As the short-term rental (STR) market continues to evolve, forward-thinking real estate investors are discovering the advantages of diversifying their portfolios with mid-term rentals. This hybrid approach not only boosts profit margins but also provides a stable income stream and optimized property utilization.
The balance between short-term and mid-term rentals
Short-term rentals have long been a favored income strategy, appealing to vacationers and offering high turnover rates. However, incorporating mid-term rentals—a leasing model lasting from one to six months—can complement and enhance the overall performance of your rental portfolio.
Benefits of adding mid-term rentals to your short-term rental strategy
Increased Flexibility and Occupancy: The ability to toggle between STR and mid-term rentals based on seasonal demand can significantly enhance occupancy rates. In peak tourist seasons, you can capitalize on STR income. During off-peak times or shoulder seasons, mid-term rentals fill gaps, reducing vacancy periods.
Diversified Revenue Streams: While STRs excel during holidays and high-demand periods, mid-term rentals offer a steady income source during slower months. This dual strategy ensures consistent cash flow, even when STR demand dips.
Lower Operational Costs: With mid-term rentals, there's reduced turnover compared to STRs, resulting in fewer cleaning sessions, less marketing effort, and maintenance savings. This efficiency supports higher profit margins while maintaining property quality.
Leveraging Furnished Finder for success
Utilizing platforms like Furnished Finder (opens in new tab) is an excellent way to pivot seamlessly between STR and mid-term rentals. It offers a comprehensive database of travelers seeking medium-length stays, particularly among professionals on business trips or relocations, providing you with a consistent tenant pipeline without reliance on high booking fees.
Tips for integrating mid-term rentals
Evaluate Seasonal Trends: Analyze your property’s performance across different seasons to devise an optimal STR and mid-term rental strategy.
Optimize Amenities: Ensure your property is equipped with essential amenities that appeal to both short-term and mid-term renters.
Adapt Your Marketing Approach: Utilize high-quality images and detailed listings to appeal to varying tenant groups. Make sure your Furnished Finder profile highlights the versatility of your property to attract mid-term clients.
Integrating mid-term rentals into your existing STR portfolio not only diversifies your income but also fortifies it against seasonal variations in demand. By strategically balancing both rental types, you can maximize your property’s potential and ensure a stable, lucrative investment.
Are you ready to expand your STR strategy? Listen to this podcast episode (opens in new tab) for insider tips on integrating monthly mid-term rentals and transforming your real estate approach for sustained success.
Episode 146 Transcript
For us, the original reason why we started learning more about the midterm rental strategy was leveraging our slower season. at first it was an experiment to see what will it be, what we can make on a short term rental for the month in our slow season. Could we find someone to cover
That time period the first season we did beat what we would've made as a short-term rental, and I did realize that okay, I don't have to. Keep working. Again. That said, hustling for that next day. I had some time to regroup and prepare for our high season, what I learned was that, and then I think this will be a great takeaway from anyone listening who wants to do a.
Short to mid back to short is to give yourself more time to find that perfect midterm guest. 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 largest online marketplace for midterm rentals. Remember to like and subscribe if you enjoy our content. Today, we're joined by a dynamic duo, Sarah Karakaian, and Annette Grant, Co-founders of Thanks For Visiting. A coaching network dedicated to helping hosts build profitable short-term businesses with 43 rental properties, $5 million in revenue, and over 3,505 star reviews under their belt.
They've mastered the art of creating properties that feel like home and make money like a. With background spanning Broadway and HGTV flips, they'll share how hosts can navigate SDR challenges, diversify with midterm rentals and use Furnished Finder to create stability and reduce risk. Most professional short-term rental hosts eventually hit a ceiling burnout.
Turnover, fatigue or unpredictable earnings. Today we're diving into how adding midterm rentals can change that game. Ladies, thanks so much for being with us. How are y'all doing today? We're so good. Yeah. we're excited to chat with you. Yes, this is gonna be so much fun, lots of personality and life on this episode, so stay tuned till the end.
We might as well start off with, you've both built very successful short-term rental businesses and share that knowledge with others, for those that don't know about, Thanks For Visiting. How did it come to life and what is it?
Sarah and I actually were complete strangers, but we met at a city council meeting. We both showed up because Our city was wanting to put some really strict regulations on short term rentals, and the reason I. We like to tell the stories. It's really important for any real estate investor.
To show up at these events because it is your property and if you don't show up and let the city, the county, wherever there's know that it's your property and how you want to use that property. Things could change on you. Please be plugged in to your local community whatever that may be, from an HOA to your city, to your county, to your state.
Please get the alerts, be involved and show up. And you never know, you might meet a business partner that turns into best friend, that turns into fellow real estate, like we're investing in real estate together now. the return on investment there has been game changing for us.
I love that we've talked to so many partners who have met each other through doing their business. It was just like I was going through day-to-day life in my business, operating the way that I like to operate, and then you meet someone who. Operates similar to you, Has the same core values, runs their business with the same integrity, and you're gonna find those people.
So we're gonna talk a lot today about short-term rentals and mid-term rentals and how they can work together. you guys live and breathe short-term rentals, but also have. Been exploring how you integrate midterm rentals into that strategically and practically. And, for all of these different reasons that we'll talk about.
But with your experience as a short term rental expert, what made you first explore midterm rentals? What piqued your interest there? It was a few years ago now. We are champions of knowing your numbers, reviewing your numbers, tracking your numbers, and I was sitting down with our revenue manager and talking to her about the upcoming slow season.
we were. Matching the market. we were performing as we should. When it came to our slow season, we were getting as much occupancy and a DR and market share as possible. But I was like, but I don't like to be average. I don't wanna just meet the market. I want to exceed the market.
So we were think, what can we do? Do I go door knocking? Do I run ads on the radio? What do we do? I was also managing other people's assets at the time. a lot of responsibility in making sure that I'm getting them as much money for their property as possible. And we just had the idea of what if we pivoted to a midterm rental strategy during the slow time?
And we've learned a lot since then of how to do it best, but that decision to try something different and pivot during our slow season has really changed the game for us as property managers for other people's properties. It really put us at the top of the list in our marketplace because we are willing to do something different, think differently, and always be on our toes for the properties, and we haven't looked back.
Yeah, that's all really great points because there's a lot of reasons why you can be in your lane and then you see something on social media or you have a need that pops up and you need to find a solution. And being able to balance that throughout the year with your occupancy and your revenue is super important.
What are some of those Things that you've seen can help someone recognize the value of midterm rentals, that balance, that short term and midterm? We see people having a season of life. Short term rental hosting is part-time, but all the time. You are on 24 7. And so we've seen a lot of hosts just, maybe they hit a busier time in their life personally maybe for their children, maybe for a aging parent.
And the day to day hustle and and everyone that Sarah and I work with, like they give five star stays and they are not skimping on anything. So they really are going that extra mile sometimes. Your life needs more attention than your property. And so we've seen people, they don't wanna completely get out of the game.
They love it. They just need to have the stability and a little bit more time to focus on what's going on in their life When we were at that city council meeting, you better believe Sarah and I were doing the math on, if short term rentals went away, we would have to only midterm rent.
we see a lot of people we encourage this that they should know the midterm rental numbers. They should know short term, they should know midterm, they should know long term.
So we see that too. A lot of times when people are looking for acquisition, they start thinking about midterm rentals. How would that fit in? Because they wanna grow their portfolio and they're like, I don't know if I can continue to grow. they don't have the team that they need to take care of, like we said, 24 7 and the turnovers and all the work involved There's so much pivoting within real estate investing, no matter what strategy you're doing, it's important, and I really like the way you guys think about this because. when you just started to consider midterms, it wasn't like the end of the world.
I'll do midterms. It was like, Hey, here's little challenges. how can we pivot? How can we tweak and use this strategy to improve Or to take a minute to breathe or figure out my systems, Honestly, I felt wow, we're being creative.
We are being resourceful with this property. to be a successful business owner no matter if you're your business' homes or your business is, a coffee shop, like you've gotta be resourceful. You've gotta be creative, and you've gotta be willing to zoom out and make sure there aren't better ways to operate or different ways to operate.
And one thing I wanna add to. The reasons why you might wanna have a hybrid strategy. It's also we manage and own multifamily and it's really cool. To diversify within multifamily For example, we have a 12 unit and they are some of the units that have washer and dryers in the property and some that don't.
And so the ones that do are grand slams for midterm rental in our area. 'cause there are so many businesses and hospitals and things of that nature where we attract midterm stays. And in the places that don't have washer and dryer, it's not a big deal. For people who are coming to our area for the weekend or a much shorter stay they don't necessarily need laundry,
So it's just great to, not be so siloed in your thought process and be creative with how you use your property. Yeah. I was just about to ask you a real life example of where you have blended short term and midterm rental and you beat me to the punch. But I think that's a great point, right?
when you're going somewhere for a weekend, you don't need a washer and dryer. Maybe it's a, bonus if like you're going to the beach and you wanna wash your clothes afterwards or something. But it's not a big, you're not expecting it, You don't go somewhere on a short trip and expect it.
How else have you guys successfully, like in real life, integrated these two strategies successfully? So like I mentioned earlier, for us, the original reason why we started learning more about the midterm rental strategy was leveraging our slower season. at first it was an experiment to see what will it be, what we can make on a short term rental for the month and our slow season.
Could we find someone to. To cover those, that time period and the first season we did beat what we would've made as a short term rental. And I did realize that okay, I don't have to, keep working. And again, that said, hustling for that next day. I had some time to regroup and prepare for our high season.
what I learned and then I think this will be a great takeaway from anyone listening who wants to do short to mid, back to short. Is to give yourself more time to find that perfect midterm guest. I didn't give myself enough time because you do have people, staying there for longer.
there's more of that, Hey, does this fit for what I need for this 30, 60, 90 day stay? I didn't quite realize that I'd have more conversations with people before finding the perfect fit. So the next season we started much earlier, which people are, I thought, 'cause the short term stays, our booking window could be anywhere from 15 to 30 days.
But with our midterm rental market. People are looking 45 days out, 30 days out. So I could be looking for my midterm rental tenant guest while still hosting short term. And if they wanted to come and see it, I could let them do that. But starting earlier was the key to us really having success that following season, and we've adapted that every year since, and it's been great.
Yeah, that's right in line with the Furnished Finder. Average is around 40 days is the book to stay window, So if you're taking those short term reservations well in advance, then you might miss that great three month, six month stay. The average stay on Furnished Finder is 90 days, so four guests a year.
I would be curious. When you're looking at your properties, you decide, Hey, maybe I want to diversify a bit. Does this property fit well for either short term, midterm, or a combination of both? How do you decide that? Sarah has a property that is specifically midterm rental and I think it's we're very the reason she has this rental full-time midterm rental is very near and dear to our hearts.
Also, because we feel like rental hosts a lot of times. Might put people let's say in a up and coming area, lots of construction, maybe all of the houses are getting rehab. There's just a lot of activity that if someone's coming for a weekend or a few days, they don't really understand the makeup of the community.
And so I'll let Sarah speak to that of why she and her husband have one property that is. Only midterm rental at this time. Yeah. And I don't want it to get misunderstood that it's an unsafe neighborhood. It's not, it's actually highly desirable, but there is a lot of activity going on.
the reason why we bought the property was we are. A 10 minute walk from a giant hospital that attracts a lot of top talent and there's the Ronald McDonald House. So whether it's the families of the people that are coming to stay there, or the doctors or nurses that come and serve at the hospital those were my target they understand 'cause they're gonna be working there for longer contracts.
And the construction that's going on there, there's a lot of building and growth So we've gotten a lot of contractors who can wake up and walk to work if they wanted. this way I don't have to explain as much or as often to the people who have come to find out more about the property because they wanna stay in that area.
They wanna be a part of the fabric of that area and neighborhood. But to answer your question from the start of our short-term rental journey over a decade ago, I've always wanted to have. If hotels know something that I don't know when I was getting started, right?
So if they always have a good quality dresser, you don't go to a hotel and have something that's plywood right? And they've got closet space with hangers. all those things that you need to be able to unpack. And so that was always my thought.
When furnishing property is to have quality furniture, for stocking a kitchen. It's can they make a Thanksgiving dinner? And this was before midterm was even a thought So we were well equipped to pivot from short term to midterm from the get go.
And that way guest tenants, can come in and really unpack and feel. At home, there were a few things we had to tweak to accommodate a midterm rental guest, give them more sheets, more towels so they can, change the linens during their stay work out.
How we can get the places clean to our standards. For us, it's mandatory that guests who stay longer than 30 days have biweekly cleans by our team. that's a conversation we have with them before they book with us. other than that, it was, it's a pretty seamless transition to from, whether a property's a good fit or not.
We just wanna make sure that people would wanna stay there with midterm, whether it's family or a business or construction or healthcare, it runs the gamut in terms of where short stays, it's a little different, right? You might have people who wanna come stay with their family in different areas, but it's a little bit harder of a cell especially if there's more competition.
But I've just found with even we're, Annette and I are starting a glamping site and I was looking at some of the numbers people will go and stay there for 20, 30, 45 days in these smaller cabins to like. Get away, unplug. Have a stake station. What are they doing? Maybe they're writing books. We don't know what they're doing in the works, but it's
Yeah. People with this work from Anywhere movement and this flexibility with work. I just love that we are able to use Mitch Rental strategy to diversify. Looking for a simple, professional way to manage your monthly rental. Furnish, finder's, landlord tools brings everything together, tenant screening, lease templates, property insurance, damage protection plans, and online rent payments all in one place.
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I think it's incredibly smart and wise that you guys are listening to both sides. all too often we hear people thinking of only one side. there's a lot of traveling medical professionals or relocating families, which is a huge part.
what does the supply look like? I love how you mentioned that one property with a lot of construction around it, as a supply for, a short-term rental, is not so great, right? A midterm rental, you get to establish that relationship.
You get to say, Hey, it's an up and coming area. There's a lot of new development, new restaurants, new coffee shops, new walking paths, new dog parks. But you might hear some noise is that gonna work from you? It just gives you this whole different opportunity to practice hospitality in a totally different way.
So I think that's really smart how you guys are approaching it by just looking at your local community, looking at the local needs, and also looking at the property and saying who does this serve? And you're right, hotels have figured it out. They all know things that we don't know. I wish we did.
But I don't think it's anything like. Earth shattering, right? where there's a lot of extended stay hotels, there's probably a need for extended stays. Exactly. Where there's a lot of regular, typical length hotels, there's a good demand for short term stay. Glamping. I'm really excited.
Hopefully I can stay at your glamping site. Absolutely. Once you figure it out. Because my family is really intrigued by the idea of camping and I have told them I am not sleeping on the ground under any circumstances. So really stoked for this. But anyway let's talk about the flip side, right?
Like we've talked about how a midterm rental could work really well. Are there any situations or any properties where you look at and you're like, you know what, this property is just, it's not gonna work for a midterm. It's it, there's a red flag here. Something is not right. Maybe the washer and dryer is an instance, right?
are there any properties or students learning from you, who you're like, you know what, that's a red flag. This is not gonna be a successful midterm rental for you. I've got two thoughts at Annette. Let me fill in my gaps for me. Okay.
That same 12 unit property has, it's an older building and there's a third floor. It's an attic conversion and a walk up and at the time it's actually getting renovated with the thought of making sure that we can accommodate midterm rentals 'cause it's been so successful.
Before then, no washer and dryer is up there. So not only do you have to walk up three flights of stairs, which on a short term basis may not be so bad because it is in the heart of it all here in Columbus. It is the premier location. But if you are a midterm guest that would get really old you'd have to walk down all three flights of stairs, go around the building outside to use the washer and dry that we have available in the basement.
it's just not ideal. It's a really tough sell. Especially when there's so much competition crushing us in terms of amenities. that was one. And then any of our larger homes, unless we got lucky with. Relocation or an insurance claim situation where an entire family is being recla.
It was a little tougher sell for us for the larger homes. It's not impossible. We had some success with it, but with our smaller one two bedroom washer dryer units really location agnostic, they always crush it. But that thought process of what is their quality of life gonna be in there for 30 60.
90 days being the average. And that third floor, we just decided, you know what? Let's just not even have that be an option for midterm. Let's just keep it short term. It keeps winning. And that was after testing. We did lose some money comparing year over year, but you don't know unless you test. And that was our realization with that one.
There's two things I do wanna bring up again, 'cause the midterm rental guest might say it's not a big deal, but then it ends up being a big deal. Number one, parking. We have some places, like Sarah said, they are in the heart of it all. They do not have designated parking. It's City Street parking.
And they might think that's okay, but Once they're there in the dead of winter when we're doing our midterm rentals, it could just be a thorn in their side. So parking is really important to us And the second thing is we're pet friendly in almost all of our rentals, whether they're short term or midterm, and really making sure, again, a fenced in backyard, it'd be gr.
We want to provide that for. Our dog loving friends. We do the strategy in the dead of winter, is it gonna be okay for them going outside? Thinking about the pets long term also.
So we'll do the double P there. Pets and parking, you really wanna think about them. And how someone staying there longer, how can we make sure we're accommodating the car and their four-legged friend? And you guys are in the Midwest, right? So the winter park, like that's a big deal. Even a lot of my midterms are in the Midwest and the parking, even if it's like I have a parking spot for you, it's uncovered.
It's in a lot like, and they're like, oh, that's fine. And it's, I wanna make sure you understand what that means in February in the Midwest. Like you're gonna need 20 extra minutes, right? However, this is what's really excellent. We can share that we're giving our location.
Midterm rentals are great because we're not having to like, oh my gosh, we need to get over there and shovel, like they're checking out at 10. We can't let 'em fall down. there's people in the building, so like the pipes aren't freezing 'cause that could happen.
Really quickly overnight. we like having warm bodies, In those properties. In that winter time. And so then winds, snow when things like that come in. If there's a huge storm, we're not like, oh, is the guest gonna be able to check in at 10 o'clock? we shoveled earlier, but they're getting in late.
So there's some of that weather stress that is very real, it's not as big of a burden when your guest is in there all winter long, and then all, and then again, just you feel better about your property. 'cause someone's in there, they've got the heat on. If anything, any.
They can get pipes, anything like that. We just have that second set of eyes and they become really invested in the property too. It's their home. Maybe a short term guest might not say anything where a midterm of course would, because they're gonna be there for a while.
And that clarity, right? Like just making sure that they understand hey, there's no parking or there's no designated parking. Are you sure you're good with that? Are you sure there's no fenced in yard? Are you good with that? Some people are totally okay with it. It's just that chance to make clarity.
And that's where the pace of a midterm rental booking, you get to make that relationship. You get to confirm all of these details. Just a little bit slower 'cause it's a longer relationship and I think that takes an adjustment when you're coming from short term and it's so fast. when I use my properties for short term rentals, I'm like, oh my gosh, this went from request to book to, they booked in two seconds, hold on. And then you switch to midterm and it's okay, let's do a screening. Let's sign a lease. Because they're there so much longer. So I think those are fantastic examples of things to consider and make sure are very clear.
I'm sure everyone listening can tell what fantastic educators you ladies are. Katie and I, are focused on providing education in the midterm rental space. You ladies really focus on the short-term rental space, but so much of the furnished rental. Experience overlaps and you provide five star training on how to be a great host.
And I'd like for you ladies to have an opportunity to tell about your upcoming bootcamp for Thanks For Visiting. I think it's on September 12th. And it sounds like it could be for short term or midterm rental operators. Why don't you tell us about it?
What we're gonna work on, it's a very hands-on bootcamp, is the Listing Audit Bootcamp. as short and midterm rental hosts is our listing and how we can communicate it as clearly and as effectively as possible to get lookers into bookers. whether they wanna stay for one night.
Which we love. to 90 nights or beyond. We have to make sure our listings are set up as the billboards that they are, the demand for furnished stays is still incredibly high. But our competition has never been more fierce, so we have to stay on top of what's actually working and getting conversion.
So taking that person who is interested in booking you to actually clicking around and a button to either have a conversation with you on Furnished Finder or to book with you on any of the other online travel agencies so that we can all be really successful. Real estate investors and hosts.
You're listing, it's your sales and marketing team. So during our bootcamp, we're gonna go through that. We're gonna go through your photos to exactly how you're communicating your home through the words to those potential guests. this is something that. Anybody that has their property listed anywhere needs to show up because you cannot set it and forget it.
I don't care where you are showcasing your home. We have got to get in and it's a great time right now. Get it all dialed in. So for 2026, you are gonna be the best listing in your town. Yes. I wanna join the bootcamp. Okay. Okay, so you go to thanks for Visiting . Yes. Okay. I love it. it cannot be overemphasized you guys, like anytime that, I love how you said that it's your billboard because all too often I have landlords come up to us at conferences or even just send me messages.
I have people who find my personal Instagram, which kudos for the detective work. And they're like, Hey, can you look at my listing for me? there's so many nuggets, so many things that you can do strategically and to test things, try different things out.
Setting it and forgetting it is not the game. I love how you're practicing that. I get a lot of landlords and. Hosts who ask, what else do I need to do to market my property? Where else do I need to post it? Where else do I need to share it?
You're thinking the wrong way. If you have it posted on Furnished Finder, on Airbnb, on all these platforms, that's our job, right? We're bringing the travelers, to this platform. Your job is to make your listing. Irresistible, right? So I think that's where people need to be putting their effort.
So I love that you are focused on that. So everybody go to thanks for Visiting (opens in new tab) . check it out because I'm sure anything with you guys would be awesome. Part of your listing is your pricing. Short-term rental pricing, is a massive elephant that is complicated and could be overwhelming.
I know you guys have. For certain mastered it. But how, when you go to price your midterms, how do you do that? What is your general strategy Actually I'm gonna be vulnerable here and I'm gonna share with you my strategy, but I am here if you two ladies have any tweaks for me.
So what I've done in the past, is go to the market. And see what my competitors are doing. I go to the long-term rental market and look at price per square foot. I will go to see what other furnished stays are doing, price per square foot, see what amenities they have, and almost like an appraisal process when buying a home I know other midterm rental hosts, they know what they wanna get.
They don't, if I don't get a thousand bucks a month cash flow, then it's not worth. I know there are a lot of different theories out there, but for me it's really positioning myself against the market. My competitors are my competitors, and I have to take that into consideration. And then just understanding, okay, the booking window of midterm rentals, am I within that booking window or am I getting dangerously close outside the booking window to where I'm gonna sit empty because my pricing's, a little out of whack with what someone's willing to spend.
So it is a moving target. I learned that too, is that the price of a midterm rental? There is some seasonality. I have to, even though it's a slow season for short-term rentals, it's also slower for midterm. in our market our pricing for January through March is different than for June through August. I can get more, there's more competition, so there's higher demand. I can tweak my price a little bit. So that's how we do it. Is there any, are there any other best practices I think you nailed it. It's not nearly as complicated as short-term rentals, right? I think when it comes to comparisons and comps, It's like looking at the number of bed and baths is probably more important than square footage. Just to keep it even a little bit more simple, we gotta love simple when we can have it.
And the importance of amenities, right? that free parking that can impact your pricing so much, that washer and dryer, that pet friendliness It's a big deal. Whereas in short-term rentals it might not move the needle quite as much 'cause you're only there a couple days, right?
And that bed to bath ratio, I didn't think it would be as impactful for my midterms as it is for my short-terms. even if I have a two bed, one bath versus my two bed, two bath, because I have a duplex that's the exact set up, my two, two flies. Even if it's one person staying there, the interest in it is so much higher than my two bed, one bath.
That bed bath count is huge. And just a couple reminders for those of us out there that don't always have washer dryers, you can be successful. You may just not have as many booking requests, but my properties that don't have washer dryers, they still have 95% occupancy throughout the year.
So it's worth doing the research and seeing If you think it's a good area and you listen to all of the advice we're giving the amenities can make a huge difference in how much booking potential you have. how does Furnished Finder fit into your toolkit?
Balancing that short term, midterm strategy throughout the year, or for your midterm only property. I am really big on systems, we have a PMS tied into our short-term rentals. I pair that with project management software Asana, so I can make sure we are staying up to date.
And we have everything understood in terms of, okay, if we're pivoting to midterm, we've got these leads going. I've got my Asana set up from, cold lead to warm lead to, Hey, we're in the leasing process to, hey, we've got a booked date. And then I can take action on the calendars In my property management software. if there's a better way to do it, I'm here for any education, but that's how I do it. To stay with my hybrid strategy to stay on top of all the things is Asana. It's asking that, it's my, yeah. And just really understanding your state laws, your city laws.
And being. Fair housing compliant. that's why we have those systems in place because we wanna make sure that we are across the board, anybody that's interested in our space, that we've done the same exact things, with all of the properties. So having our systems, having our Asana board where we know.
This is exactly what we're doing on all the properties. 'cause you are a landlord at that point in time. And so that's the one thing I think hosts we've gotta make sure that's part of our messaging right now is it goes from a guest to a tenant.
So you just wanna be aware of that and be prepared for that. And again, that's a really great lesson in knowing more of your. Laws and knowing how you can diversify your properties wherever they might be. And you're ready for anything. in your business, if you ever need to pivot being prepared and going back to talking about the listing, that's one of the things that led us like to Furnished Finder so easily.
We had all the listing, we had the photos of the property. We knew how to describe the property. we've already done this bulk of work over here. It's plug and play. So that's what's nice too, is you've done all that work. Why not try to diversify it there? you're tying in right to what I was just gonna ask you, which is how shifting to MTR, even in a hybrid method, can help you avoid burnout because it's a very easy switch to go from short term to midterm, right? in a midterm kitchen, you don't necessarily need to be able to cook a full Thanksgiving dinner. You need to be able to cook like. Sunday dinner.
you don't have to have it quite as furnished with all of the details. The furnishings are a little bit more basic. So if anything you're over prepared, which is like what better way to be than over prepared. how have you seen that shifting to midterm rentals can help you reduce burnout?
Give you more freedom to scale. how have you really seen that power come to life? I thought I was not only gonna make more money in my slower season, but I realized it gives me a moment to take a breath, maybe not have my phone glued to me as much as it needs to be when I have a short term.
Strategy allowing me time. Yes, I rest, but also, it allows me time to think about the property and how I can get it ready I have time. I have someone in there loving it. It was prepared just for them.
And then I can think about, okay, when I do shift back to short term, I take. Whatever time I need to do, bigger maintenance or an extreme deep clean to get it ready for the high season. Having that cadence now, you can get lost in that short term hustle of a whole year went by and we were just cooking and book in 365 days a year.
And having that three month stay gives me time to remember that. This home needs time to breathe. It needs time for me to think about how to improve it, how to keep it healthy. So just that time to think about what it needs to make sure I'm staying on top of my game each and every year and just pause.
That has also been really powerful. The midterm rental guests, it's their home. They really understand it very quickly. if there are questions at the beginning they tend to taper off as the first week or two go by and you're just like, wow, I have some time to just take a break.
And then when I feel rested, okay, how do I now prepare for the high season again? What can I do? Yeah, I think the way you guys have done the hybrid is so smart that I call it the switch on switch off method, which I completely made up. it's when you're mixing short term and midterm and you're not trying to fit two calendars together all the time, but you're saying, okay, high season is over.
I'm flipping the switch, we're going midterm for a while, and that might mean that you deny a short term booking. But you do it knowing that you're saving your calendar for that longer midterm stay. otherwise, let's say your low season is the summer 'cause it's just too hot where you are. You take one weekend booking, now you can't take a 30 day plus stay anywhere that overlaps and it really restricts that. is that typically how you manage the hybrid and your calendars? Yes. That is great that you bring that up because that was a lesson for us of not starting to find our tenant soon enough and then not blocking off the calendar and being confident that we will find someone.
Because if you get a booking for that, Annette and I. We don't like canceling on our short-term guests. We won't do it. if a guest books and we have no other way to upgrade them, that's on us and we're not gonna cancel their stay That's just an ethos that we abide by. the first year we made some mistakes. Second year, we block the calendar sooner than we think we need to, and we make sure that we cannot get these random polka, I call 'em polka dot stay. You know when your calendar just has that random weekend, in the middle of three or four months.
If you wanna do the on off strategy, you have to be confident and go all in on it. then spend the time to find that perfect tenant, it will pay off once you get them in there and they have a clear calendar it's just so worth it. I just have one last question for this episode.
Katie, has some fun conversation for us, but I would love to put in a few reminders for those thinking of adding midterm rentals to your short-term rental business when short-term rental sites say no payments off platform and take a large percentage of your profits, Furnished Finder allows you to book on your terms and takes 0% of your booking profits.
we have 300,000 listings nationwide. And over 250 million site visits each year. if you are looking to expand and diversify your short-term rental business, we recommend adding midterm rentals to that strategy. do you see midterm rentals as part of the future of short-term rental businesses
Absolutely. Ever since Sarah and I started Thanks For Visiting. the way people live is changing. And it's not just remote workers, it's retirees. It's midlife, sabbaticals. It's all changing. And I think more and more, I think people are going to live in multiple locations multiple times a year.
I just think this is definitely the way it's going. We see home ownership is down big time. I believe this is something that is going to continue to grow exponentially in the next decade and beyond. I think it has to be a part of your real estate investing strategy for sure.
a nice thing about midterm rentals we've talked about a couple times is when there's a ban in your city and you need to pivot because you're no longer allowed to do short-term rentals. Very rarely are midterm rentals affected because think of apartments that rent monthly they're not restricted.
So same idea in most cities. Monthly rentals are not restricted when you have to go through local laws to get approved for short-term rentals, and you don't often have the hotel tax that you have with short-term rentals as well. Absolutely. I wanna try something new. This episode that we've never done before, but I think could be super fun, and you guys are the perfect guests to try this out with are some rapid fire questions to end our episode with.
So I've got two rapid fire questions for you. I want your. Rapid fire answer. Let us know what you think. first one, most surprising or unique midterm rental guest you have ever hosted? Was it a traveling clown who was going to train other clowns? 'cause we hear of so many different people and life is changing, people are living differently.
What's the most unique. Tenant you've ever had. This isn't as fun as that, but it was someone who got kicked out of the house, like a gentleman who, told me the whole story. He was like, Hey, I know this is last minute. And I'm happy to go through the process as fast as possible, but my wife and I are separating and she's told me to leave the home.
And I was like, Here's the lease to sign. I didn't know what to say, why is she kicking you outta the house or my but anyway, that was probably the most like personal look into someone's reason to why they were booking for more than 30 days. I don't know if I've ever had a clown that sounds like a, I had a horror film director from Sweden, and he was coming in to debut his film. So he had to come in and market his film and then debut his film. And I'm not sure what, and I just remember trying to get more info and he gave me his social profiles and I quickly did not continue to follow them 'cause it was very horror film ish. And I was like, this is after I had approved the stay.
And guess what? Probably great when he left it was like. I'm like, were you even here? And he was like, I was very busy the whole time with my film. And I was like, good. Great. And he was awesome. He was amazing. it's so fascinating hearing everybody you forget how different people's lives can be than yours.
those are two very interesting, surprising, and unique stays. Okay. Last one, and I think this is the perfect one to conclude our discussion with. What is the best piece of advice you have ever received about scaling your business, whether that be your coaching business, helping all of these other real estate investors, hosts and landlords, or your own rental business What's a piece of advice that's really stuck with you? Be consistent. if you say you're going to check your numbers every Monday and be in your bookkeeping software, do it. Be consistent with it. if you're gonna post on, furnished finder and have conversations with your leads, do it.
You have to say what you're gonna do. You can't just live in that dream if you wanna make it happen, you've gotta do the thing and make sure you're consistent with it. if you lose that consistency, the energy drops. You don't learn as fast. You don't fail as fast.
failing is essential to. Scaling your real estate business if you say you're gonna do it and it's something you wanna do, decide what the steps are gonna get you there, and then do those steps and do them religiously. for me, showing up is 80% of the game, And quitting won't get you there any faster. So many people like, ooh, they'll become short term rental hosts and then they'll quit 'cause it didn't work. And then they'll become midterm rental hosts and quit that because it didn't work. just stay in the game.
Stay in the game. quitting won't get you to your goals any faster. I just really want people to know that it's not easier somewhere else. That's great advice. I'm sure everyone listening would love to connect with you, so how should they do so or follow you on social media,
Thanks For Visiting everywhere. And that's FOR. Thanks For Visiting. Instagram, YouTube podcast website coming out with us. We love talking about just the real work fun work and rewarding work it takes to be a furnished rental operator. one last reminder, look into this bootcamp that they are having.
I cannot emphasize the importance of making your listing. it cannot be overemphasized. So thanks for I really wanna look into it. I think it sounds like it'd be fantastic. You guys are so knowledgeable yet so approachable and friendly it's really great to work with not only two women who are leaders in the space.
but also just people who are, so thoughtful. smart and willing to share your knowledge in a wholehearted and genuine way, there's competition in this space, but there's so much room for everybody to succeed.
Supporting and working with people who are also just trying to rise the tide for everybody. check out Sarah and Annette and we cannot thank you guys enough for joining us here. Thank you. Have a great day and we'll catch you next time. Bye everyone.