What if your short-term rental faced heavy restrictions—but instead of losing income, you unlocked a high-demand niche with 90% occupancy? That’s exactly what Bella and Levi Linchenko did by leveraging Furnished Finder and midterm rental (MTR) strategies. They transformed a live-in flip into a high-performing MTR business and even used their rental income to fund a ski trip to the Alps! If you’re wondering how to attract digital nomads, traveling professionals, and retirees, this Furnished Finder Landlord Diaries episode is packed with actionable insights.
In this episode, they reveal:
Why they chose MTR over STR (without losing income)
Why transparency leads to happier guests & fewer headaches
How MTR revenue funded their Alps ski trip
The key differences in furnishing MTR vs STR properties
Why midterm guests are easier to manage than short-term renters
How to address seasonality & maximize occupancy
Plus, Bella & Levi share expert design tips for MTR success, including market research, must-have furnishings, and costly design mistakes to avoid. Whether you’re a real estate investor, STR host looking to pivot, or a newbie in MTRs, this episode is a must-listen!
Episode Timestamps:
0:00 Welcome to Landlord Diaries
1:25 Why some hosts prefer MTRs over STRs in vacation rental markets
2:30 How Bella & Levi started with an MTR duplex house hack
4:05 Finding Furnished Finder was a game-changer
5:50 Fix & flip strategy with MTR for maximum value
7:25 MTR revenue funded their Alps ski trip
9:40 Transparency: The secret to happy MTR guests
14:20 When to start marketing & furnishing your MTR
18:25 Why MTR guests are easier to manage than STR tenants
22:35 Market research for MTR friendly design
27:45 Furnishing an MTR vs STR—Key differences
31:10 The biggest mistake hosts make in MTR
31:50 Minimum viable product concept for MTR success
34:30 Design mistakes that cost you revenue
37:00 How to find the right MTR property
40:20 Addressing seasonality in midterm rental markets
42:55 The secret to long-term MTR success? Just get started!
44:25 Connect with Bella & Levi Linchenko
Episode 133 Transcript
He also just mentioned how he really admired us. He was in his like later seventies. He was doing a renovation on his own condo somewhere else and needed a place to, to, pretty much wait that out. And what was supposed to be like two months. I didn't turn anything to six months. He was the best tenant ever.
We got engaged while he was living downstairs and he brought us a bottle of champagne. Like it was one of those like really amazing situations. And I feel welcome to the Landlord Diaries, where we talk about midterm rentals and the opportunities behind them. We'll share landlord stories, talk about maximizing investment potential, and discuss how to live the very best landlord life.
This podcast is proudly brought to you by Furnished Finder. The leader and largest online marketplace for midterm rentals. Remember to like, and subscribe if you enjoy our content. Today, we're thrilled to have Bella & Levi Linchenko join us. This dynamic duo started in midterm rentals because of short term rental restrictions in their market.
They achieve a remarkable 90 percent occupancy rate across three properties on Furnished Finder near world class ski resorts like. Alta and Snowbird. They've recently launched a design business tailored for STR and MTR operators, leveraging their experience as digital nomads and investors. Welcome Bella and Levi.
How are you? Hey, how's it going? So happy to be here. Yes. for joining us. And let's give everybody a little teaser. Like why do you prefer midterm rentals in a vacation rental market? For us, it's been like just. To see the success of people who want to stay for an extended period of time to like really refine their skiing or they have family in town.
It's been actually really successful to cater to the midterm rental market, though it is a vacation destination. We've seen a lot of families and digital nomads, people who just want to really spend time in the market and in the atmosphere of skiing particularly. And then in the summertime we get some hikers and other people who want to just spend time in a beautiful mountainous region.
We also love how much less operations are involved in MTRs and higher occupancy, which definitely feels like offsets for the higher nightly rate of MTRs. So overall, it feels like we're doing a lot less to manage our properties for about the same outcome with MTR. Definitely. 100%. That's a good teaser for the conversation, and then we like to start with your real estate story.
All three of your properties on Furnished Finder are in the Salt Lake City area. And two of them you market during ski season as hey, here's very close to ski ski resorts, some of the world class ones. So tell us about your properties. Yeah, we have the two properties in Cottonwood Heights.
They're right at the base of the ski Canyon. We moved in. 2021 is when we purchased. It's a duplex. It was quite outdated, but the location was amazing. And so we knew that the goal would be to house hack pretty much live in one, rent out the other until or unless it was time to transition to a new location.
And so that's what we did. We were really successful in a full live in flip. We are both extremely handy. My background is in design. Levi's is in engineering. So we YouTube University our way to a really huge renovation for the upstairs unit, which is the more luxurious unit. It's a three bed, two bath.
And that one sees it was where we lived while we were renovating and then the downstairs is a two bed, one bath and it's a perfect, we call it skier's paradise. It's the ideal location for a couple or maybe a small family or just a few digital nomads who want to live really close to the mountain.
Ski in the winter, hike in the summer. And so that was literally. Midterm rented from day one when we launched it. And at that time, we didn't even know what Furnished Finder was. We didn't, we hadn't heard of it. So we had put it on Airbnb and so it did get one booking from Airbnb. And then we had a friend down the street say, Hey, have you put your properties on Furnished Finder?
And we were like, what's that? And so like immediately that night, Signed up and then I think that our next three or four leases were through Furnished Finder. And so we found great success in that. And then we eventually moved out of the upstairs and bought another property, which is where we live now, and we travel so much for our business as short term rental slash midterm rental interior designers that when we travel we've built this place out.
We did a huge renovation on it as well. We built it out so that we can short term rent it when we're out of town and it offsets the mortgage a lot. So that's been Airbnb house. Yeah. Very different style of house hack where it only gets rented out when we're not. Presently using it. Yeah, that's awesome.
I know a lot of people who do that in Denver because of their strict the restrictions in Denver has to be your primary house, which is tricky to do if you want to actually be living in the house at the same time, it can be tricky. So yeah, the first time I think it took us like two days to pack down our house.
And since we've optimized it to where it takes us a couple hours. That's true. That's that's amazing. The fact that you're able to do that and There's a million different ways to house hack and a million different ways to invest. And I think getting creative and taking advantage of whatever your scenario is fantastic.
Okay. So you guys have three properties, is that right? Correct. And one of them is a duplex. Actually we call that one too, cause it's two doors. Okay, perfect. Cause it's singular. Yeah. But we have three doors that we rent. Yeah. Love it. Okay. Awesome. And you guys have been able to scale. Pretty quickly while also building in equity as sweat equity really right when you're doing these renovations.
Yeah. We haven't actually done a refinance on the property that we added so much equity to, cause the interest rate was too good to, to do anything about it as it is, but yeah, we've built in a ton of equity and the properties that we've worked on. We've also had some properties that we've renovated and sold in the past as well, that we don't currently own.
And one is actually for sale right now. So we've done a lot of that renovation piece and adding a lot of value. into the property in addition to then you can actually charge more for your rentals because it is that much nicer. So we see our avatar for who rents in our duplex property as it's probably Some of them, if not the most expensive midterm rental in the market, because we particularly wanted to target that.
I know a lot of people get on Furnished Finder for nursing contracts, but we have never had a nurse. We've only ever had retirees and digital nomads. I think that's a huge thing to remember because like you said, a lot of people come to Furnished Finder and think nurses. And we do have a lot of nurses, but we have a lot of everybody, right?
We have a lot of retirees. We have a lot of snowbirds. We have a lot of digital nomads. So you get to choose what your target market is for your property and don't try to make your property for everybody. Like you guys have definitely not done that by designing it the way you have you are targeting that higher end and it works out.
But you can't. have something that every single person likes. As far as your midterm rentals go, one, you already emphasize the self management is nice. Even while, probably while you were skiing in the Alps that funded one of your midterm rental. So STAYS funded your ski trip to the Alps. The revenue breakdown is really what draws you to midterm rental.
So why don't you give us an example from your duplex? Yeah. What we spent nine months renovating the upper unit of that duplex a full like job pretty much. And when it was done, we told ourselves we are going on a trip, we were renting this place out. It is so beautiful. We're going on a trip.
This is while we're still living in it, doing that house hack style where we were renting it while we were living in it. Nine months. We had a baby and then we left it behind. Essentially. But we we just put it on all the different platforms, Furnished Finder, Airbnb, everything that we could, Facebook Marketplace.
And we did get a tenant from Furnished Finder who inquired for the month of February, pretty much. Or it was like half of January, half of February. And we said, okay. Perfect. That's an exact time period. We want to go travel anyway. So we essentially booked a trip to the Alps because Levi didn't want to leave skiing behind.
He's so we got to go to some place where we can ski. And we thought Europe would be a good option. And so for a month, we traveled the trip. So that time period that we rented. I believe our revenue from that was around 6, 500 and our, just for context, our mortgage on that entire duplex is 3, 300.
The downstairs was rented for 4, 500. So the upstairs and downstairs combined were over 10, 000 and our trip was probably like 6, 000. So it really did pay for the entirety of our time. I think we definitely balled out hard enough to go over our budget. We did, but that was on us. But virtually basically speaking, for sure, we had the whole trip paid for.
And that's really what skyrocketed or launched our endeavors with the primary house hack. For sure. It was that initial trip. Yeah, and one thing that we didn't say yet, that I wanted to make sure and emphasize is because for whatever reason, investors get that mentality of, I can't get started until it's perfect.
Every little thing has to be in place. But you guys are a prime example of that's not true. You had a sweet older gentleman living in your duplex while you were renovating it. So how did you communicate that? that to be able to have a successful stay while there's a lot of construction going on. I think that was like the thing that did it was the communication.
And we told him like, Hey, we're going to work around your schedule. We're going to make sure we're not making any noise while you need it to be quiet. But we are doing like renovations upstairs. Always text us if you have any noise issues. And luckily luckily for us, he had some hearing issues and we never once got a message from him.
Yeah, but he also just mentioned how he really admired us. He was in his later 70s. He was doing a renovation on his own condo somewhere else and needed a place to, to, pretty much wait that out. And what was supposed to be like two months, it ended up turning into six months. He was the best tenant ever.
We got engaged while he was living downstairs and he brought us a bottle of champagne. Like it was one of those like really amazing situations. And I feel like. That's just part of it. Of course, there are times when you have a tenant that's like it's loud down here, blah, blah, blah. But we've been so clear about our listings.
We've, this is a basement unit. You will hear noise from upstairs. We try to be as conscientious as possible. And now that we don't live there, it's even harder because we can't really tell what's going on at any given time. But a lot of times I think just being as transparent as possible in your communication from the very Beginning like you're listening to like the intro message when you give them the key codes and all that like just being so conscientious because it's all Overcomable, but you have to start.
It's a game of reviews really, right? The rental market is a game of getting good reviews and disclosures always prevent bad reviews like if you have it disclosed on your property that It's a basement unit. There might be some noise from the upstairs. Then no one like has grounds to write a review that it's a basement unit and there might be some noise coming from the upstairs, right?
It's, they lose their grounds and so we've definitely learned that the second we get any kind of Feedback like that. We immediately disclose it so that we can we address it if we can if it's addressable We've done a lot of addressing for sure Two of ours that kind of apply to this conversation is it was actually the same property.
It was a duplex It was our dave and I's very first real estate purchase. We lived in one half We ran out the other half long term and then towards the end right before we sold it. We transitioned it to midterm for maybe six months or something like that. And we were doing a bathroom remodel. And on that bathroom remodel, it overlapped where the guest was checking in before the bathroom remodel was done.
We communicated the details. They were fine with that. And so they, they only had one bathroom to use for a couple of days. And then the nice remodeled. Master Bathroom was ready to go a couple days after they moved in. So they loved it. It was fantastic. She said, this is the best shower.
Thank you so much. And then same thing when we went to sell that duplex. We didn't take it off of a midterm to be able to sell it. We just made sure and got someone that was getting to be month to month and prepared them that, hey, it could sell at any point. And if it does, then we'll just put in that 30 day notice.
And they were fine with that. And they even showed the property. And I think the sell probably happened because of how they showed the property. To he was a veteran and it was a veteran that purchased it. They just had a great connection probably. So that was part of it too. So really you don't have to wait until it's perfect.
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If you're ready to experience all the benefits renting your property for 30 days or more, head over to furnishedfinder. com where you can list your property for one low annual price. One thing that I wanted to circle back to that I really liked what y'all said was how quickly you can get your property rented as a midterm rental.
You said from day one, it was rented. So Cool. Cool. Let's talk about just the overall midterm rental process combined with the furnishing and design of when do you start marketing your property and when do you start furnishing the property? Do they go hand in hand? Is one before the other?
So how did you guys do it? We've done it a few different ways. For the one that rented like the day we listed it that was like a, We had an occupancy, a long term renter, and then they left, and we gave ourselves one month to get the whole place set up as an MTR. And so it was a few things. We had to paint the walls.
We changed out some light fixtures. We called that a lipstick renovation, nothing serious, just just a little bit of lipstick and furnishing and that was at a time when like we were on a budget So your girl was Facebook market placing everything and I didn't have and like for a two bed one bath in a mountainous town We actually I have the records.
It was like there it was 7, 200 for the entire renovation and furnishing and so that was really fast. Like I said One month and we listed it. I took, I got the photos taken the day before I listed it. And so it wasn't like a we listed it before it was ready kind of situation for that one. But I do not know if it was extremely lucky or what, or maybe our price was low at the time, but someone literally reached out the next day and it was, she moved in.
And that was an amazing situation and we literally had no gaps. And then maybe I got, I got smart about the price a little bit and now it's like probably more leveled because I'm charging a little bit more, which is okay. We've had another property that we listed before it was ready, but we had pictures of it staged and so we didn't actually have any furniture in it, but we knew we were like very ready for it to be rented and like we were losing money every day that we didn't have it rented.
So we just said, okay. And we could not short term rent it it was a condo. So we're like, okay, we gotta get a mid term renter in it, and let's just see if anybody's interested at this price. And so we like, put it on one day, that price like, didn't get any bites, so we dropped the price. And in a second someone was like, hey, I'd to come and see this.
It was like, we have to furnish this thing tomorrow. Thankfully, it was completely renovated, but we literally In one weekend, bought every single piece of furniture in This was another one of those scrappy furnishing jobs. Yeah, scrappy furnishing jobs, but hey, it looks beautiful. It was like three days on Facebook Marketplace, and then two days of like driving all across town picking stuff up.
And if you're a hustler and trying to get started and don't have money it's definitely the way to do it. For sure. Borrow somebody's truck. Buy them something. Get them lunch. Get a U Haul, too. Yeah. It's 20 bucks for a day or something. 30 bucks for a day. Even if you're just like testing your thesis, right?
Even if you're like, hey, I think this property would do as a mid, do well as a midterm rental, but I'm not sure. You don't have to spend 20 or 30 grand to set it up. It's so true. You don't. Even if you have, we have, One of our only single family home that is a midterm rental. We were a little bit like, ah, I'm not like as sure about this one.
It was a new market, a different kind of different target market we were going after. And also like way bigger than anything we'd ever furnished before. And I was like, I don't care if we replace some of this furniture in three or six months. I don't care. I don't want to spend 30, 000 to furnish it.
So sometimes you just have to make those compromises and know that when you have a move out and a move in, you might be replacing some stuff and that's okay. Because we all can't just. Open up the checkbook and write a check to cash all the time. But I like that. I like how you guys have gotten inventive.
I do have a question for you guys about short term rentals versus midterm rentals. Since you've done both short term rentals, you have a lot of instant books or. At least a lot of hosts allow instant books. I'm assuming you guys do. Is that correct? We do. We haven't set up with a lot of restrictions though.
Like even for our short term rentals, we don't let them book too far in advance. Short term. We only let them book midterm way far in advance. So that way it gets booked like that first. But, but I know you were like getting to a point or a question. Yeah. My question really is when you're doing an instant booking, a lot of times you don't and short term rentals in general, you don't have as much control over the tenant screening as you necessarily do with a midterm.
And a lot of people get nervous about that. How much more comfortable do you feel with a midterm tenant? You get a different kind of clientele that's midterm. And that's a clientele that's going to take care of your property because it's theirs. It's theirs for a month, it's theirs for two.
And so there's a lot less there's so much less hassle. We're not asked for toilet paper to be restocked when it runs out. Or little things like that they take a lot more ownership in their stay. Another way Levi's saying is like midterm rentals like almost is a screening itself You know what I mean?
Like versus a short term like think about if you were to go and rent a place for a weekend I'm sure we're all good people but I am probably gonna be a lot worse of a tenant if for a weekend stay than it would be if it were a month in general because I know that there's like something to be said about Hey, no one's going to clean this up on Monday.
I'm going to have to clean it up on Monday or something like that. So I, but we do seeing, knowing who's going to be staying there. For the biggest reason being the issue we've had with sound transfer, there's been a big thing for us to okay, how many dogs do you have? Like things like that, where there's like just.
A lot of ability to be a lot more thoughtful about do we think this person is going to bother the people downstairs and vice versa? Because that's going to be our biggest complaint if we got one. So yes, having the ability to screen. is for sure a helpful piece of of the midterm rental gain game.
And when we do the occasional short term rental weekend because there's a gap or like a week off or whatever, it is always like a, it's a gamble. Thankfully, I feel like when you have really nice design and you're actually pushing your rental to be some of the top in the market, there is an automatic level of Filtration.
Filtration that like comes with that, right? So it's way more expensive. Someone is gonna just have a lot more ability to probably be gentler to your rental. We have a huge disclaimer if it's an instant book that says like there is absolutely no parties you will be evicted if there's a party if we get a notification about that so we try to put a lot of disclosure and communication in the front end but ultimately, yeah, it is still a risk.
But I think that's why having better design and like really making your rental even if it is a midterm and not a short term like Just some of the top of the line, which is what we always are doing for our clients as a design company. That's what's going to put you in that safer zone.
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All right. We've been hinting at the design conversation. So I think this is a great time to segue into that. Part of the midterm rental process is one being able to recognize is my property a good fit for this market? How can I furnish it to to get the maximum value out of the property and determine what my clientele is going to be to match that furnishing style.
Yes. Yeah, the first thing that we do with any client any person that we're working with is a market research analysis. We're picking apart what other Airbnbs are doing in the area. What the area draws as far as attractions and also if it's a midterm rental we're looking at the Furnished Finder Stats Sheet We're looking at how many inquiries there are and what type of inquiries there are Because I think all of those things play into the who is the avatar?
Who is your target audience and then ultimately what do they want in a rental? That's like the biggest question that and we're like We work with other entrepreneurs in general. It's always asking better questions. It's who is this person? What do they actually care about? What are their pain points?
And what are their gain points? When you can analyze those things, you can really set up an MTR or an STR for success. So let's pretend we find out that there are a lot of digital nomads coming into the Salt Lake City area because they like to ski in the winter, which I have great statistics on.
So I know a lot about, but we can figure out, okay, they're going to want to live, work, and enjoy. And so it needs to come in that order. We used to just have one desk in one kind of common area. And we realized a lot of people, because there was two pretty large bedrooms, were doing double couples.
And sometimes, or even just a single couple, and they didn't have another place to take a call. So they were like sitting on the bed. And so we realized very quickly, okay, we need to have two dedicated workspaces that have separation by walls. So yeah, step one being like identifying the target audience and then step two is actually giving your property brand identity.
What is your property to the target audience? And, give all the way from giving it a name to giving it like the amenities that it needs to accommodate that target audience. Yep. And so like I, we call our property Skiers Paradise on every platform. And now like people will text us that are recurring tenants from the last, year or something.
Hey, is Skiers Paradise open? I think that shows a lot about like how they enjoy their stay and what they can expect going forward. So branding is. And like we said, live, work and enjoy living they, you have to make sure you have enough sleeping arrangements and it has to be comfortable.
You can stand a bad mattress for a weekend at an Airbnb, you can't stand it for a whole month or two months or six months. And so I think actually investing in really high quality linens and mattresses, pillows, all of the things that You can sleep and have a good experience is very important.
And we have a list of those things that we recommend and we can gladly share that with you ladies and you can share that with your listeners. The other thing would be work. So if they are digital nomads, if they're nurses the things that would require them to have a good working environment.
Maybe they're going to be sleeping during the days, we know blackout curtains, we know noise machines, things like that are going to be so important. And then enjoy, like, why are they there? They're not just there. Probably not just there to work, they're going to get to enjoy it in some way. So for us, that's we want to have a place for them to store their skis and a place for their boots to get dried.
So we have all of those things and we recommend that to all of our mountain houses that we help design for. Or if it's a mountain biking region or a hiking region like we've installed mountain biking racks because you want to have A good safe place to hold those in as well as an easy way for them to park and just like setting up ease when it comes to the enjoyment is important.
And this is like a double edged in a good way because not only does it really show that you're catering to the clientele, it's also going to put a lot less wear on your property. If there's a place for skis to go, then skis aren't going on the floor. And if there's a place for a mountain bike to go, then it's not going up against the wall.
And so that's like a big thing that people don't really realize is that by catering to those needs you're actually increasing the longevity of the property as well. Yeah, I think this is something we don't talk about a lot with midterm rentals because we always say, you don't need a lot of the recreation stuff because people are coming in there to live.
But in markets like Salt Lake City, they're gonna ski or mountain bike while they're there, right? So it's this exception, but I think you can even translate it to practical things. Like a lot of our properties are in the Midwest where it gets really cold and really wet and snowy in the winter and having a boot rack or a waterproof mat under there.
Did we have to have it? No. It's more of an accommodation to, like you're saying, like something, somewhere to store it safely where it'll protect the property and it comes off just as a convenience. So I, I really that way of thinking. I don't think we've necessarily talked about that before.
I'd love to hear other. Other differentiators you guys use when you're furnishing a short term versus a mid term. Because there's got to be some differences, like you said, with the bedding and the mattresses. What else is top of mind when you're thinking, Okay, this is a mid term, we're going to furnish it this way.
Or this is a short term, we're going to furnish it this way. Or maybe it's a hybrid, it's going to play both roles, we're going to furnish it this way. Yeah, a few things immediately come to mind. The first is storage of stuff. When you're staying for a weekend, you're only bringing a suitcase. When you're staying for two months, you're bringing a lot more than that usually.
And so having, actually having closets that are available for hanging clothes, a dresser. When it comes to short term rentals, and I know that they're only using it as a short term rental, I'm like, do not bother with a dresser. It's an expensive piece of furniture. It's heavy and it breaks. When it comes to a midterm rental, You have to have it, like it's not like a question, like I would say that's one of those things you've got to have folding storage for clothing because you're going to be taking it in and out and it's very important that you have that usefulness.
The same is true with the kitchen, you've got to have, they might be bringing some stuff for their own obviously they might just use all of your own stuff but having a little space that you can add have something that they're bringing. Maybe they have a special set of knives. We've had a lot of tenants actually bring that and, or like their own favorite cooking utensils.
I like having one drawer open for that just because you never know. And I think in general too, with a midterm rental we have a lot of really good appliances and a lot of those have been requested by the tenants. Hey, there's no air fryer. Is there any way I could get an air fryer? We're like, amazing.
We'll buy you an air fryer. And then that's like an amenity that gets added. So I that's an opportunity for you to hear the feedback. Make it, fulfill it for the person who asked. One, that's going to make their stay that much better. And two, it's probably going to make the next person's stay that much better.
I think that maybe one thing I would add to that is like working setup, monitors, like way more important in a midterm versus a short term. Yep, monitors. Generally, like personally for me, I'm of the opinion that it should feel like home, whether it's a short term or a long term stay. And That line is a lot like more blurry for me than for most people.
I would rather invest in the dresser even if it's a short term as long as it like isn't being replaced by something more apt for a short term stay. But that's like more for our own personal properties. When I'm talking to clients, I'm trying to optimize for their specific situation. So if I know they're just doing short term rentals, I'm not going to give them as much emphasis on, you need two desks at least separated by a wall.
I will say you need at least one desk. But with a midterm, like there might be a midterm guest here and you're sleeping more than three people. You need at least two desks, dedicated desk areas that are separated by a wall because of those meetings and things like that. As well as dressers and closet access.
Because a lot of times short term rental people will close off closets or reconvert them because you really don't need. That much storage of clothes if you're staying for like I said a week or a weekend And so I would say those are the big ones I think when it comes to like exterior stuff, short term rentals are gonna have a way higher demand for those exterior amenities like hot tubs and saunas or pickleball courts, but it doesn't mean it doesn't do well in a midterm market Like I think that's one of the biggest That's the biggest thing left being left behind by the mentor market is people are like I just need to get by and Agree that and I think if you're savvy and you're smart and you're just trying to get through it and scrappy Go for it.
Like just put the bed there get the nightstand get a lamp You're gonna be fine with that. But the more you can add to the design of your property, the more amenities you can bring in. And they don't have to be that expensive. They can be like a heated blanket. Sometimes people love that, like those are the kind of things that you can make your guest experience that much better. You can probably charge a little bit more. Or if nothing else, you're getting better reviews and more occupancy. I would say push. One thing I would touch on is we have a concept of an MVP, a minimum viable product.
Which is like defining your v1, right? When you're going into a property and you're building it out. What does it absolutely need at a base level? Guaranteed you're going to want a v2. You're probably gonna want a v3. You might even want a v4. But getting the v1 done first is super important because then you can start collecting revenue on it, which can then be reinvested into the future iterations of the property.
And then you can get a higher nightly amount as you increase the amenities, as you increase the design is whatever it is. But having that definition of what does complete look like to get this on the market at its minimum viable product? Yeah, and I think that There's something too when it comes to midterm rentals.
A lot of short term rental mentors will say don't put it on there unless it's at 100 to start with because like you're gonna have to retake pictures if you add an amenity next year that you didn't have this year now your reviews are confusing and you That's not really, doesn't apply to midterm rentals as much.
I think you can take that like step by step, iterate on the process, add more benefits as you go. Especially because a lot of times we as midterm rental hosts will go there maybe for a week and fix some things up once a year. And that's a great opportunity to be like, what can we add while we're there?
And of course, this depends on where you're at in your investor journey. Like a lot of questions are going to come to that. But starting out, don't go for the top level to start out with. You don't need to. That's such great advice. Yeah, it's, and some things that I've been thinking about while y'all are expressing all these valuable tricks of the trade is, that V1 that V1, don't forget to include in your marketing what is around you.
So like the idea of some people like pickleball, it's growing so quickly, right? That it's that's actually can be a huge perk, but rather than always investing and maybe you're probably didn't even have the space. We have a property that there's a pickleball six courts about a five minute walk away that we can add to our Furnished Finder listing without it having to be built into, a cost for us.
It's just knowing what Perks someone might be attracted to around your area. Another thing would be like exercise bikes. If you're seeing a lot of requests coming into your market for, gym equipment maybe you add some gym equipment to your, to. To your listing and to your property, that is a very small investment.
So I like the conversation about V1 versus V4 and that you can build along the way. We say that a lot. So let's talk about some of those design mistakes and lessons that you've learned. And let's start with. Pricing, like a lot of people, I've heard this mentality of I'm going to put, lower in furniture because if something breaks, then it's easier to replace, but then, that's not taking into consideration the revenue loss by putting in that lower in furniture.
So what are your tips there between like the revenue impact of design and how you apply that to your V1 version? Yeah, I would say you will have lesser revenue with lower end furnishings, for sure, but for me there's a more painful point to that, and that it's going to break a lot faster.
The lifespan of your furnishings is going to be a lot less, which is fine, especially if you're starting out and you're doing the Facebook Marketplace scrap, right? That's 100 percent fine. But the higher quality furnishings that you get in there, one, people are going to treat them nicer. So they're going to last longer.
Two, they're going to be higher quality. So they're going to last nicer. And three, they're going to be nicer, so they're going to pull in more revenue. Yeah. I, whenever, this is like a hack when it comes to purchasing furniture that I always try to tell people do, is get the cheapest solid wood piece you can find.
And you would be surprised at what you can find. The MDF type board where it's like particle board is like the, what every single Pretty much cheap piece of cheap furniture is made out of now. That is what's going to break That is what's going to break especially when it's assembled incorrectly here's a super piece you are a super useful piece of information as well as differentiating between high touch and low touch items Light fixtures do not need to be nice.
They're not touched like they're not gonna break something like a coffee table People are putting their feet up there. It needs to be able to support it I was just about to say like I always make sure the dining room table or the kitchen table is really like it's solid wood. If there's an entry table that people are just setting their keys on, I can do MDF on that all day.
That's totally fine. But it's, it is, it's all about like how are you going to use it? Is it an accent table in the corner of an office? It's going to have a lamp on it and nobody's going to touch. Great. I'm going to buy something cheap, but if it's something people are touching. Every single day it's gotta be able to stand the test of time.
I think also to that, like you need to make sure that you check in on your furnishings and make sure that they're holding up, even if they are really nice. Yeah. Stuff isn't meant to last forever. Okay, you guys, I want to pivot a little bit because you guys have been so successful in the short term and the midterm space.
I want to know when you're looking at a market and you're evaluating it. And obviously you guys are playing a lot in your backyard, right? With investing and living in Salt Lake City, but I think you've definitely been experienced enough to know how to evaluate markets and working with clients and such like that.
What do you look for when you're looking to say this property would be a good fit for midterm or I don't know if this is quite the right. Yeah, for me, I'm looking for what's performing best in a market and then how does that translate to how the property I'm looking at is going to perform?
And so I like, let's say I'm analyzing a potential deal. I see it's like a three bed, two bath. I don't know Big Bear, California, because we're looking we've done some properties there. I am now going to type in three bed, two baths in AirDNA, which is one of the property Analyzer tools.
Analyzer tools I use. I'm also going to just go on Facebook Marketplace. I'm going to see how people are just listing their three bedroom, two baths in terms of room rentals or even just the full midterm situation. And then I'm also just going to look at the statistics coming in from Furnished Finder.
And if they're wanting it to be a midterm rental, I'm going to just look at what the demand looks like and what the supply looks like. And that's probably like the biggest indicator of whether or not I think that deal would look be a good midterm rental. And then for a short term rental, I am going to look at what is doing well, how well they're doing.
Is it worth it? Sometimes it's not even worth it in certain markets. Salt Lake City being one of them, it's not a fantastic short term rental market. Because there's so much regulation, there's not as, there's not as much competition, and so the prices aren't really shooting up like you would think they would in a big growing city.
And so because of that, midterm renting is actually a really great opportunity because there is a lot of This migration during certain seasons, snow birding and summer birding, et cetera. And so I think it's important to like, look at what is doing best in that market. And then if there's enough space, and if you're going to compete at the same level as what's doing the best.
Then you have a chance to do that with your property. So I think that's like the thing. Do you have the budget? Yeah, sure. There's a three bedroom, two bath looking amazing as a short term rental in Big Bear, California. But did they put in 300, 000 into that property? They probably did. Do you have 300, 000?
No? Okay, then let's look at what's doing well. at the same level that you think you could accomplish, and is it worth it then? There's never going to be a perfect yes, for sure you can do it, unless you're willing to go to the absolute highest level. Otherwise, you're just going to have to make a really good prediction about what you think you can do based on the revenue you're seeing.
It would be awesome if you could get in touch with people who are actively doing it in the market. Go on the midterm rental. Hey, is anybody on midterm rental in Big Bear Housing? Can I talk to you about it? I think that would be like a huge way to know, to give yourself some risk mitigation.
Just understand what it is that you're willing to do, how much you're willing to pay and what you're willing to give up if it doesn't work out. But a lot of times you can get a really clear picture of what you'll do and what you'll make using some of those resources I talked about. Okay I think let's wrap up with one last question.
Any Furnished Finder marketing tips for those listening for, pricing your rental, fees for your rental, how to stand out in comparison to others. What are your Furnished Finder marketing tips? I'll take this because I handle a Furnished Finder. I think it's, for me, one of the things I like to do since at this point Furnished Printer doesn't have a way for you to see like a calendar and you know exactly what dates are available.
It's coming very soon. I heard it's coming, so that's really exciting. But while we can't do that, I like to put at the very top of my listing description what months are available. And for my market, it's very particular there's price differences. for each month because it's so seasonal.
So I say January available. This is the price for the month. February unavailable, March available. This is the price for the month. June on available. This is the summer rates. And so that's been super helpful. I've played around with setting the actual price at the highest and at the lowest.
And I've noticed that some people like at the one that's the cheapest and when I have at the lowest, I get more inquiries directly. But a lot of them are like. That's all the price to use. I said, Oh, our summer rate or winter rate is this. And they're like, that's all the price it was. And I realized, so that can be misleading.
I'm like, Hey, it's in the description. I'm trying to be as just communicative as I can. At the same time with the greatest part about Furnished Finder, you can just see who's coming in, whether or not they particularly want your property or not. You can at least understand, reach out to them and see if you can find a conclusion there.
But for the most part, I'd say you can just keep a really keen eye on the. the tenant leads that are coming in and then just try to reach out to everyone you can. You never know who might be a good fit and they might put their budget as one thing and then they're actually willing to do something different.
And in my market, like the 32 plus is like pretty much what we're looking at. So I don't really know what their budget is because that's the max you can put. And so that, that makes it so that a lot of more conversations can come out of that. But yeah, I'd say play around with seasonality if you haven't tried that before.
You'd be, if there is seasonality in your market, like you could potentially be charging more in different months. So maybe notice whenever your place is booking up months in advance and those could be the months you could maybe get a little bit more revenue for. I'll just add, this applies to a lot more than just, the rental game, but just iteration being the name of the game, right?
Getting started is the most important step. Next most important step is step two, right? It's just, it's a game of incremental improvements. You're always just incrementally making it a better experience and then also understanding like incrementally a Higher price point whatever it is, right? It's such a game of steps and more than phases.
Yeah Definitely. Katie, any last thoughts? No, I just, I think you guys are the perfect example of really getting creative and getting resourceful and learning from every step you've gone through. Like you just said, Levi, learning and growing in steps, but also you guys have Really take an advantage of each of those steps to make sure that those lessons carry over with you into your future.
And I think that's huge. And from how you do renovations and how you furnish all the way down to how you communicate and how your property description is, you guys tinker with stuff. Play around, see what happens when you change your headline or your description or the property or the way you furnish it, right?
Explore a little bit. And I think just giving permission to, um, discover what works for your business and your market is the only way we're all going to grow. So kudos to you guys for doing that. And please share with everybody how they can get in touch with you if they would like to, and how they can connect with you on social media or otherwise.
Yeah. My name again is Bella Chenko on Instagram. I'm, let's go with Bella. That's my handle. And you can also visit our website. Let's go design.co if you wanna see any of our renovations and interior design projects. I, Levi, and then I'm just, Levi Chenko. If you can figure out how to spell that last name.
Good luck. . It's not it sounds super phonetic, but yeah, just Levi Chenko on Instagram. On LinkedIn. And it'll be in the show notes as well. Probably on the. The title of the episode. So thank y'all so much for just sharing your midterm rental journey and especially all the design tips and tricks.
If you want to see their listings, don't forget to go to the show notes and you can click on their Furnished Finder listings, check out how they designed them in Salt Lake City and maybe you want to take your property to the next level and consider working with Bella and Levi. Stay tuned.
We have tons of playlists on YouTube. So if there's a certain topic you want to dive deeper into. Such as you want more design videos or you want to know I'm new to midterm rentals. I'm just getting started You know, what should I learn? We've got a playlist for that. So thanks for joining us We'll catch you again soon and always here for anything midterm rentals.