If you have been in real estate investing over the past five years, you have likely felt the shift. Short-term rentals exploded, then stabilized. Regulations tightened in many cities. Inventory surged in popular markets. And investors who entered expecting outsized returns every year are now reassessing their strategy.
That reassessment is exactly why monthly (mid-term) rentals are gaining attention heading into 2026. But before you convert a property or start underwriting your next duplex, it is important to understand what a monthly rental actually is and just as importantly, what it is not. Furnished Finder CEO, Jeff Hurst, joins vacation rental veterans Alex Husner and Annie Holcombe on the Alex and Annie show (opens in new tab) to discuss the rise of monthly rentals and how to tap into the growing market.
Listen to the full podcast episode here (opens in new tab) or read our key takeaways below.
What is a monthly rental?
A monthly rental, often abbreviated as MTR for mid-term rentals, is a fully furnished rental property leased for 30 days or longer. On Furnished Finder (opens in new tab), the average stay is 97 days, which immediately changes the operational profile compared to nightly furnished rentals.
The tenant profile is also very different from a vacation rental guest. Monthly tenants are often traveling business travelers, healthcare professionals, relocating families, graduate students, professors, digital nomads, or skilled tradespeople working on infrastructure or technology projects. These renters are not on vacation. They are working, transitioning, or temporarily living in a new city and need stable, furnished housing.
What a monthly rental is not
One of the biggest misconceptions is that a monthly rental is simply a short-term rental with a 30 day minimum stay. While platforms like Airbnb technically allow 30 day bookings, their entire ecosystem is built around nightly pricing, dynamic rate adjustments, and constant calendar optimization.
Monthly rentals operate differently. They are typically priced monthly. Tenants sign leases. Screening looks more like a long-term rental than a weekend stay. Instead of managing dozens of bookings per year, many landlords secure three or four placements annually. The rhythm is different, the expectations are different, and the tenant relationship is often more direct.
It is also not a luxury ski-in ski-out strategy. The average monthly rent on Furnished Finder is far more aligned with workforce housing than with high-end vacation homes. Studios, one-bedroom units, two-bedroom condos, and duplexes often outperform large luxury homes in this category because the demand is tied to employment and relocation, not leisure travel.
Why monthly rentals are gaining traction in 2026
Monthly rentals are no longer a niche strategy. According to the joint Furnished Finder and AirDNA report (opens in new tab), stays of 28 days or more have grown dramatically since 2019, significantly outpacing the growth rate of short-term rentals. What was once a small slice of overall demand now represents a meaningful share of total rental nights nationwide. This shift reflects deeper structural trends in housing, including workforce mobility, affordability pressures, and more Americans choosing flexible living arrangements tied to job transitions, training assignments, and relocation periods.
At the same time, as short-term rental regulations tighten in many markets, monthly stays often remain more viable from a compliance standpoint. The report shows that in markets where policy changes have constrained nightly rentals, a greater share of bookings has shifted toward monthly stays. Combined with continued housing supply constraints and employment driven mobility, these forces are positioning furnished monthly rentals as a durable and increasingly strategic segment of the rental economy heading into 2026.
Explore market-specific demand data with Furnished Finder's Market Insights tool. (opens in new tab)
The financial profile of a monthly rental
Monthly rental economics sit between short-term and long-term strategies. Compared to traditional long-term rentals, furnishing a unit can significantly increase monthly income, often by 30-50% depending on the market. The upfront investment in furniture is typically modest compared to fully designing a vacation rental.
Compared to short-term rentals, the tradeoff is predictability over peak performance. You may not hit record-breaking summer revenue in a beach market, but you also reduce turnover frequency, cleaning expenses, and seasonal volatility. Instead of managing 40-60 guest stays per year, you might manage three or four. For many investors, that operational simplicity is worth the steadier return profile.
Hospitality still matters in monthly rentals
There is a misconception that fewer turnovers mean less responsibility. In reality, hospitality remains central to success in the monthly rental space. A traveling nurse working night shifts may prioritize blackout shades and quiet surroundings. A relocating family may want to visit the property in person before signing a lease. A corporate renter may need reliable WiFi and designated parking to function effectively.
Monthly tenants are living their everyday lives in your property, not just spending a weekend. That creates a different kind of relationship. Communication tends to be more direct, expectations are more practical, and responsiveness still drives reviews and referrals. The stay is longer, but the standard of hospitality remains high.
How Furnished Finder supports monthly rental investors
Furnished Finder operates as a subscription-based platform focused exclusively on 30+ day furnished rentals. Rather than charging a percentage commission on each booking, landlords pay an annual listing fee and connect directly with tenants. The platform facilitates inquiries and visibility, while landlords handle screenings, leases and payment arrangements.
This structure keeps costs predictable and allows owners to maintain more control over their tenant relationships. It also reflects the nature of monthly rental transactions, which are typically more lease-driven and conversational than instant book vacation stays.
If you are ready to explore listing your property, visit Furnished Finder (opens in new tab) today.
Are monthly rentals right for your portfolio?
Monthly rentals are not a replacement for every short-term rental, and they are not a silver bullet for underperforming luxury properties. However, they can be an excellent fit for properties near hospitals or universities, and investors who want fewer turnovers with more predictable occupancy.
As housing mobility continues to increase and more professionals embrace flexible living arrangements, monthly rentals sit at the intersection of hospitality and housing. For investors heading into 2026, understanding what MTR is and what it is not may be one of the most important strategic decisions you make.
Explore how your property could perform in the monthly rental space now. (opens in new tab)
The monthly rental category is not about chasing trends. It is about building steady, adaptable income in a changing housing landscape.
Transcript
Going into 2026, there's a lot of hesitation from this year. The last couple years have not been super strong. You've got so many owners that came into owning a short-term rental thinking that they were just going to be making crazy amounts of money every year all the time. And that hasn't been the case. Sufferers come so far. And I think at some point the vacation rental industry probably got too focused on the big picture and not enough focused on like a great stay. I think that managers still miss the boat on how much credit they should take for things that aren't bookings. Now that we're diving so much more into AI, that connection, people are craving [music] that even more. And I think owners want it just as much. And that is the core of hospitality. And whether you're renting for a week or [music] 90 days or beyond, hospitality is still part of all of it. My biggest regret was the deadly sin of envy versus Airbnb. I think we went through a period where we were just [music] trying to be a better version of Airbnb at the things they were clearly better at than us. We wasted years kind of chasing down that rabbit hole. Welcome to Alex Nanny, the real women of vacation rentals. I'm Alex. And I'm Annie. And we are joined today by Jeff Hurst, who is the CEO of Furnished Finder. Jeff, it's so good to have you on the show. So good to see y'all again and happy to be back in the short-term rental orbit. Well, you've been absent for really just a hot minute. It hasn't been that long, but I know there's there's likely some people that aren't familiar with you and your background. So, why don't you share a little bit about your story and then we'll get into what Furnish Finer is all about. Sounds good. Uh, so I got into the short-term rental space in 2010. Uh, I was an earlyish employee at Homeway. I was the first, uh, person in the strategy department there. Uh, was at Homeaway from 2010 and ultimately became the chief strategy officer when we sold to Expedia in 2015. Stayed on and was the chief commercial officer. Uh for those following the show with Alex and Annie, it was a job kind of like Tim Rosolio has now. Um and so I had that for several years. Uh Tim was on my team for a long time. I was then the president of Vrbo and Humbaway and then after that was the co- uh lead of marketing for Expedia Group and then the chief operating officer for Expedia. So I left about 3 years ago. Um although judging by the comments I get on LinkedIn about someone needing a refund for a home away property, it's like I never left at all. [laughter] Um that's hilarious. These past two years I have been the CEO of Furnished Finder. And so we are a midterm rental site, very much a throwback, so a classified site like VBO in 2011. And we help people with 30-day plus rentals. Uh it's a fast growing category, all furnished, all monthly stay or typical duration is about 3 months. And uh increasingly we've been overlapping on the short-term side and you know saw how many familiar names you had and was kind of begging my way onto the show. So it's good to see everybody again. [gasps] Now I remember when you you filled out a comment form on our website and I got it and I sent it to Annie. I was like, "Oh my god, yes, of course we have Jeff on the show." But we were we were excited when we saw that you wanted to come on. So, uh, definitely excited to have the conversation today. And, you know, for our listeners, I feel like we've we constantly keep hearing this and especially at events I've been at lately, most recently IMN, which is, uh, more short-term rental versus traditional vacation rental type operators, I would say, that attend those events. Um, that companies are trying to get into midterm rentals if they're not already doing it. I mean, they're seeing this as an opportunity whether they want to do it as an additional uh offering within the company or they have to do it because of regulation. But, you know, it's kind of an interesting spot that you're in that it's there's nothing new about what you're doing. I mean, for years, I booked winter rentals here in North Myrtle Beach, and those were three-month rentals, and there wasn't a whole lot of options uh at that point for where you could specifically put that type of inventory. But I guess my my first question would be I mean going from the behemoth of the Vrbo Expedia large OTAA days to what you're doing now. I mean just tell us what it's like. I mean like there's got to just be massive [clears throat] differences. [laughter] It's um it it is it is honestly it's refreshing. And so uh you know I've got a 16-year-old daughter. She started driving 3 weeks ago. I've got a 13-year-old son. you know, for anyone who listened to Sarant for some period of 2019 to 22, like I was always coaching basketball and it's like now he's outgrown my coaching, but like I wanted to be home more. Um, and a really hard thing about Expedia, both Expedia Group and Vrbo, just from a career perspective, was how global it was. And so I was a pretty senior executive and like we had offices in 90 offices and pretty much every time zone except a few in the Pacific. And so like it just never turned off. And so what I've really loved about uh the chapter at Furnished Finder is you know most of the teams in Austin, Texas. We're together Tuesday through Thursday. Most of them worked with me at Homeware Expedia. Like we all kind of know each other and we're just solving this one thing in the US [laughter] like we're and and you know you mentioned the the occasion of like well hadn't this stuff kind of been around forever. It's like, you know, that that's very much how I felt in 2010 with vacation rentals. And I was like, you know, there you'd always been able to go to the mountains and go to the beach and maybe a lakehouse, but then all of a sudden you could go to Hollywood and you could, you know, stay in these places everywhere. I think Monthly Furnish is kind of having that moment. Like we don't have a big leisure business. We have a big like is it near a hospital? Is it near a university? Is it near a commuter business? it's got more in common with like where you're going to see an extended stay America or where you're honestly going to see like a new um LAR home development. Uh like those are the types of areas they gravitate towards. They're smaller footprint. They're a lot cheaper. And so that's really a different occasion than like the core leisure Vrbo occasion. And I think what's exciting is all these things are kind of starting to bleed together. the Zillow occasion, the Apartments.com occasion, corporate travel, a lot of the hotel development is actually in midterm rentals and like this extended stay concept and so you're just seeing more flexible living and we're a platform that I think you know is appealing because it's simple um and cheap. Yeah. don't I mean I would say also the I would say a big difference for your job now your past role is when you're with a public company even the company doesn't turn off but then everything you do has so many layers of decision- making that goes into it so you can pivot a lot quicker you can make decisions you can try new things out of curiosity you said we off off camera you're not like a booking site like a traditional OTAA you're not operating in that sense what is Furnished Finder what's the foundational operation look like for you guys yeah [snorts] so the the value prop product. It's $199 a year. You buy a subscription, we host your listing, and then you get you basically get inquiries. Uh there's three types. You can get what we call a booking request, which is like an inquiry with more form fields, and you learn more about the tenant. You can get a direct message, which feels like an inquirer direct message on Airbnb or Vrbo. It's like, "Hey, do you accept pets?" And it's like, "Yeah, it says they're right in the listing, but thanks for double checking." Um, [laughter] and and then, you know, because we're classified, we also will behind a button is basically the phone number. And, you know, it's a it's it's a 90-day stay. It's often for work. And so, it's very frequent. People will actually visit the house in person. You know, they pay with a cash or check. They do a FaceTime. And so, it's a much more direct line of communication through our site. And we're not nearly as involved really involved at all in the transaction. We're just there to help get eyeballs on your site. Yeah, that's great. And I'm interested too, I mean, how much does brand matter in in the midterm space? I mean, that's a big thing that we talk about all the time as far as short-term goes, but does does brand matter for the consumers you're going after? You know, um, probably not, you know, but there'd be some asterisks to it. You know, there's a few larger branded players. There's one called Blue Ground. There's one called Landing Hadplit. while their room rentals is kind of a branded player, but not to the same extent you'd find in vacation rentals. And then, you know, where brand might show up more is there are people like who are making a choice between like a Hilton and staying in a uh monthly furnish rental. And so, like that that's more of a distinction of our inventory. It it you know, it is it's 20 years ago in the sense that like it's 85% independent landlords who have a single property. You know, this is not a lot of large managed inventory. You see more of that on Zillow and Apartments.com and then you obviously see more of that on Airbnb. And so for the most part, there aren't really brands available. Like the brand is like, I'm going to go talk to Betsy who's got a two-bedroom, you know, studio or duplex and she lives next door. Like, I'm going to talk to her, pick up the phone, FaceTime, and maybe go visit. I think we're very early in professionalization, and we're going to see a lot more of it as the category matures. Do you see the crossover into some of the traditional vacation markets as an opportunity for you guys? I think it it will be, but it'll be for a minority of the inventory. We're not good at filling a fourbedroom in Aspen. I don't think we're going to be good at filling a fourbedroom in the Gulf Coast. And so, like, you think about who's using our site. They're traveling for work, and a lot of that is skilled trade. There's relocating families, which is the use case I think is most possible. Traveling healthcare, which is really a price point that isn't going to work for most short-term rentals. You know, you're talking like $1,600 a month. you know, that's not going to spin off versus, you know, renting out 10 nights as a short term. And then there's a lot of academics. And so there'll be overlap markets, but it'll really be for these smaller footprints. You know, you're kind of like, especially, I'd say your onebedroom or your studio plus a bonus room type of thing. Um, and then your two-bedrooms. Eventually, I think you'll see more and more, not your core leisure destinations, but like your your Austin's, your Los Angeles's, your Seattle's where part of the housing stock is a monthly furnished rental. And people who are moving to a new neighborhood actually are like, I'm going to go live in one of these for 4 months and be sure this is the neighborhood I want to be in and really dial in like, do I want to be on that street or this street or this side of this artery or that side? I think that's going to get to be a lot more common. And then over time, you know, I've kind of become more of a believer in what Chesky's been saying for a long time around like I do think people are just going to live this way. like there is a generation who's just gonna not buy furniture and that's gonna be a way they save money and invest in something else and just live in these types of rentals but they need them to not just be in Myrtle Beach and 3A and Aspen and Steamboat like they need them to be in Plano and outside of Austin and in you know Chico California and wherever they need to end up. Yeah. I worked with the the Hello Landing group for a while and and I and what they're doing is really interesting just because they're, you know, they have within their ecosystem kind of like a club where you can move around to different properties and different cities. And I think that I think it's spot on given the advent of sort of like that nomadic worker like people can work from anywhere. I think that that's if you're young, my husband and I talk about all the time. It's like if we had been able to do that when we were in our 20s, you know, late 20s before we had our son, like that would have been a great life to be able to just go and, you know, really see where you wanted to where you wanted to land. But then we got sucked into vacation rentals, so we got stuck in the market. [laughter] So, we're all here. Yeah. You know, what's been interesting demographically is how much of the I thought that use case you're describing was going to be like when my daughter gets out of college. Uh what what surprised me it's got way more to do with my mom, you know? It's actually like it's actually the boomer generation and late Gen X who are getting one of these for three months to be close to a newborn child or they're getting one of these for 3 months to not be in Texas in July, August, and September. And they're they're moving around that way uh because they've got, you know, equity in their home that they may not want to sell the home and they might actually be renting out their home or building an ADU. And so I've been surprised how much older the demographics are who are embracing this. And I think a lot of that is because of the success short-term rentals had. They destigmatized staying in these homes and like picking up the phone and like, "Oh, it'll be fine. I'll just talk to the landlord and we'll figure it out." Like I don't think people would have thought that way 15 years ago. Yeah, definitely not. And how does it work on your site as far as the process to book something? Is it I mean it's you're not actually booking. I know that. But once it goes over to the property management company, is it just you know whatever their rules are that if they do background checks or anything like that? Is there anything that's enforced on your side? Way more like a long-term lease than it is short-term. You're going to sign a lease. You're going to do a tenant screening. Yeah. Um, you know, it'll be relatively a smaller deposit versus what some of the vacation rental deposits might be. Uh, you're going to pay monthtomonth. Overwhelmingly, you're more likely to be using like a, Vinmo, check, cash. Uh, credit cards do get used, but um, it's not it's not dominant as much as it is in short-term rental. Um, and you know, and and as a landlord, you're not you're not playing that like Jenga game, that Tetris of how do I fill up my calendar and all these bookings. Like, for the most part, you take a booking over a third of the time they extend. You know, we've got a colleague who's had someone in their monthly furnish rental for almost two and a half years. They're just happy. And so, they just stay. All of a sudden, you're like, "Wow, I'm making more money than I would as a long term, and this has been an awesome outcome." Yeah. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. It seems so much more simple than what we're doing on the short-term side. To be honest, it is less rate. You know, I I think a a you know, finding a great short-term rental is still just like a world-class investment, [snorts] but I think it's easier to find a great mid-term rental, which is better than a lot of average short-term rentals. And the the downside is like I've got three short-term rentals. They're all property managed now. I used to self-manage. I I emotionally love all three of them. My kids love them. There's poor memories at them. Like I bought them a little bit for the investment and they've done good investments, but I bought them a lot for like this is a part of the family and like midterms don't have that, you know, like I'm buying a quadplex on the outskirts of Boston and hoping to have like grad students and traveling nurses or, you know, traveling professors, whatever it is, you know, it's much more of a cash return profile as opposed to like a passion project that you're, you know, really hosting people. Uh there's a middle ground. You know, people do have ADUs and people do have people that live next door to where it's can be a bit blurriier, but for the most part, I'd say this is more of a financial investment, whereas short-term rentals often have a vanity component or an emotional component. I was going to ask you about that. Are you working with any institutional investors that are building out some of these in in specific markets or I mean, I guess you could really go anywhere, but you know, what what is your focus at, you know, at present? you know, I mean, we're over, you know, our mission is independent landlords and, you know, and increasingly we're hoping to reach them through the software providers and um, you know, and even property managers, but the uh, we don't have a big multif family play. Uh, we don't do anything with institutional investors. I think our padsplit and landing are probably our bigger, you know, among our bigger customers and they're big, but there's not a dynamic yet that feels like Kasigo and Vicasa and Evolve and VRIPS or whatever happens after VRIPS like there's not that aggregation at a regional or state level, you I think it's more likely to be that realtors are kind of rolling this up as property managers as part of like their long-term property management business extension because the economics are quite a bit different. I expect the institutional capital it's certainly coming in through hotels. You see a little bit of it like um Placemaker is an example. They just did a deal with Hilton and they're like taking stock, you know, in partnership with the multifamilies to have like an entire floor of two and three bedrooms and one bedrooms at there's one in downtown Austin. There's one in I think at the domain, you know. I think you'll see more of that. I don't think you'll see it as communities because a lot of the use cases you're actually trying to join a community, not like be there with a lot of vacationers. If you're my family and I'm moving to Seattle, like I don't want to move into a community full of other people moving to Seattle. Like I want to move into a community full of people who know Seattle and live there and whose kids have been in school there for 3 years and my kids can meet their kids. And so like you're looking for a little more permanence. I describe them as like it's almost like every community, every neighborhood should want to have five to 10 of these as an asset because they help people whose roof burns down, whose plumbing bursts, you know, who sold a house, they don't know where to go next. Well, hey, go move into my midterm rental. Take it for four months while you find your next place. Like, you're excited to do that for your neighbors in a way you may not have been excited to have like the bachelor party come in for the three night, right? [laughter] Good point. Good point. Now, you mentioned that you're working on some integrations with most of the PMS's within the space. Is that going to be just as a like content API to get photos, descriptions, or is there going to be some component of booking it online that actually is like making a record of a booking and then the rest of the path is actually confirmed once they get over? We'll start with rates and rates and f or rates and dates is available now. Content, photos, descriptions, and kind of the messaging component is very shortly around the corner. We don't have any plans to do booking and I'm personally against it. What what I'd like to see us power would actually feel like if you wanted to book it would be more of a click to reveal a button that actually just puts you in you know Alex or Andy's website. It just it would it would almost work more like a meta site. Like I'm not trying to make any commission on the booking and so I don't need it to happen in my infrastructure. So, it would feel more like, you know, send a message here, ask questions, if you're ready to book, you know, we're happy to send you off to that link because a lot of our customers are already including, hey, you can see my inventory at this link or if you want to book, here's a payment link, that sort of stuff. Oh, how nice. I miss those days. [laughter] Yeah, it is. It's it's a time machine. Yeah, it is. [snorts and clears throat] So, it's it's a per listing uh per listing fee. Yeah, there there are discounts. If you're, you know, if you have, I think, more than five listings, you start to earn discounts and they get bigger the more inventory you add. You know, for anyone not aware of it, I'd say like, you know, don't beat yourself up. Like, I was in charge of corporate development and buying stuff at Vrbo and was in the industry for 15 years and I had no idea this site existed. Like, when I got here, they had almost 200,000 customers. We've got 240,000 now, 300,000 homes. Like, it's big. And it's um it's it was very just below the radar. It was very much focused on traveling healthcare and then it got huge in the pandemic. Yeah. No, it's in the Myrtle Beach area when I've had family or friends move down here and they've asked me for help finding a, you know, mostly an annual rental or 6 months or whatever it is. Typically, I would go to the rental companies websites that I know that were short-term, but they offered long-term rentals. Um, sometimes found something. Then otherwise, I'd look on like apartments.com and like, you know, there's like some like more Zillow rentals. Apartment rentals. data, but I I don't know that when I've done it in the past, I found Furnished Finder, but to me, you know, looking at it, okay, could Airbnb or does Verbo Airbnb booking, do they could they support this, you know, in the future more significantly? They could, but I feel like from the product position, like, you know, it doesn't make sense to go shop in one place for something that it's that it's not, you know, it's like, you know, you you don't you don't go to to Target for certain things and you don't go to, you know, Crate and Barrel for certain things. Like, I mean, it's it's it's use case driven. And I feel like it's it's a little bit noisy when you try and mix everything together. there is I mean is that kind of where you guys sort of like this this niche mentality is really where to lean in to get the most effective turnout it it's absolutely about focusing on a niche that you know is a small part of Airbnb's business and a even smaller part of Zillow or u apartments.com's business you know [snorts] um I think Zillow's got you know they've got millions of rentals and they've got 50,000 furnished rentals for less than a year you know it's it's just it's small and on Airbnb anything is bookable for more than 30 days but it'd be pretty rare for something nice to actually be bookable for 120 consecutive days. Like it's almost a sign that it's not high quality if it's available for that long uninterrupted. The reason we think we exist in particular versus an Airbnb is it really has more to do with communication and pricing than anything. And so, you know, our average booking $6,000 Airbnbs take, you know, whether it's a traveler fee or, you know, in the new commission model, you know, it's 10 to 15%. If you're traveling for work and doing this 6 to9 months of the year and have a, you know, median American income, you're going to pay Airbnb like 2 weeks of take-home pay to accept the booking, or you're going to do like 2 hours of work and actually talk to the landlord and visit the place and do a facetime and probably feel more confident about what you're getting into and save enough money to pay for your spring break to Myrtle Beach. Um, so you know, we really view it as like we think the occasion merits something that is not as expensive and because of that we need to keep the solution lighter weight. So the solution feels more like Zillow or Apartments.com and it's priced that way. But we're trying to build more of a search experience and filtering that's more modern like Airbnb. But like, you know, it is not as slick as Airbnb because we won't invest that much because we want it to be cheaper. You mentioned that a lot of this is the Gen Xers and and like you know the the older crowd. Are there any other trends that you're seeing within this space that maybe people aren't aware of? Like if they have properties they should be thinking about? To me, what's exciting about it as an investor? You know, I mentioned I've got three vacation rentals. None of them are within an hour and a half of my house. What's exciting about this as an investor is you can do it, you can almost certainly do it near your house. You know, it's like you may live in a three-bedroom home in a, you know, neighborhood with a great school district, and you've probably never looked at what it costs to buy a duplex with two one-bedrooms or two 1s in your neighborhood. Like, that inventory exists. It exists in my neighborhood. And so, the the opportunity is really I think it's more approachable because you like you know who's in your neighborhood, you know who goes to school with your kids, you know who's moving, who's coming and going. And so you can tailor the experience, but you can also like really be more hands-on because the place can be five minutes from your house. Um, and that's really different than like the le, you know, live in Dallas, own a leisure in Broken Bow or in South Padre. Like it's just different. And so I think that's the biggest unlock is that it opens up a lot of not only more affordable but more accessible inventory for investors to manage this. And then as a property manager, especially those in urban who may have been hit by 30-day regulations or capacity constraints, it opens up another way to try and make money that's not as thin as being in long-term. And you know, I think a short-term property manager will be excellent at midterm, but the difference is like they they should be charging less for it because you're going to turn it over three times a year instead of 55. Yeah. And so from the furnish side of things, I think that's where you know there's a lot of people that have long-term rentals and that's more common as as something that you know has been what you invest in uh for real estate, but um like my husband and I, we have two duplexes and but they're not furnished at all. Um and we do annual rentals there. I think we would do a semiannual rental. We just haven't had anybody ask for that. But the risk to it, making it furnished, you know, that's that's something to be thought about, though, too, because it's like, you know, I mean, people are not always kind with the places that they stay in for a long time. So, how do you factor that in as far as the return on on what you're doing here? Yeah. I I often describe midterm rentals as the return on furniture. [laughter] And so like if you've if you've got a duplex that's working well as a long-term rental, your risk is the cost of the furniture [snorts] and your opportunity is how much does the cost of the furniture increase your, you know, your monthly yield. The uh we typically see if you add furniture to a long term, you're going to make, you know, at least 30%, maybe closer to 50% more per month. You know, you'll have a little bit more vacancy, but like that's a that's a big number. And so, uh, in furnishing a midterm rental, this is not furnishing a beach house. You know, think like $7 a square foot. And so, you know, you can furnish a duplex for probably, if you were furnishing one side, you know, you're probably talking about maybe 10 grand, which might pay itself back in 6 to9 months, and then you might have 2 to 3 years of actually just making another 30 to 50% every month. And so what I encourage people to do who are in uh who are in your spot is actually like put it on the site unfernished and tell people you'll furnish it for them when they sign a lease and then they know they'll get new stuff. You'll know you have a tenant and they might rather have two twin beds instead of a king in each bedroom or something like that. And that gives you some certainty before you bite the bullet and advertise furniture. And it also gives them uh a benefit so you can kind of the best of both worlds. We'll be back in just a minute, but first a word from our premier brand sponsor. Hello, my name is Jesse Lear. I'm the founder of Epicur and Furnished Apartments here in Columbus, Ohio. One of the things that makes our company unique is that we operate fully in the midterm rental space. So, we cater a lot to medical travelers, executives who are relocating, families who are in the middle of large renovations, folks like that. And we really strive to nail it when it comes to hospitality. That's our main goal. We've been using Hostfully for about 5 years now, and we tried several other property management softwares before that. We really struggled to find one that would not only accommodate the uniqueness of our midterm rental business model, but also one that would be reliable and then come with a lot of the integrations that we needed with other softwares in order to automate what we were doing with a relatively lean team. Since we came on board with Hostfully, we've really grown as a company, not only in terms of size, but also in terms of sophistication. And as we pivoted into the mid-term rental space and started to build a reputation in our local community, with that came the need to really be more sophisticated on the back end with how our automations work. Because as a small company, we couldn't afford to hire 30 people right off the bat and take care of a lot of the tasks that needed to be done in order to deliver the type of service we were committed to. So in order to do that, we really needed great software partners who could help us put our best foot forward and automate a lot of recurring tasks rather than hiring a bunch of employees. And that's one of the things that Hostfully really helped us with and has helped us with as we've grown. One of the things that really made a difference for us in our partnership with Hostfully was when they started really working on the data analytics side of the software and in other words helping hosts really get a better grasp on what their metrics look like in terms of average daily rate revpar. It's not only saved us a lot of time, it's allowed us to run the business in a way that's been a little bit more organized. I think from the very beginning the setup process was very smooth and then as we've grown they've made it clear that they're very open to feedback. So there's actually a section of their website where users can log in and provide feedback and vote on certain changes and solutions and they take them pretty seriously from what I've seen. So it's pretty important for us to be able to sort of flex their software to accommodate what we're trying to do. The fact that they're willing to take feedback and add new features and tweak features to accommodate hosts like us is really one of my favorite parts of working with them. I recommend Hostully to people in my network all the time because I see it as the perfect blend of affordability, features, and reliability. [music] Looking for a smarter way to manage your short-term rental operations? Get started with Hostfully and [music] bring everything into one streamline platform. Alex and Annie listeners get free onboarding when you mention you heard about Hostfully from the Alex and Annie podcast. [music] Click the link in the description to get started today. I don't think it's more wear and tear than a vacation rental because it's usually one or two people at a time and they're like working all day. They're [clears throat] not they're working and sleeping. But you are going to have way more usage. You know, they're there every you know, if you're doing it well, it's 340 350 nights a year of rental. Yeah. your team shared some data points a couple of weeks ago, some some stuff that you had done and I I remember asking the question, we were talking about it off camera, like what has regulations done to impact kind of the growth the growth that you're seeing? And I I don't know that I I don't know that you ever like had the full data on that, but I was curious if if you are seeing impact there like that like tangible numbers that you can see and like in specific to New York, did you see a like a a large amount of inventory come on the site after New York kind of shut down the short-term side? What we saw and and I'd encourage people u maybe we can put it in the show notes. There is a we just published a kind of first of its kind industry report with AirDNA where we combined their data with ours to try and like demystify what's going on with short-term rentals uh in mid-term rentals and the intersection. New York and LA are the biggest examples in their data set of things have changed a lot since these laws laws passed. We didn't feel it as much. So, we did see more inventory come on in New York. I think because of the tenant type we have. We actually saw more come on in New Jersey. You know, we actually saw more people who needed to get to New York but maybe couldn't afford the monthly rents that were going to be in New York and so are commuting in from other places and like you know on kind of like the you know a train commute and so you know among the fastest markets we had were Jersey City and Havoken. Uh but Manhattan was it was fast but it wasn't nearly as fast as some of the others and so we're typically more mass market. you're more likely to see us in like commuter hubs, up and cominging cities. You know, the biggest trend we have is like AI data hubs and skilled trade needs to move around to places where there's not a lot of lodging. Um, as it relates to regulations, like it's unequivocally there. It's hard for me to say it's this much of it, but like of the 20 fastest growing cities that we observed, all 20 have some sort of short-term regulation. But honestly, like almost every city has some sort of short-term regulation that it's hard to know for sure what it means. Like even if what's on the books is loose, they've all put something on the books. Mhm. Yeah. I'm curious from the advertising perspective, people are generally going to go on a vacation every year to some extent. People are not necessarily booking a midterm rental every year. Um but it's something that you have to stay in front of them so when that is what they're looking for, they remember you guys. But what does it look like from from a go to market standpoint for Furnished Finder compared to your old days? [laughter] Yeah. um you know, if you go back to the old enough days, it feels more similar in that it's um you know, if you go back to like 2010, it actually feels pretty similar in that we've got a handful of core tenant types that get a ton of value out of our products and tell their friends. And so, like, it's mainly referral. Wow. Um, and that if you went through a divorce and needed a place to stay and found it on Furnished Finder and like it really worked out and helped you stay closer to your kids and your commute and all that, like you'll tell someone else who might go through that unfortunate situation. If you know somebody who's roof caught on fire, plumbing burst, whatever, same thing. We're not as heavy in search advertising as um the vacation rental business was. So, we do advertise on Google, but it's not as big for us as it was there. We do more I mean, I've done more podcasts this year than I did in the prior 15. Um, and so we do more PR, we do more um, influencer podcast and we do a lot more on Meta and Facebook. And so I'd say the um, and in general we spend a lot less money on marketing than the OTAAS do. So we we obsess on this like if we've got unique inventory and you know it's the cheapest you can find it on our site versus anywhere else, then why shop around? Like there's not a need for a book direct movement if we're letting you book direct. And so we're trying to like fill that niche for this category. Yeah. you mentioned um that there wasn't kind of any conferences that that fit this this space. So, do you think that I mean again we were you discussing there are managers out there that that are doing this? I mean I was just consulting with one that's in Indianapolis and she does short-term and midterm. Um and you know do you think that there's a potential for you guys to start going back to some of the traditional conferences to be able to represent Furnished Finder and Totally. I mean if people want to talk about it I'll be there. Um, and so, you know, there's there's conferences for what I'd say like the uh entrepreneurs and individual investors. There's a midterm rental summit. I went to it was called National Association of Residential Property Managers and then it was at uh Colorado Springs at like a you know the nice hotel there and like nobody wanted to talk to me like nobody had any interest in furnishing properties and making more money and so you know I think there will be more open to listen in short term and the the niche that's needed to be filled is actually like urban and suburban property managers like who's going to go start what used to be these micromanagers who might have you know it's It's probably more of a lifestyle business. You might have 20 or 30 homes, but they're all within half an hour of the place you live. And so, it's not as though you need to remote manage or figure out all the cleaners as much because you're not cleaning that often. I think that'll end up becoming a pretty big thing. And I think the software component feels way more like short-term than it does long-term with the exception of you don't need as much merchant solution. You know, we'll see. I'm optimistic we can be the thing that's kind of the connective tissue between the long-term side and the short-term side, but I think the short-term people are going to come on board faster because I think they're a little bit more agile in the way they think about these things. Yeah, I think they're more agile, but I also think that going into 2026, you know, there's a lot of hesitation from this year. You the last couple years have not been super strong, especially compared to CO, but you've got so many owners that came into owning a short-term rental thinking that they were just going to be making, you know, crazy amounts of money all every year, all the time. I mean, that hasn't been the case. And you look at markets that are extremely saturated like Myrtle Beach where I am or Panama City Beach where Annie is. And you know, I mean, there's there's so many properties that you it gives you more of an advantage to be a midterm or long-term rental at this point furnished that there are plenty of I mean, there's so many people. Myrtle Beach is the number one most relocated to destination in the country and has had that for the last few years. So people are moving down here all the time and it's very hard to find somewhere to to move when you're first looking for a job or figuring out where where you want to live. So if you had the option to do that from a condo on the beach that you know that homeowner can make you know probably more to be honest if they can have it rented solid for the entire year as a mid or or annual rental through this. I mean that makes all the sense in the world. Yeah. And I I think that the the critical distinction to that use case, you're probably as more likely to be successful with a condo three blocks from the beach. Like you don't have to have like the real wow factor that you need for that that can't miss occasion of like a little more cozy. Yeah. You know, because because you're you're going to be working or you're going to be in school or you're going to be like you're not going to be there to enjoy it as much, but you are actually thrilled to be able to walk to it or, you know, bike to the beach or go take a dip or you know, however that feels. And so like I wish there was something here that felt more like a panacea for what in some markets is a short-term rental glut. I I don't at all think short-term rental boom is over. But I think it is a more mature phase. A lot of this inventory is not going to be a fit. You know, our average ADR for a month is like right around $2,000. You know, it's just it's a very different people will have overinvested in short term and then they're thinking they can get that return in midterm with less vacancy and like that's just not how the math's going to work. But there will be a lot of homes that were like kind of okay short terms that might be great midterms. And so like we'll be working with people on like well how do you find the one that's a good fit and what are how do we get the expectations right? But I I can't count how many calls I've had that's like well when are you going to be in Aspen and help me rent all these six bedrooms that are ski in ski out? I'm like never. [laughter] Like that's just not that's not what we're built to do. I live in a very heavy military area and I feel like the military component of it and and um you know some people have tried to be in that space but getting into military rentals is is a whole different ballpark because you have to have you have to meet certain regulations. I mean you have to have people have to be vetted by FEMA and like have your ID numbers for government rentals. But do you think that that's an area that you guys could kind of peel off as a separate offering within Furnished Finder to be specific for like mil military? you know, people are pcsing out of different markets and going to bases for temporary, that type of thing. It's um it's a good market for us, but it's not huge. Um and what we see is um you know, because we're a classified site, it's actually a little bit easier. Like we don't have to be in the middle of that certification process for how you get paid by the government. You know, you just have to work it out with a landlord. And I opens up that in some of those occasions, you might have an officer who's moving who's actually has transitional funding available that's different than, you know, what the uh regulations require. And so we're I see it. I you know, San Antonio, Fort Hood's really close to us in Austin, but you know, I think it's probably like less than 5% of our business. Um and I hope we can keep doing a great job at it. It in general traveling for work's like a third of the business. Healthcare is 25%. Relocating families is 20% and then grad students and professors is about 10%. And so between those you're close to 90 and then military would fall you know somewhere in the other along with what I'd say are like digital nomads and those use cases. And so we're not investing in military but I know we've got it and I know that there's opportunity there. We're really investing in being sure corporate understands what we do and in particular relocating families. You know, we think that if people put the same energy that investors did into short-term housing, you know, finding building the ecosystem, investing them and making it a big lodging use case as they do in midterm, like I think it'll notably move the needle on just like the housing shortage in the US. We'll invest in more duplexes and quadplexes and build things in a way that help house people in a more affordable way, but also add inventory so that there's more flexibility. And we hope we can be a part of that. Absolutely. What from the technology side is missing to make this a more reasonable approach that short-term rental hosts can do this within their current software? Like, do they have to do have a different software to be able to manage this type of inventory? It's overwhelmingly our work, not theirs. And so, you know, we we're we'll build these integrations to where adding it feels like adding distribution in any other form except that you'll have to, you know, go into your time machine and realize we're a subscription classified site. So you'll have to like pay us upfront instead of get paid along the way. But it'll start to work just like everything else on that front. You know, you import your content, your description. There'll there'll be some fields we have that might be new to the software layer. You know, in particular, uh, as it stands now, we host a we just host a flat monthly rate. You know, we don't have dynamic pricing based on season and how many days and discounts built in for 7 verse 14 versus 30 vers 60 verse 90. like and so we're a little bit retro in that sense. That's more how Zillow and Apartments.com work. Like, well, what's your monthly rent? It's 2100. Like, that's the number. And so, we'll have to work on some of that stuff. And then we do have things we care about for some of our use cases is think things like blackout shades are big. So, we have a lot of traveling professionals who work night shifts. And like people knowing that it's comfortable for night and what the parking situation is is probably a little bit more nuanced in our use case than it might be in a vacation rental. And so there may be some need to adjust filters or get content for the tech layer, but otherwise like it's it's the same thing. And we need to solve our tech problem to make this easier for short term to just turn it on. We need to be sure we got the right demand. Besides just from from your side of things though, what about on the other side of the house? So I mean the management of the property like doesn't seem like it's that different, but I mean it's work orders and and you know monthly accounting and everything else, you know. I I think it's just so much easier. you know, your average stay 96 days. You do a deep clean before they get there and a deep clean when they leave. You need to figure out, you know, if something like, you know, if something breaks, you've got to be there to fix it. But it will probably be less frequent than if there's, you know, three families there for spring break than two adults and a cab there working for 3 months. And so, you know, you need to be prepared for maintenance. But I don't think there's anything systemwise that's bespoke or unique. You know, you're just doing a lot fewer turnovers. And then the marketing of it is it's less turnkey than marketing your short-term rental because we're not a booking site and we're one of the bigger probably the biggest player. And so people do hustle a little more of like build a relationship with local insurance placement or know you know if you're close to a larger corporate company that might be moving executives in and out or has a intern class as a big use case. things like that. They might hustle more to have those relationships than you would as a short-term rental where you're probably counting on repeats, referrals, your own marketing, and the big OTAAS. Yeah, because I feel like most short-term rental companies, if they have long-term, they use a different system to manage the long-term inventory like Appfolio, and there's there's a few other ones, but I've never really known what the reason is. I think some of that is how they connect to apartments.com and Zillow. Oh, okay. Gotcha. You know, we hope to be in a spot where we could pull in from Appfolio or Turbo Tenant or Rent Ready the same way we'd pull in from Hostfully or Logify or, you know, go pick your uh EMS. Are you guys helping build relationships with say you know the bigger corporations, the big companies, the the hospitals, those type of things or is that all dependent on the host in the community? No, most of them will use our site also, but I'd say the most productive hosts, you know, think of it as, you know, in your in your yester year before phone numbers, email addresses, and everything were obuscated by Airbnb. You know, somebody gets a booking from a nursing agency and then they get to know the person who placed the nurse and then they stay in touch and maybe that nursing agency reaches out to them directly next time instead of through Furnished Finder. Like that might happen. The same thing might happen with a corporate agent and the same thing might happen with an insurance agent. And so as we introduce you to first-time customers, you've got an opportunity to turn them into repeat customers and maybe serve them in a different way. And there's more of that than I think you have in short-term rental because travel agents isn't a huge part of the short-term rental ecosystem. Whereas for insurance placements, nursing staffing companies, corporate, it's a pretty big part. And so, you know, if you find out one of those placement agents that says a lot in your neighborhood, like you can turn that into most of your book of business potentially. Not great for Furnished Finder, but like, okay, we need to go help somebody else. Yeah. Are you guys um able to connect to GDS? Not yet. And we're working on what that should look like. You know, we we've got a you've got the GDS component, but then think of like the separate side is the MLS component, which is actually where as much or more of the content is, right? Gotcha. What about MLS? I I think that's the interesting one. And like that's what's so defensible about what Zillow and Co-Star have built is like interestingly there's I don't remember the number. There's I think thousands of MLS's at least hundreds. It's not like you go connect to it like you do the GDS. You actually connect you connect Austin and San Antonio and Houston and you know Yeah, that's a heavy lift. [laughter] And so it's it's a heavier lift than I thought it would be. And so we need to figure out if we can do that with a partnership or what that looks like. Oh, I didn't realize there wasn't one central hub that just you dialed down by like zip code or something like that. No, there's I mean I think Zillow believes they're maybe building that hub. Um but there's certainly, you know, much more for a long-term unfernished audience. Wow. Interesting. Interesting. Well, one question that we like to ask people that come on the show, Jeff, and especially someone like you that's been in this and on two different sides, but for a long time, if you could go back and do do this whole career differently or just see things differently from when you started 10 years ago or 15, 20 years ago, what would you have done knowing everything that you know now? Oh my gosh. Um, we might need another episode. [laughter] I think my biggest my biggest regret in the Vrbo journey was like, you know, like the deadly set of envy versus Airbnb. Uh I think we went through a period where we were just trying to catch up to or be a better version of Airbnb at the things they were clearly better at than us. And uh I I you know, I think we wasted years uh kind of kind of chasing down that rabbit hole. Um, and I wish we had earlier really tried to stood for something different, which I think they're doing still doing a good job of today around like this complex family uh, use case and like be serving a different audience than what Airbnb serves. I think the industry would have been better off for that and I think we certainly would have been better off as a company if we had realized sooner that maybe we weren't going to be weren't going to be number one. We were going to play a different role in the ecosystem. So that's probably the top of my list. there might be something around going back to the earlier point of like what's different about being an executive there versus an executive here. The further I got along that career, the more my interactions with customers felt as much like media or big customers as they did talking to someone who was an individual homeowner or maybe an upand cominging property manager in a smaller market. And um it's so hard to keep doing that as you get to scale that feels like billions or tens of billions. Um, but that's what's been refreshing about this role is like, you know, spend a remarkable amount of time like in a bigger pockets forum or in LinkedIn and talking to somebody who's got a home and understanding how they use our product and how to make our product better. And I think that's what's been great about the software space. I think the software guys have really done a good job filling that niche. Software's come so far like even in the last 5 years. It's amazing. Even as an owner using a property manager, it's amazing how much better. I was I think I think two of my properties are on guesty now. It's just amazing how much better they are. And you could tell they're obsessing over these little use cases over and over. And I think at some point the vacation rental industry, and we played a role in that, probably got too focused on the big picture and not enough focused on like a great stay and a great occasion in particular for the owners. I think for, you know, for managers out there, uh, I thought the episode you guys did with Sarah was great and she and I used to talk about a lot. I think that managers still miss the boat on how much credit they should take for things that aren't bookings. Um yeah. Oh, 100%. [laughter] And you know, uh they're they're really, you know, I've got three different managers. None of them are great at what I'd say like is CRM. You know, they've got me on their traveler emails, but none of them are great about like, hey, just, you know, wanted you to know that uh a family had a great stay at your place in South Padre last week. They left a fivestar review and this is how much money you made. It's like you see it in a statement, you feel it at the end of the year, but like that type of stuff builds real connection. And it's like they spend more of the time with the connectivity with the uh travelers, you know, with the guests than they do with the owners. And they're clearly good at it because they're good at the guest side. And I think they could do a lot more with the owners and really lean into like, hey, I'm protecting a half million dollar or a million dollar asset for you and here's what I've done. And like, aren't you glad I'm here? um and having self-managed for a decade, like I'm very glad they're there and I know how much work it is, but I don't think most people do. Yeah. I think um I've been doing um I left kind of the corporate world too last year and started my own consultancy um Annie and Co. And one of the things I've been working with people on is is just that that owner relation piece. And I think with AI, AI is going to remove some of the monotony and some of the things that have to get done. But it's going to allow people to be able to like foster those relationships that they might not have been doing because they were so focused on the guest and sort of the property level and just really not touching and building with the owners. And so I think that, you know, Sarah says it really well about how just, you know, being proactively communicating with your owners is really important. And we had um John Suzuki on and a couple times we love talking with him because he's such a relationship person. And I think now that we're diving so much more into AI, that that connection, people are craving that even more. And I think owners want it just as much. And the managers need to be able to go to those owners in good times and bad times. But if they do that, that relationship is solid and they're not going to go anywhere. And I just I think that the more technology can take some of the stuff away, it's going to allow people to be the freedoms to build those relationships. That is the core of hospitality. And whether you're renting for a week or, you know, 90 days or beyond, hospitality is still part of all of it. Yeah. Well, and that's the difference between a co-host versus a property manager. It's like I think homeowners sometimes just think that a property manager is really just a co-host that they're just managing bookings. They're getting bookings or managing the bookings. There's so much more to it, you know, and the property managers that are doing it right, they're showing every time they go to the property and they're showing that they don't charge for that because it's like you want them to understand like they're not just sitting in this building all, you know, all day long and not going to your property and not having to deal with the guests and not even have to deal with the guests, but have to, you know, provide the great hospitality on your behalf. I mean, there's so much more to it, you know, and I thought the um the insight around like I love it when they suggest things that aren't broken. Um, and it also creates a dynamic where when something is broken, it doesn't feel like the only time they reach out is that something's broken. It's like, here's an idea. Here's something that went well. Here's an improvement you might make. Oh, the AC you got to replace it. It's broken. Sorry about that. And it's like, oh, okay. Well, the last three conversations were cool and I'll fix the AC. Every time you call, you don't want it to be that people are breaking for impact when they pick up. Like, yeah. You don't have to say like, don't worry, nothing's wrong, but how are you today? I don't like, [laughter] you know, and I think that that piece, you know, that piece in midterm is different because like for the most part, you're going to hear every 90 days. Yeah. [clears throat] The stuff in the middle is the kitchen sink. [laughter] Yeah. The hospitality is different there. Well, super interesting to talk to you today, Jeeoff, and I'm so glad that you reached out to come on the show. This has been um definitely something we've been interested in and excited to have you on. But if anybody wants to get in touch with you and learn more about Furnished Finder or put their property on the site, what's the best way for them to reach out? Yeah. Uh, anyone who, you know, if you're, uh, working in the software space or doing connectivity or a property manager who wants to connect directly, uh, partnerships Furnished Finder.com. If you want to get a hold of me, LinkedIn is usually the best. I pay attention. I'll get back to you and would love to hear from people. And then, you know, sign up on the site. Um, you know, like any other site except um, a subscription. You know, we've got an list your property link in the top right and you just go give us your information and get started. You know, if you've got a listing anywhere else. It's cut and paste, very straightforward. You know, the hardest part's the photos and the um you know, what I'd encourage people to check out is the RDNA report that's on our site, but also we've got a tab called market insights that'll help you understand what type of tenants are in your city and you know, how many people are searching versus how much inventory is there, how much rent do people get by bedroom type, just to get a feel so you don't come in with the wrong expectations. I think the um people from short-term that have had bad experience with Furnished Finder are usually that they have the wrong expectations. It's like, well, I made $110,000 as a short-term, so if I can do that as a midterm and only have three turnovers, that'd be great. It's like, yeah, not realistic. [laughter] How about $72,000 and four turnovers? You know, whatever it looks like. [snorts] Yeah, the math behind the equations is always interesting. But [laughter] Awesome. Well, thank you for coming on, Jeff. Uh, if anybody wants to get in touch with Annie and I, you can go to Alexandpodcast.com. And until next time, thanks everybody.