In the dynamic landscape of real estate investing, adapting to market trends and demands is crucial. For investors navigating the world of furnished rentals, understanding the interplay between short-term rentals (STR) and mid-term rentals (MTR) can unlock new avenues for revenue and peace of mind. As Tim Hubbard, a seasoned real estate investor and CEO of Corzly, highlights in a Furnished Finder podcast episode (opens in new tab), the blend of STR and MTR strategies not only diversifies income but also reduces operational burdens. Here’s a deep dive into how these rental strategies can work in tandem and why MTR might just be your simpler path to success.
The rise of short and midterm rentals
The rise of platforms like Airbnb revolutionized short-term rentals, promising significant returns and versatility. However, as the market matured and regulations tightened, Furnished Finder (opens in new tab) and the mid-term rental market emerged as a viable, less demanding alternative. Mid-term rentals typically cater to traveling professionals and relocating families who need accommodations for one to six months. The MTR strategy fills the gap between the fleeting nature of STR and the stability of long-term leases now securing 19% of the overall rental market in the US according to this AirDNA report (opens in new tab).
Why mid-term rentals are easier
Managing a short-term rental involves frequent guest turnover, which means constant cleaning, maintenance, and guest inquiries. In contrast, mid-term rentals offer the stability of longer stays, reducing the frequency of tenant turnover to an average of four stays per year to reach strong occupancy numbers. As Hubbard points out, the workload significantly decreases with MTRs since guests, much like long-term tenants, operate independently after the initial move-in phase. This means less hassle and more time for property owners to focus on other ventures or to simply relax.
“You're the biggest advertiser of midterm rentals; people know to go to Furnished Finder. I'm excited to see where you guys go with the technology, but you have all those pieces in place so if someone wants to do their background check, their house rules, all those things directly through your guys' platform and your connections, then it's a one stop shop.” - Tim Hubbard, Host of the STR Riches Podcast
Key strategies for smooth rental management
Leverage technology and systems: Hubbard emphasizes the importance of using technology to manage rentals effectively. Tools like Furnished Finder provide invaluable data and resources for landlords to tap into the mid-term rental market seamlessly. Additionally, maintaining a strong short-term presence through platforms such as Airbnb or dedicated property websites ensures greater visibility.
Develop strong local contacts: Having reliable local contacts, such as cleaners and handyman services, are important for unexpected issues. This is crucial if you're managing properties from afar, a common practice for many landlords today.
Adopt flexible rental policies: Flexibility is a critical component of success in furnished rental management. Adjust your rental terms seasonally, especially in markets with fluctuating demand, to maximize occupancy and revenue. For instance, off-peak seasons can be ideal for focusing on mid-term tenancies.
Set realistic tenant expectations: Clearly outlining house rules and property expectations in detailed rental agreements mitigates potential misunderstandings. As Hubbard recommends, setting the right expectations from the very beginning leads to smoother tenant relations.
Conclusion
The hybrid approach of integrating both short-term and mid-term rentals into your property investment strategy can maximize returns while minimizing stress. Understanding your market, utilizing the right tools, and maintaining flexibility in your rental operations are key to thriving in the rental industry. For real estate professionals and landlords eager to explore the opportunities of mid-term rentals, platforms like Furnished Finder (opens in new tab) offer a comprehensive resource to begin this rewarding journey.
Explore more on managing STR and MTR seamlessly by listening to the full podcast episode featuring Tim Hubbard, host of the STR Riches podcast.
Episode 160 Transcript
We have everything really well dialed in for short-term rentals. Like every step, everything you could think of, like we've got it covered, and we do a really good job there. And so for us, transitioning a lot of properties or being open to managing more midterm rentals was a lot. It's a lot easier.
Tim Hubbard is a real estate investor educator, and the CEO of Corzly, a leading virtual property management company that has hosted over 50,000 guests across 10 countries and 40 cities. He's also the host of the STR richest podcast with more than 300 episodes, making him one of the most. Seasoned voices in the short-term rental space with a portfolio of over 50 Airbnb units and midterm monthly rentals in multiple states.
Tim brings a rare depth of insight on how to strategically combine short-term rentals and midterm rentals for more income and less hassle. Tim, we just really appreciate you being with us today. How are you? I'm doing great. Yeah. Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here. Good. Good. And Tim is in Brazil, so you can one host from anywhere and record from anywhere.
So this is a fun example of how we are just so tech savvy all across the world. But let's jump into the conversation. Tim, for those who aren't familiar, can you share how you got started in short and midterm rentals and when you realized you can manage them successfully from, eh, somewhere like Brazil?
Yeah, of course. So I got started in real estate about 15, 16 years ago. And after having long-term rentals for a while, I was traveling a lot. I was staying in short-term rentals, and I realized there was a lot of opportunity with short-term rentals. And so I started converting some of my properties over, over to short-term rentals, and that became the focus and fast forward.
I don't know, a decade later my, my portfolio grew a lot. I expanded into other cities, other states, and eventually in other countries. That's part of the reason that I've landed down here in Brazil. And now with midterm rentals, I it's interesting. So there's a lot of good use cases for midterm rentals, and I've had my own portfolio properties that have been mainly focused on short-term rentals.
But I've had some properties that got regulated and so my next option was midterm rentals. And now that we're managing properties for other people, we're managing over 200 properties now in a whole bunch of different places. And naturally a lot of our partners properties. Have gotten regulated or they maybe have some short-term rentals, but they have other properties where they're like, Hey, I think this could work well as a midterm rental.
And so it's just been a natural evolution into the midterm space and we think there's a ton of opportunity with it. And so yeah, we have some properties that are strictly short-term rentals, some that are strictly midterm rentals, and then quite a few where we transition just based on things like seasonality.
I love that you've been so opportunistic when it comes to the regulation of certain areas in certain markets, because it could be devastating if you don't have that type of perspective with it. Before we dive more into the short term midterm opportunity let's talk a little bit more just like high level about how you have started to manage these properties from afar and made that work.
What was. What was the learning curve like at first when you're like, okay, I can be far away and still manage all of these properties For me, like I, I'm from California originally and that's where I started investing. I think that's. What a lot of people do naturally they, we just go to our backyard, but the economy had changed and I was looking for better returns.
I landed in Tennessee after that and Tennessee's not that close to California, so had to learn to manage things virtually from there. And so to me, it really doesn't matter if you're a hundred miles away or 3000 miles away if you're not there locally to be doing these. Tasks and everything evolved with a midterm rental or a short-term rental, then you gotta figure it out.
And that's just what we've done. We've used a lot of software. We have a amazing team now with a lot of experience. And it's been a, it's been a good journey. I. Good. Yep. Get your boots on the ground. We like to say you really need two to get started, right? You need your cleaner and you need your handyman.
So if you just have one property, that's all you need. So it doesn't have to be difficult, but as you scale, you definitely need those systems in place to be able to travel and just rely on your team that is your boots on the ground. Tim we love that you have a midterm rental. Training tool on your website a free resource.
Same with Furnished Finder. Of course, if you go to Furnished Finder's landlord resources tab what we want you to see is here's how you should get started in midterm, monthly rentals. You're gonna find out on that resource tab. We've got this podcast, we've got we've got our blog page. So in general, you described that monthly rentals are that short spot.
That, that sweet spot between short-term and long-term rentals, why do you think that is? Like, why do people, why do you think people overlook this niche? Yeah, that's an interesting question. I think before Airbnb it was just long-term rentals. It was like someone rents for a year, their lease is up, hopefully they renew it, and you.
A happy tenant for a long time and then Airbnb came along and it just blew up, right? Everyone's oh, so much opportunity. I'm gonna five x my income, and that was reality back then. You know that's when I got. Started, I was like, oh my gosh, these properties are making so much more money. So it's almost like that midterm section just got overlooked.
There was so much media out there and people are always looking to earn the most, we, we want the free lunch, we. We wanna maximize what we can. And I feel like it just got overlooked. And because of a lot of the regulations maybe that have happened, or because of the actual workload that's involved to manage a short-term rental, people are like, oh, that, that's just too much.
But going back to a long-term rental is, just going back to step one I guess. And so a lot of people found that as a really good opportunity to have less operations to be earning more than a long-term rental. And then also to get around regulations if there happens to be regulations in the particular city.
It did F feel at least a few years ago, even like the quiet kid in the back of the classroom, right? Midterm rentals. It's like you've got these two loud competitors, you've got short-term rentals, you've got long-term rentals, and that it was a very bipolar seeming environment for a long time, and people are still just discovering midterms, which it baffles me, but it also makes me excited for.
Those who can realize that it's not just black and white. You can even have a mix of short and mid, or you can have some that are just good for mid, and it just, it makes it. There's, there are so many more options to fit your property, your market, your goals. So when you're talking to property owners or potential investors and they're considering their next move or they're trying to figure out what to do with the property, what are some of the myths?
You hear about midterm rentals that, that hold these people back because I could tell you a bunch of it, Kelly could tell you a bunch, but you're talking to people all day long who are primarily thinking about short term rentals. So it's interesting to hear what is the vibe on midterm rentals out there that is not necessarily true from your perspective?
I'd say a big one is that when we think of renting a property for a longer period of time, someone's in our property longer. They could potentially do more damage or they're, maybe we have to evict them or something like that. Maybe it turns into this disaster. And a lot of people are thinking that coming from a long-term rental perspective, but it's not it's just not as risky as long-term rentals.
I don't know. We're in there, in the properties more often. The stays aren't, they're shorter. A lot of times they're really good guests, traveling, nurses, people working, and so they're not really even actually using your property that much. So I'd say that's one of 'em, yes.
That's one of the myths is the tenant type is similar to short-term rentals, which is not really true. We monthly rental guests really are a. Benefit to your community, the they're there to, either work in the hospital or work at some tech company or checking out the area because they may want to relocate.
They may be developing a new infrastructure for you in your city. So monthly guests get tenant screenings. They sign a lease. Just like a long-term tenant and oftentimes the average we see is 90 days, but I have over half, my portfolio has been with me over a year, so you get longer stays with monthly tenants as well.
But one of the most common questions we get, Tim. Is, but will my property work for a monthly rental? Should I invest in the furniture? And so how do you determine with over, since you manage over 50 Airbnbs and monthly rentals, how do you determine if a property should be a hundred percent S-T-R-M-T-R, or a hybrid of both?
I think it comes down to the data, so seeing what's out there seeing how many midterm rentals are in your market, seeing what the potential demand might be when a lot of my properties that I invested in early on are in urban areas like midtown areas and near hospitals. I think hospitals like our population's living longer than we ever have, and.
Healthcare's really important. So I think that's just a very fundamental piece of investing in real estate is having healthcare and stuff nearby. And we know with healthcare you get a lot of traveling nurses. So for me that's actually was a backup plan. Along the way I was looking at short-term rentals first because they were earning more money, but knowing that being near hospitals and in an urban city or in a place where there's more people, if it's a larger city, there's more reasons for people to come there.
That's just what it comes down to. So whether they're relocating, thinking about living there, or they're traveling, they're a traveling nurse, or they're doing a big construction project or whatever it happens to be. I think understanding what is bringing people to the properties, so the demand side of it is an important piece, and the more options, the better, so if it's not just traveling nurses, but there's projects and other things going on then that's a big piece. And then really just looking at how much, as an investment, how much the property. Costs if someone hasn't purchased it yet, how much? I would always start with long-term rent.
How much can this property, or should this property earn on a long-term basis? Is it permitted as a short-term rental? And then we can, pull data on that from places like Air DNA or there's a bunch of different sources now. And then looking at it as a midterm rental.
And seeing how many are on Furnished Finder. You guys have great stats on your website as well, so I guess it just comes down to data, the numbers. And if your expenses and the property are below what you conservatively expect to earn on a monthly basis, then. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.
I like how you're positioning it because it, it is not always rocket science, right? It's what problem are you trying to solve? And do the numbers work for that? What would this property cost? What are your expenses? What could you get for rent? And long-term rental is always. Is always the safety net.
So I want to shift a little bit in talking into how you manage these properties remotely, because not only do you do it successfully, but you have a company that does it successfully for so many properties. You've made an ebook talking about how to do it. So let's talk about what is your one.
Automation or system that made the biggest difference for you early on? If someone's just gonna adopt one system? One. One standardization. What did you think made the biggest difference early on? How early are we talking, it's interesting with midterm because with midterm we have some owners who have 10 or 12 or 15, 50 properties, and we have some who have one or two, but they're still looking, anytime we can improve something or make it more efficient, it's still has an impact on your life.
Right? There's still, I, we still meet landlords every day who are doing things. So manually or just in ways where we're like, just simplify one or two things. We have everything really well dialed in for short term rentals. Like every step, everything you could think of. Like we've got it covered, and we do a really good job there.
And so for us, transitioning a lot of properties or being open to managing more mid terminals was a lot. It's a lot easier. We already have a reception team in place. We know that the inquiry process is different. A lot of people aren't going to instant book a property a lot of times for three months.
And with Furnished Finder we have to compete, against the other inquiries coming in, and we wanna make sure that we're competitive. So the way that our reception responds, I guess is quite a bit different, but the. The processes, a lot of the processes we already had in place, like getting a lease signed, getting a deposit all of those things.
Having some help, if you've got a full-time job or your this isn't your full-time gig, it's nice to have someone you know, like to help you out. Could be a virtual assistant and. There's less to do with midterm rentals. You get, get someone in. Kelly said, a lot of hers are over a year, and and we know when the midterm guests come in or tenants, they have questions usually in the first couple days and then they pretty much figure it out.
It's like they're living there and it's just smooth sailing from there. I think this is a fun time to bring in that personal side, right? I'm sure you have stayed in furnished properties just as much as you have hosted them. So what is your take on an experience, either someone that you've hosted or your personal experience on vacation or when you've been somewhere in a furnished rental for months at a time that has just wowed you, that you're like, yes, this is the way to do it.
Yeah I think the. The places that I've ever ended that would stand out are the ones that were set up for someone to actually live there. So they had more kitchen utensils. They had laundry. They, they have information on the nearest grocery store and. There's parking. When someone's staying there for a long term, they're living there and they want to feel like home.
And so it is different than a short-term rental. If your average stay was two nights, then you don't even need a closet, someone just comes in and they're there for a couple days to go to an event, but when someone's living at your property, you gotta think all the things that. We appreciate in a home.
And so I think the ones that stand out for me, were probably rentals where the owners actually live there themselves. Yeah. They're living there versus staying there. Which is different. They're gonna want some cookie sheets and maybe a blender and a little bit more. Full stocked and less importance on decor and bikes to ride around, things like that.
I think that's a great focus, especially if you're gonna have a property that does both. Let's talk about policies. I know when you have a short term rental it's really important that you have clear policies, house rules for guests. It's also important in the midterm space that you have clear policies and clear house rules.
Are there any house rules or policies that you think when you have a property that you're either shifting to midterm, whether it be seasonally or permanently, that you're like, okay, we need to make sure we have these policies in place 'cause we're gonna be using it as a midterm now maybe it's early lease termination or pets, or, what are the types of rules and policies that you think about with midterms that maybe don't come into play as much with short term?
Yeah I think so. Whether it's a short term rental, we have a lot of times what people call the house rules. That's Airbnb's version of a rental agreement. But we have a rental agreement for every property, and where it changes with the midterm rental is it becomes a lease. It's like an actual lease.
It has. Everything noted in there, just like someone would expect renting a property for a year. But then we've also added a few additional things in there that come up as a midterm rental. We know a lot of midterm guests extend and a lot of times, they might ask at the last minute, which if we're to block our calendar, especially if we're in a place where it could be short-term rental, then that could potentially not.
Not work out well on our end, we block the calendar and then they say, oh, I actually don't need the property. So we have some specific things in there for how much notice we need before we could guarantee that the property's available. We like to block the schedule afterwards.
And we, the more notice we have, the better. So that's definitely one that we would put in there. And then we also. Have a policy that says we'll do a midterm cleaning. And it's really after about two weeks of the tenant staying there, where we'll come in. It's not like a full-blown cleaning, but we'll take out the trash, we'll, clean things up.
And that's for us to check on the property, to make sure that they didn't show up with five dogs when they were only supposed to have one or, anything like that. I think that's, those are a couple of them, but yeah, it's basically we've got a long-term lease. Nice. That's one thing to actually highlight.
Since monthly landlords may, this may be your first LANDLORDING experience. And that's a common question is I wish that I had more gaps in my calendar because a lot of us see over 90% occupancy and they say, I wish I had more gaps so that I could get in and spot check. Check the property more, and of course, check your state laws and make sure you're doing everything properly.
But what long-term landlords do that is also helpful for monthly midterm rental landlords is changing out the a the air filters, right? It's like you need to do that about every one to three months depending on which type you buy. So it's a great way to get into the property and check on it.
It's just say, Hey, I need to come change the air filter for you. That's a great point with. Thank you. And with that in mind, just that the, this episode is really focused on how to do the hybrid ME method. You have such a extensive knowledge in short term rentals and midterm rentals and property management.
It's interesting, that balance, right? You have to wear your short-term rental hat sometimes, and then you have to wear your midterm rental hat sometimes. What does that look like in the mindset shift? How do you run 'em differently for short-term versus a midterm rental? Or do you run 'em both the same?
I'd say whether or not we run them both. So short-term rental and a midterm rental comes down to the numbers again. We will pull data and we'll look at a property and see what it could do as a short-term rental and what it can do as a mid-term rental. And aside from, looking at comps and other properties listed in the area, there's also some good data on tools like.
Price Labs, for example, which is traditionally for short-term rentals. But you can narrow things down with their data and their dashboards to look at length of stay. And you can narrow a neighborhood down by the size of the property and see how many people are actually booking monthly stays. And that gives, and for how much and how often, so that gives you some good insight into if it.
Makes sense as a midterm rental. If you happen to be in a place where you can also do short-term rentals and in a lot of places it maybe makes sense part of the year, but then it doesn't make sense the other part of the year. So in a place that's really seasonal, like Destin, Florida, for example we have a number of properties there and we know in, in the winter months.
It's still much warmer than it is in Canada, for example. But it's not the hot demand, high season like it is in the summer. And so that's a place where we'll go from short term rental. We change our restrictions on minimum. Length of stay we get as much exposure as we possibly can. So yes, on the short-term rental sites, but also sites like Furnished Finder, which are really helpful.
So we want to get as much exposure as possible, and we've increased the minimum length of stay to, 30 nights. And a lot of times those people are staying for several months. And then as that slow season. Fades away and the high demand season picks back up, then we change our minimum night restrictions and we have the ability to do that now on a seasonal basis.
So we could set that up from day one, where we know that during this period of time and this period of time, it makes sense for us to have a midterm rental. And so we're gonna adjust our calendar. Based off of that so it'll be open for the times outside of that as a short-term rental. And then during that slow season we're on all the platforms, trying to get as many midterm bookings as we can.
Anybody who has a seasonal market based rental and is not doing midterm rentals in the off season is immediately missing out. Like not only revenue wise, but peace of mind wise. Like I do not want to have a property in Arizona and I'm stressing about who am I gonna rent it to in August and I have two days booked.
It's a time where you can take a mental reprieve. It's a time where you can take a little bit of a reset. It's time where you can, midterm rental guests don't mind if you're like, Hey, I need to replace, the water heater. I'm gonna have a technician there Tuesday and Wednesday next week. They're like, okay.
'cause they live there. They understand that if they're there for 30, 60, 90 days, some stuff might need to be maintained or fixed, right? You can do some of this deferred maintenance, you can do some of these improvements while still making revenue and having someone in your property. So I really like your point of if you have a short-term rental in.
A highly seasonal market, like you have to be looking at midterms. You have to be, because you're gonna end up defaulting there anyway, just because that's the way to get the most juice out of the lemon. Yeah. And a down season, you might have a market where the average occupancy's 20% is a short term rental, and that literally means that 20 out of a hundred properties are gonna get booked and those other 80 are not gonna be booked.
So trying to fill your calendar for an extended period of time versus. Drop in your rates usually is what happens, but being booked for that whole time, it just turns out to be much, much better. Yep, I agree. Less stressful too, right? Like the stress of a low season with a short term rental sounds exhausting and it's a good way to give yourself a little bit of a breather there too.
Alright, let's talk about something that I think is a big difference when it comes to short term and midterm, and that's the confidence and the trust building between. Host and guest, tenant and landlord, right? When I'm booking a property for a three night stay in Nashville, I'm gonna look at reviews.
I'm gonna look at your pictures, I'm gonna look at your tenure. But quite honestly, if you're a terrible host, it does matter to me, but I only have to tolerate you for three days. Now, if you're looking for somewhere in booking for three months, it's a different level of trust, especially on the front side of the booking, right?
It feels like there's a lot more. Weight going into it. How do you overcome that when you are managing the bookings and the management of both short term and midterm rentals? How do you build that trust and that confidence on the front side of a midterm rental booking? So building trust with guests or tenants before they stay in the property.
I think that all starts with. The listing description, and setting the right expectations. So not having a photo of some beautiful, glamorous area, if your property's not beautiful and glamorous, it depends on midterm rentals. I realize a lot of people out there are showing their properties before.
Sometimes we don't do that. We do have prerecorded videos for a lot of ours that says, Hey here's like a video walkthrough. But I would say setting the right expectations. So having a listing that's as detailed as possible. Having photos that are true to the property and then as soon as someone inquires, having professional communication and having quick communication.
So if someone reaches out and asks a question about how, how close to. Whatever it happens to be and we respond in just a few minutes versus the next day, then that gives them some insight into to how we communicate. And subconsciously I think they would feel more confident in our property knowing that if something happened, if the AC went out or whoever happened to be, if we have really quick communication right from the beginning, that they could expect really quick communication throughout their stay.
I would say those. Those couple things go a long way. Awesome. And with the, short term and midterm rental strategy, you typically have, your house rules, your guest check-in. They haven't seen the property. They're new to the area potentially. What do you have on that one page?
Maybe it's a couple pages. House rules or house guidelines to really get them excited about your property and how to take care of it well. And just what the area has to offer. Yeah, so we, we do digital guidebooks with all of our properties, and those can pass over to our midterm guests as well where we have all of our local recommendations.
They can pull it up on their phone, their iPad, whatever it happens to be. So that's really good insight into the details with the property and also what we love about the area, how close it is to the hospitals or, the events in. In the area. Maybe there's a farmer's market every weekend that, someone living there would love to, to go to.
So we also have our house rules in those guidebooks. And then we also post the most important rules actually in the property too. So we have those in multiple places. Of course, they'll be in the lease, but they're in the guidebook. Just important contact information, what to do with the trash if they're midterm guest.
Just. Everything they would need to live there, make it self-serving. Let them give the, give tenants the tools and guests honestly that they can figure out these problems and systems all by themselves without having to reach out. If I can add real quick, I actually love Furnished Finder's house rules.
So when you go through the edit listing process, the last have is house rules. And what I love about it is how when something changes at your property, which happens all the time, or you decide you want a new guideline of, oh, okay, I'm gonna update how I communicate about pets or something like that, then I can literally just.
Copy and paste that one line into, and I just switch between all of my eight monthly rentals on Furnished Finder, and in five minutes I've updated my house rules, and then the next time someone comes to stay, I can just download the PDF, share it with them. It makes it super simple. So I really love.
Using the house rules through Furnished Finder. Katie Tim, I think that's actually a great little round table discussion. What have you found to be one of those little hidden gems through Furnished Finder of, that you love for the monthly rental space? It's nice that you guys have all the pieces in place.
Like for one, you're the biggest advertiser of midterm rentals, so people know to go to Furnished Finder. And I'm excited to see where you guys go with the technology, but you have all those pieces in place too, so if someone wants to do their background check, their house rules, all those things directly through your guys' platform and your connections, then it's a one stop shop.
Yeah, I think overlooked a lot is the landlord profile. I have learned that. Nearly every traveler who's considering becoming one of my tenants checks out my profile. I think a lot of times, people, owners, managers, whatever it is, will set up their landlord profile and Furnished Finder and set it and forget it.
It doesn't need to be updated constantly, there you need to know that is something people are looking at. And put the reasons that you are a good landlord because people are looking not only at their property, at your property, but they wanna know who's who they're gonna be.
Having as a landlord for three months 'cause it is not just a two day stay, they care a lot more. So I think a lot of times I'll look at a listing on Furnish Shriner, it will be beautiful and I'll look at the land, the landlord profile and it will be skeletons barely complete if complete at all. So I think that's super overlooked.
Maybe not a hidden gem 'cause it's right in front of your face, but I think it's something that a lot of landlords forget to take five or 10 minutes. And just put some reasons why you are a great landlord with it. Great point. All right, Tim, I want to circle back as we start to wrap up, I wanna circle back into the remote management lifestyle because it's intimidating especially if you're new to rentals in general.
But it doesn't have to be, right? So if someone's listening and they're on the fence about managing remotely, if they're saying, you know what? My mom, retired, but she has this house. Florida, but I live in Ohio, but I'm gonna have to sell it. There's no way I can manage it from afar. What piece of advice would you give them?
I'd say it's easier to do now than it's ever been in history, and it's getting easier and it's getting more common, so the more, if they just reach out on a local group, I think that they would find that there's lots of people that have those same fears that are now renting remotely.
And they love it, and it's working out really well. It does of course, require that you have a really good contact there on the ground. It could just be a housekeeper, but it's nice to have a handyman there as well, a go-to person, if something does come up. And after you've made that connection, then, and that's really reassuring.
And really, after you go through a couple rentals. That's it. That it's not this big scary thing where people are gonna show up and destroy your property and, it's I think another nice thing with the space is that you get paid upfront too, that's always reassuring. But yeah, I would say just take a peek around, there's lots and lots of people doing it remotely now, and yeah, it doesn't matter if you're a hundred miles away or a thousand miles away, there's more tools than there's ever been and it's easier than it's ever been.
But it's not easy. I wouldn't say it's like you gotta have someone on the ground, and midterm rentals certainly a lot easier than short-term rentals. And that's why a lot of people are flocking to midterm rentals too. And then short-term rentals would be another step up from that.
Terms of operations. Yeah. There's a lot of things to consider. So where do you see midterm rentals heading in the next few years? As a primarily short-term rental operator, but someone who's very opportunistic to the market that is midterm. What's your crystal ball say when it comes to midterms?
I would say that there's gonna be a lot more short-term rentals. They're gonna start offering midterm stays for multiple reasons. One which we've talked about is that there's just less operations. But another one would be that. Supply on the short-term rental side of things has really increased in a lot of places to the point where there's way more competition for short-term rentals than there might be for midterm rentals.
All right. We like to wrap up our episodes with a few fun, rapid fire questions that you can just, whatever comes to mind, feel free and just share them with us. Doesn't have to be deep thoughts, but, part of the remote management life is that a lot of. Landlord's value is that freedom, right?
So if you have a freedom, what are you gonna do with that time? What is Tim's go-to of how he detoxes, relaxes and just enjoys life? I. Good question. So for a really long time that was just traveling. I just traveled and traveled all over the place, and that's how I got into the space. Staying in a lot of furnished rentals.
People are living differently now. People are living in short-term rentals or living in midterm rentals, and they used to not do that as much. They weren't a avail and they weren't able to with. Having to be in an office. But I would say with my free time, I'm traveling less but I'm playing more tennis.
I really like tennis. I really respect the fact that you said tennis and not pickleball. I have nothing against pickleball. In fact, I have yet to play it. I can never find time in my calendar between work and kids and the growing list of activities that my kids are involved in. But I, it's just, I feel like you and Kelly actually are both the tennis, it's amazing.
Yes. But I just feel says pickleball, Katie you know what, like I'm here for the classic, right? I'm here for like the tried and true. I don't need pickleball. Just gimme tennis. I need it. I've been playing tennis a lot about since I was born and I need pickleball too. Hey. Yeah. That's awesome.
I love it. All right, next rapid fire question. What is the biggest mistake new hosts make when they are managing remotely? Not having backups. So maybe they do have a handyman or someone that can go there, but maybe there's an issue that needs to be handled right away and they haven't found a backup.
And that person's not available right then, or maybe they just didn't ask that question in the beginning. Like, how much notice do you actually need? So I would say not having backups, backup contacts and backups for your backups. And backup batteries. Dang it. Have some backup batteries and backup.
Yes. You've got a smart lock back up batteries. Yeah. And smoke alarms. Yeah. Yep. Quick little tip. I learned along the way. Is having what Jasper Rivers called, I think an ammo box. He's from the short-term rental side, but nothing to do with ammunition, but having a box or something hidden somewhere.
The property, like box, like a tackle box that has extra batteries, has, screwdrivers, has light bulbs, has these like basic things that you might have to send a handyman out for. Yeah. When someone could just as easily, do it, swap it out. You know what themselves. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of times people are happy to help out swapping batteries or light bulbs or whatever it may be.
If it means they can just get it done and not have to deal with a scheduling appointment. Mine is a ladder or a stool, like a ladder or a three step stool, because how many times do you have the battery, but you can't reach the ceiling where the smoke alarm is. So giving them the means to be able to reach whatever it is they need to reach.
Yeah. Yeah. I love it. Yeah. All right. Last rapid fire question. What is one policy you wish every landlord would add to their lease? This is gonna be interesting 'cause you're coming from the short term rental perspective. That's why I think these answers are so interesting because I feel like sometimes y'all are more prepared than us by default sometimes we've got a long list of.
Of things that we've added over the years. One thing I would put in that notice piece, making sure that they know upfront that Hey I can't reserve this property. For you if your plans are uncertain, but I would love to, and so we'll hold it for this amount of time, but I have to know by this time, otherwise I'll open the calendar.
I would say that one, because I think people are moving to midterm rentals at the end of the day to, to make more money than they're earning what their long-term rentals. And if their calendar's not staying full, then you know that's where they make the money. So I would say that one.
Kelly, what's yours? What's one policy you wish every landlord had in their lease? I add the move in and move out time, right? I put a 4:00 PM move in and a 10:00 AM checkout because by default a lot of leases don't have a time. They just, it's a day, right? And so we. Work off nightly the nightly calendar.
So that's what I would add to, that's what I add to every lease that is helpful. And then it makes you look like the hero and you're like, oh, hey, guess what? We actually don't have an anyone checking in later today. You can leave whenever you'd like. So then it's like a nice little icing on the cake whenever they're checking out.
If you have a little freedom there and you have a day or two in between. I've got two, and both of them are pretty new for me as a landlord. First of all is renter's insurance is required. It's super cheap, but the protection it adds for both a tenant and a landlord, I feel is the best value that you can get out there.
And the second one is that if we decide to do pest control, you may not opt out, which I know sounds odd. Yeah. But we have a lot of properties in complexes and. I don't wanna deal with pests. So if there is a pest that's five doors down, we're doing pest control, whether you like it or not optional. So with a short term, you could do those in between tenants, but I don't always wanna wait 60 days for the next person.
All right, Tim, this was fantastic. I always love getting to talk to someone from the short term world because. It's just, it's like a little pivot of the perspective. It's not an entirely different perspective. It's just like a little bit of a, of an adjustment. And I agree with you. I think that Kelly and I both see.
Short term rental hosts just flooding into the midterm rental world, especially those in seasonal markets, or really looking to book up that calendar and take a advantage of the opportunity there. So remind everybody how to connect with you if you would like, and how to learn more from you because you have a slew of information that is available for free and at the fingertips of users.
Yep. Yep. So I have a podcast called Short-Term Rental Riches. I think it's been over six years now. So every Tuesday we've got a quick actionable episode to help with short-term rentals, but we've talked about midterm rentals a lot, and we've talked about just investing in general a lot. Our management company is called Corley, C-O-R-Z-L-Y.
And our whole idea there is we're this core operating center behind all of our partners, short-term rentals or midterm rentals where we're optimizing the property and we're taking away all the headaches. And we've had a lot of fun growing that. And we're excited for the future there. Sst r riches.com (opens in new tab) is the podcast website, or, and Descriptive Domains.com - new is our management site.
Awesome. Thank you so much for being with us today. If you're interested, be in being on our show, feel free to add it to the comments and we'll do our best to connect. We just wanna bring all things monthly, midterm rentals to you go back, catch our past episodes. We have playlists on YouTube, so if this short-term, midterm hybrid strategy is interesting to you, we have a playlist on that and we just are happy to be here and bring in you all things monthly rentals.
So have a great day and we'll catch you again next time. Bye everybody.
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