feels like 2010 to me is that, you know, in 2010 short terms were three-bedroom houses competing with a Hilton and it was like 40% less money for 50% more space and privacy and you save money. That's what midterm feels like right now. But you can't plug and play any short term with a pickle ball that has a slow season and say, "Oh, I'll make it a midterm and I hope it works out." like maybe, but you just can't count on that every time. I actually see more success with people coming from long-term to midterm. It's just there's less of it because they've got to buy the furniture. Yeah, that brings up another another question, you know, um obviously you can go on Furnished Finder, you can see what local properties might be renting for. You can go on Zillow, you know, and check the furnish box and see what furnished properties on Zillow might be running for. But if there's someone out there and they have their long-term rentals, maybe they're near hospitals, like what would be your advice to them on whether or not they should try the Furnished Finder or furnish rental model or mid-term rental model versus leaving it as a long-term? Yeah, I mean my two things. One, we we we publish a lot of content also. So, we've got a podcast called Landlord Diaries and we recently did an episode with Price Labs and we've also done a lot of episodes on long-term conversions. So, I'd encourage people to just learn more. the the the cheapest way to dip your toe in the water is to put your unfernished property on Furnished Finder and in the description write that you're going to furnish it for the first tenant. Just tell them, "Hey, if you sign a 90-day lease, we'll furnish this for you." um and describe what you're going to furnish. And then, you know, it's you do turn off a few tenants because they're wondering how serious you are, but you bring in quite a few more who maybe they really need a two-bedroom, but in the second bedroom they're going to try and have two or three kids cuz it's a relocating family and they want a bunk with a trundle and that would be pretty uncommon in a lot of our and but you'd be able to solve that for them and so they get a little bit more control over it. You know, the other way is you can rent furniture. And then the third way is you can, you know, basically call landlords on Furnished Finder nearby and ask what their experience is and how it's going and use our stats page to learn more. Um, you know, for, I'd say, most serious real estate investors, this is not like furnishing a short-term rental. You know, this is a fraction of the outfit cost. You know, you're usually doing it for way less than $10,000 to fully furnish the mid-term rental. and you know, you're paying that back within a year and then you're making, you know, 30 to 50% more rent than a long-term, you know, until the furniture needs to be fixed or replaced, which is usually years. It's it's a great payback if you've got the right place and, you know, for the for the tenant type you're looking for. Great suggestions there. Um, yeah, I think just in general, there's just a lot more flexibility with it. You know, the the standards aren't completely set like they might be in Airbnb. So, let's imagine someone decides to put the property up. You know, you mentioned price lapse there and pricing becomes, you know, a little more tricky because in my opinion, you know, short-term rentals, we're dynamically pricing those every day. The prices are changing. And in a long-term rental, you've got a pretty much fixed price and it equals your neighbors. But midterm still kind of in the middle there, you know, and there is some some difference and maybe there's some seasonality or some peak periods. Uh, and Price Labs does have a few options in there to help price better for midterm rentals, but do you have any just suggestions on determining the best pricing? You know, the biggest thing I'd say is it's uh while it's tricky, it's nowhere near as complicated. Um, and you know, a couple things I listened to your uh you did some wonderful midterm episodes. I think it was 203, 211, and 212 to catch up your viewers. Um, but one of the things I think you maybe um has changed a little bit that I'd clarify is that there's not really a forward rates dynamic in monthly. The most successful people in monthly rentals are taking a rental at a time. And so if you're using it as a short-term and you're trying to fill a shoulder season in Michigan, you know, you need to really think through what's the right rate because you're going to block the calendar and take that booking. But for people who are midterm only, you're really doing it one booking at a time. And the reason for that is over 50% of midterm rental leases extend. And so you don't want to have, you know, something that's booked 10 days out or somebody that's coming in for a week 10 days out. You really want to be in a position to where you've got a conversation ongoing with your tenant and you know when they're going to check out and you've got 20 to 30 days notice to lease up so you can book it 2 days after they check out. And so you're really, if you're doing this well, you're picking a price four times a year. And so four times a year, you're going in there and looking 3 to four weeks out and using a tool like Price Labs or I think more frequently using Furnished Finder and seeing what people's rates are and whether you think you can charge more or less and just picking the price point. You don't have the same, you know, I I always uh when I get in fights with my property managers, it's because I think they mispriced a peak date and it's like, how how did you let this book for this date seven months out? You should have known there was a music festival and now we're stuck with it. and like you know we could have done better and that dynamic doesn't exist in midterms because you get to look out and say okay I'm comfortable with a monthly rate of what starting in 3 weeks and you know you might need to think about are you really going to be disappointed if they book for 9 months instead of three probably not like that probably feels like quite a victory in the midterm rental game and so you know we want to build you know whether it's Price Labs or Wheelhouse or Beyond Pricing or whoever we want to partner with people to where they can help solve this problem but is a much simpler problem because of the nature of how the calendar works. Someone's decided, "Yep, I want to try this out. Uh, I want to put my property up as a as a midterm rental. I can furnish it." You know, the difference between them being more profitable as a midterm rental than a long-term rental sometimes could come down to a month or maybe a couple months. One of the challenges with mid-term rentals is that they are a minimum of a month. And so, we want to have really good communication with the person staying there so we know when they're checking out. But any other suggestions around trying to minimize those gaps, especially if you're in a place where there is like a 30 night minimum. You don't want someone to book on day 29, for example, and and how to Yeah. If you This is the reason you have a lease. And so your lease needs to have terms around how much notice they need to provide and what the penalties are if they provide less. And you need to have a mechanism to enforce the penalties. And so, you know, typically I'd say that you're um if you're collecting rent 3 days before the term ends, you've got more risk. um you either need to be collecting rent earlier or have a deposit or really gotten to know the tenant well enough to where you understand the risk so that you've always got the tenant there giving you enough notice to where you've got I think yeah I think 3 weeks is pretty sufficient four weeks ideal for a lease up period and so the most important thing is you're going to be able to talk to this person it's not going to be an instant booking you know unless it comes from Airbnb and so you're going to be able to talk to them you're going to be able to set the terms you're going to have a lease and you're going to have the money in your bank account and that I'd say prevents most of it you know the separate thing is is that you need to have done your homework on what is the seasonality. If you assume in a low scenario, you're making 25% more than in long-term. You can still lose months of rent and end up better off. In the average scenario where you're more like 30 to 50% more, same thing. And what we hear from landlords is they're typically more than 90% plus occupied. And the really good ones are, you know, not occupied 10 days a year. You know, they're really on top of this and managing it so that the occupancy is way more like long-term, you know, and vastly superior to short term. and you're using those tools to understand how the cash flow is going to help you manage the calendar instead of what I feel is often the case on short-term where really price is your lever. I'm going to go discount heavily. I'm going to run a promo. I'm going to reach out to my repeats because I've got a vacancy. I've got a cancellation. I've got to book it. You don't have near so much of that, you know, basically hair on fire dynamic with midterms. Yeah, great point. You know, the lease can go a long way in preventing those those gaps. you know, if you have that 3 3 week period or making sure that you have enough notice if they do want to extend. Um, another situation that might complicate things a little bit. Curious to to hear what you think about places where midterm rentals can do really well, but only for a certain season, like snowbirds coming down to Florida, for example. Yeah, I think um Florida's a good use case, but you know, Florida doesn't have Michigan to me is the perfect use case. You know, Michigan has a wonderful summer, you know, has a wonderful summer and a miserable winter in terms of tourism demand. And so that's one where the trade-off is more obvious of you can move into a midterm mode in a lot of Michigan for the right profile house and really you you're you're replacing something that's closer to nothing as to in Florida there's almost always something and so you're replacing a different type of something. And so in Florida, I think it's more of a pricing problem. And in Florida, you know, when you're in that low season on Airbnb, I don't know that you're necessarily setting your, you know, minimum nights to 30 so much as you're using a tool like Price Labs or whoever to try and solve the algorithm. And you might box your calendar out for a handful of months and see if you can get the long-term on Furnished Finder. And if it's not working out, you've got to look in the mirror and say, should I unbox it? you know, would I rather have 20 booked days out of the next 90 than maybe not get the get the midterm I'm hoping for? And so, if you approach it that way, then it's it's really an exercise in keeping yourself honest. And I think that furnishinder, you know, for us, yeah, I didn't mention leisure in my tenant types. Um, you know, it's single digit. It would probably be fifth after academic. And so when it's there, it's usually someone who might have found it on Airbnb or VRBO and doesn't want to pay the fee and is looking on Furnished Finder to see if they can book it cheaper and book it direct, which is a great backup plan for most short-term rental owners. You know, it's a way to go be found. And um there's a lot of tools that help people find them. And so I I I think if you're if you know you've got a core demographic like corporate, like medical, like academic, or a neighborhood with schools where you might more have digital nomads relocating families, way more viable. If you're just dipping your toe in the water, I think you just have to be more pragmatic. As a as an observation, I have a pledge in South Saxes on the beach. Uh I never have it as a 30-day minimum. You know, there's enough demand in the winner that I'm going to do better as a short term, even though I'll have more vacancy. And you know, it's a fourbedroom, so it's not a perfect fit for us, but like, you know, here I am with the property running the company, it's not always a fit. Well, I think, you know, data most of the time can help us answer most of these questions. you know, it makes sense for us to rent as a midterm for us to switch our minimum night stay strategy. You mentioned some stats there. Uh c can you update us on how many units Furnished Finder has now and kind of how that's been growing and then also maybe some places or ways that uh someone interested might be able to get their hands on a little bit more data. For sure. Um, if you go to Furnished Finder.comstats and you can also find it from the uh topnap of the website under about monthly rentals or landlord resources, we provide, you know, every city in the US and we're US only um inventory. Every city in the US, we pro provide a experience that tells you how many searches are happening, you know, what's the distribution of bedroom count, those sorts of things. I mean, honestly, right now, you know, if you're watching this in September, October of uh 25, it's a uh it's not the experience I want it to be. We're rebuilding it and we want to be able to provide a lot more information on what tenants are coming and what's the ratio of supply and demand and like to help you understand if it's a better fit because, you know, if you're searching for Atlanta, Atlanta's big. It doesn't quite give you enough information yet as to which neighborhood's going to work, but it's a great indicator. So, I encourage people to start there. I encourage people to look at similar properties on a short-term site. Then, I encourage people to look at the hotel dynamic. you know how many midterm extended stay hotels are nearby on an Expedia or Booking.com and start to calibrate. And when you're looking at Furnished Finder, you I think you'll be surprised because it feels more like 2010. We we post phone numbers. Call a landlord and ask them, "Hey, this house looks just like mine. What's your experience been? I'm thinking about doing this." They may they may see you as competition and tell you to bug off. there's a good chance they're actually going to say, "Hey, this has been great for me and here's what I've learned and like, you know, maybe there's some things we can partner on. Let's talk about it." Awesome. A lot of people tune in to the show are growing their portfolios. Maybe they're property managers. They're looking to scale. What would you say to someone that's looking to scale in the midterm rental space? Any tips, suggestions there? Yeah, I think the um uh good news on looking to scale versus short-term uh there's a couple advantages in midterm in my mind. Um one advantage uh the price point's typically lower, you know, because you're looking at things that are often studio onebedroom, two-bedroom, and I mean important to note, we've got, you know, of our 300,000 plus listings, 60,000 are rooms, like individual room listings in a house. And so, um, you know, maybe I'll start with if you're going from zero to one, this is a really interesting way to start making cash and get started because it could be a room strategy. It could be an ADU strategy. There's a lot of things that are much less capital intensive to get started. If you're looking to scale, what I think is really compelling about it and where I've seen people have a ton of success is you might be looking at, you know, a leisure property for short-term and let's just for kick say it costs half a million dollars. You know, because it's a three-bedroom and it's in a, you know, it's in a Gatlinburgg, it's in a, you know, performant destination. Um, that half million and midterm might be a quadplex in a suburb or tertiary city. And so, you're going to end up with four units. And those four units may give you the flexibility to move in and out of long-term potentially. You might even live in one of them and use the other three to house hack your own rent. You might be able to have one be short-term, two be midterm, one be longterm. And you start to get this flexibility. And the beauty of the scale is they're literally in the same building. You know, your maintenance calls, your visits, everything's right there. And so when you think about just the density of our product, it's much denser than if you think about Breen Ridge and moving around or especially if you think about, you know, um Joshua Tree or 3A or a lot of Lake and Beach. You're having to move around so much just to manage it. The scaling problem is logistics, which is how you end up with a property manager. self-managing midterm way fewer turnovers and a higher likelihood you can actually put them within 10 minutes of where you live makes the scalability I think much more attractive because you can build an operating model you're doing three to four turnovers a year and maybe you end up with two quadplexes within 10 miles of your house that's appealing and also because there's less operational complexity and we you'll uh hear a lot about this from our top landlords landlord diary girls Katie Lion and um Kelly Bailey Katie completely manages her entire portfolio you know, it's in Iowa and she lives in Denver because there's less turnover and because there's usually tenants there, there's less surprises and so you've got some different scaling maneuvers, but I think it's less capital intensive. It's less operational complexity and there's a higher likelihood you can do it close to where you live. One last thing I'd add, which Tim may not always do you a favor in some of your personal business market, is that the the management fees and midterm are lower because the turnover is less. And I know that you guys have a really compelling value product for what you do with short-term management, but short-term management can have a lot of hidden fees depending on who you use. I frequently find often more than 40% of what the traveler actually pays is going to the manager through some combination of fees and what their commission is, etc., etc. That number in midterms typically more like 15% and you don't have all those fees. And so there's a little bit less rake if you do decide you don't want the headache and you want to scale through using a midterm manager. And for a lot of people, I'd encourage you to explore being a midterm manager because there's really a der of them in these major urban and tertiary markets of people who are providing the service right now. It's still frequently a handful of long-term who kind of figured it out. There's not a great ecosystem yet. Great, great point. Uh there is there's opportunity. I mean, just the whole midterm rental space, so many things about it create a lot of opportunity. Um, one one of the things that's also happened with a lot of short-term rental markets is that housekeeping fees have gone up a lot for house, you know, and so you really got to factor that in. I mean, if you're having three, four, five turnovers a month, but you're paying $200 a turn or whatever it happens to be, it it it really starts to add up. Um, and so I think for those that want to scale, yeah, just having less turnover because they are longer stays. Um, you know, inherently makes it easier. Uh, of course, we got to make sure that you you've checked all those other boxes, you know, because it's all easy until you overlook something and you you have a, you know, problem like you might with a long. Yeah. And I think that's true for short-term and midterm, but it's something that, you know, that's um people have to remember like, you know, you a lot of people may call you a host, but you're running a business and part of running a business is understanding what the risks are and how you manage them. And I don't think that changes between short-term and midterm. I think there's fewer risks on midterm, but it's more from what I've seen on both sides. But, you know, there's also there's probably a little less upside to go with that less risk. Yeah, I'm excited about the midterm rental space. I think there's just so much opportunity for all the reasons and and that you've been diving into. Uh you mentioned that you guys have a big initiative to get some software parody and make some of these things easier maybe for those people that have been focused on short-term rentals but are now starting to get into midterm rentals. Um and we you mentioned several times that this kind of like feels like short-term rentals back in 2010 where where do you see like the next three years from now? How do you think the midterm rental market's going to be looking? Yeah, I think um you know a wooden desk so I'll knock on it but um we'll finish our platform migration and the experience will feel parody to the giants on both sides and so you'll be integrated with your property manager your content will come in your messaging will go through your PMS your availability will be synced everywhere and we'll we'll find a middle ground for rates we're not going to absorb the complexity of 365 days of updated multiple times a day daily pricing but we're going to find some way to make it easier for people to price and So assume that operationally it gets easier because the techn is going to get better. I think that's that's table stakes. And we've already redone the front end, improved search, improve we just launched a new messaging system this week. We've launched calendar in the app. We've rebuilt the app. A lot of stuff's happening, but it hasn't happened enough to where you totally feel it. So I think that's point one. Point two, um, in order to solve the housing crisis, we would have needed to have been building tens of millions of housing units for the prior five years. Like we're not catching up in the next three years. there is going to be a housing shortage. We're not going to see interest rates back at, you know, 2%, two and a half percent. It's just no one's got that in their forecasts. And so I think you can expect a housing shortage and I think you can expect an affordability deficit that, you know, I think what's changed in my thinking about the next 3 years is I I now really do believe more of what Chesy was saying for a long time at Airbnb about people are going to live different. We see that in our data. And interestingly, for sure, young people are willing to just live in Furnished Finder and move around, and it gives them professional flexibility. It gives them personal flexibility to maybe go be closer to a loved one and not feel tethered. And it also gives them financial flexibility to not buy all this furniture. What I found most interesting is uh what I call the um you know, the grandparent nomads. We see a ton of empty nesters who are booking a two-bedroom on our platform for 4 months to be close to their grandkids. And they may not be there all the time because they may be going back and forth from a primary residence, but they want to have their own space. And honestly, their kids and grandkids want them to have their own space. And I think we're going to see more and more of that where as the boomers potentially trade out of housing that instead of trading into new cheaper housing that they own, they may trade into furnished alternatives that let them explore more and kind of have some of this wanderlust moment. And so I think within 3 years that dynamic is going to be a lot more pervasive and a lot of the growth is going to be, you know, really these um I'm not going to say permanent tenant types, but durable tenant types where they're living this way instead of they've got a contract or stipend or a project where they need to be in a place and you can count on them to come back as repeats in a way that maybe we don't have as much of today. Yeah, that's really exciting to hear that you're you're seeing more of those types of stays. I mean, I totally agree. Yeah, with interest rates high and people aren't going to be buying if they sell their home today and they buy one at the same amount, they're they're paying way more, you know, per month. You're not trading up in equity. You're trading down, right? Which puts more demand on on rent rents and uh the flexibility of midterm rental is great. you know, for the for people's primary residences. It's been interesting for me to think about and uh talking about them with some other industry experts. Furniture is a remarkably emotional asset for a lot of people. You know, not only is it a deteriorating asset as soon as you bring it home, it's worth less, hard to sell, illlquid, etc. You can also get pretty tethered to it in a way that like maybe you want to go live in San Diego, but you don't want to think about what to do with all your stuff. And I think you may just start to see, you know, some of the generations have less stuff and then have less emotional attachment to furniture, less capital tied up in furniture. And then that rental model of furniture is a different way to think about how you get asset light and how people have more disposable income and also just, you know, more travel. Another great point. I couldn't help but think, you know, as as midterm rentals get more uh competitive, which which they will as people chase higher returns, you know, that the listings will also have to get more competitive just as they have on all the other OTAAS. Uh and so I wonder what that timeline's going to look like, you know, like when does the point come where, you know, listing your property today with the furniture that you've had in there for the last 10 years like starts to uh eat away at your potential profits, you know? Yeah. Um, I don't have a data driven point of view, you know, I have a decade plus experience point of view on short-term rentals. Um, and that it will get more competitive, but I think that there will be enough demand that it won't mean something becomes a bad investment or unbookable. It will mean that you're not getting the rate that you used to or that you're not getting the rate you think you could because someone else can charge more cuz they've got new stuff, fresher paint, whatever it is. It's not an arms race on amenities. It's going to have way more to do with comfort, safety, and really convenience. And so, I think it's going to be a long time before it's saturated. And I really think rates will start to balance it out. And potentially the story of Airbnb is it was cheap rooms and now it's, you know, $10 million mansions with services and massuses and private chefs and and and like they went up market. I think that'll take a lot longer here. But as we go up market, you will see more and more people with higher quality finish outs and a midterm rental. But that's not going to change that majority of Americans are still making less than $100,000 a year and have a budget and this is what they can work with. And I think that's where it's a little different because you may be willing to stretch or spend more for that spring break, that Christmas vacation, that once a year summer 5day that's you're actually trying to save money on your 3-month work trip where you're on a stipend and take some of that stipend and turn it into your vacation. So I don't think there'll be as much upward pressure from the existing guests. I think it'll only be if more and more tenant types come in with more disposable income. Awesome, Jeff. Hey, I I I would love to have you back on. in this segment. I think there's just a ton of opportunity as we've talked about and it'll be exciting, you know, to see what how the next couple years roll out. And thanks for providing a platform like Furnished Finder. I mean, you guys do a great job. For anyone out there, I mean, Furnished Finder.com, that's basically how they find you and get set up. Absolutely. Come check us out, try some content. And I mean, really, it's a it's $179 a year. whether you're in the short-term rental game or the real estate game, if you don't have $179 and your backup fund or marketing funds, like you've got some other things to work out in terms of, you know, how are you running this business and what does it look like? And so, I'd encourage people to do the research, but then dip your toe in the water if you think it's a fit. Well, excited to see what you guys roll out in the future. Jeff, thanks a bunch for coming on. I know our audience will find a ton of value and look forward to having you back on in the future. Yeah, very excited to stay in touch and appreciative of the opportunity. Thanks, Tim. [Music]