Monthly Rentals Explained: A Practical Guide for Accidental Landlords
If you’ve ever found yourself thinking, “I didn’t plan to be a landlord, but here I am,” you’re not alone.
In a recent episode of the Accidental Landlord Podcast (opens in new tab), host Peter McKenzie sat down with Jeff Hurst, CEO of Furnished Finder (opens in new tab), to break down one of the fastest-growing (and often misunderstood) rental strategies: monthly rentals, sometimes called mid-term rentals.
If you’re weighing long-term vs. short-term rentals—or looking for a flexible middle ground—this guide will walk you through what monthly rentals are, who they serve, and when they make sense.
What Is a Monthly Rental?
A monthly rental is a furnished home rented with a standard lease for 28+ days (usually 30+ except for February).
While the industry sometimes calls them “mid-term rentals,” most renters are actually shopping for monthly rentals. The average stay is around three months, and the lease structure typically looks much more like a traditional rental than a nightly Airbnb booking.
The 30-day threshold matters because in many cities, that’s where short-term rental regulations stop applying. Monthly rentals allow landlords to rent furnished properties without operating as a hospitality business.
Who Uses Monthly Rentals?
The biggest difference between short-term and monthly rentals isn’t just length of stay, it’s intent.
Short-term rentals are typically leisure-driven: vacations, long weekends, events.
Monthly rentals are need-driven.
Common monthly rental tenants include:
Professionals commuting for temporary assignments
Healthcare workers on short-term placements
Families relocating or preparing to buy a home
Homeowners temporarily displaced by renovations, insurance claims, or major life events
These renters aren’t looking for a vacation. They’re looking for a place to live, just not forever.
Why Monthly Rentals Are Growing
Several trends have fueled the rise of monthly rentals:
1. Short-Term Rental Regulation
Many cities have restricted or banned nightly rentals. Furnished properties that can no longer operate short-term often transition into 30+ day leases.
2. Workforce Mobility
Business professionals, traveling nurses, construction crews, academics, and digital nomads need flexible housing that isn’t a hotel.
3. Post-Pandemic Inventory
Short-term inventory surged during the pandemic. As demand normalized, some owners sought more stable cash flow through monthly rentals.
4. Affordability & “Try Before You Buy”
More families are renting temporarily while deciding where to live long-term.
The result: monthly rentals have become a practical housing solution, not just a niche strategy.
Where Monthly Rentals Work Best
Monthly rentals succeed in different places than leisure-driven short-term rentals.
Instead of beach towns and tourist hubs, monthly rentals tend to perform best near durable demand drivers, such as:
Corporate offices and industrial corridors
Large-scale infrastructure and construction projects
Hospitals and medical centers
Suburbs with strong schools and everyday amenities
Universities and research hubs
A practical rule of thumb: if there’s an extended-stay hotel nearby (like Extended Stay America or Homewood Suites), you’re likely in a neighborhood with steady monthly rental demand.
How Much More Can Monthly Rentals Earn?
One of the biggest questions accidental landlords ask: Is it worth it financially?
Jeff offered a simple example:
If a long-term rental earns $3,000/month unfurnished, a furnished monthly rental in the same market might earn around $4,500-$6,000/month.
That’s roughly 50-100% more in monthly rent, depending on location and property type.
Occupancy for well-priced monthly rentals can remain strong, especially if you stay proactive about marketing and renewals.
What About Furnishing Costs?
Furnishing is often the biggest mental hurdle. Monthly rentals don’t need luxury upgrades. They need to be comfortable, durable, and functional.
A practical benchmark shared on the podcast: You can often get in the game for about $7 per square foot. For a 1,500 sq. ft. home, that’s roughly $10,000–$11,000 in furnishings. If the property earns an additional $1,500 per month compared to long-term rent, the furniture can pay for itself relatively quickly. The key is buying furniture that lasts, not overdesigning for Instagram.
Is It Less Work Than Short-Term Rentals?
Typically, yes.
Short-term rentals require:
Frequent turnovers
Hospitality-level responsiveness
Cleaning coordination multiple times per month
Guest experience management
Monthly rentals usually involve:
3–4 turnovers per year
Traditional lease agreements
More predictable tenant relationships
It feels closer to long-term management, with higher rent potential.
A Bridge Strategy for Uncertain Times
One insight that resonated strongly: monthly rentals can serve as a bridge strategy.
If you’re unsure whether to sell…
If short-term feels too volatile…
If long-term rent doesn’t cover your mortgage…
Monthly rentals allow flexibility without locking into a year-long lease.
For accidental landlords, that optionality can be powerful.
Frequently Asked Questions About Monthly Rentals
What is the difference between a monthly rental and a short-term rental?
Short-term rentals are typically nightly and leisure-focused. Monthly rentals are 28+ days and usually serve work, relocation, or temporary housing needs.
Are monthly rentals regulated like Airbnb?
Generally, no. Because they use standard 28+ day leases, they are typically treated as housing rather than hospitality.
How much more can I charge for a furnished monthly rental?
In many markets, about 50-100% more than an unfurnished long-term rental. Results vary by location and demand.
Do monthly rentals require luxury furniture?
No. They require durable, comfortable, functional furniture, not high-end staging.
What size property works best?
Studios, one-bedrooms, and two-bedrooms often perform well, especially near employment hubs or commuter corridors.
How do I determine pricing?
Explore Furnished Finder's Market Insights page (opens in new tab) for real-time demand data, including average budgets per property size based on travelers' searches in the specific market.
Can I test this strategy without a huge commitment?
Yes. For $199 per year, Furnished Finder gives you full access to the platform, including:
Nationwide advertising to monthly rental tenants
Unlimited direct leads from quality renters looking specifically for 28+ day stays
Tenant screening options
Lease resources and support tools
There are no per-booking commissions or hidden fees, so it is truly only $199. You keep all of the rent, control of your property, your lease terms, and your communication with tenants — all while tapping into one of the largest monthly rental audiences in the country.
It’s a low-risk way to test demand in your market without locking yourself into long-term contracts or high management costs.
Final Thoughts for Accidental Landlords
One of the most powerful themes from the podcast was this:
Many landlords don’t sell because it’s the best financial move. They sell because it feels overwhelming.
Monthly rentals provide another option—one that balances flexibility, income potential, and reduced regulatory risk.
If you’re an accidental landlord trying to decide your next step, monthly rentals may not be the answer in every situation. But they’re worth understanding—especially in today’s market.
More options mean more control. And more control brings you closer to financial independence.
Transcript
Welcome to another episode of the Accidental Landlord Podcast. I'm your host, Peter McKenzie. Today we have a really relevant, exciting show for you guys. We're going to be talking about all things midterm rentals. So, most everybody kind of knows what a midterm rental is. They're relatively new. So, we have, I would say, the the absolute expert in the industry here with us today, the CEO of Furnished Finder, Jeff Hurst. So, Jeff, welcome to the show. My pleasure to be here, Peter, and uh thank you for having me and introducing me to all of your guests. Yeah, why don't you take a minute or two just a quick bio? I think you have some really relevant experience that's going to factor in nicely to the conversation when it comes to short-term versus midterm. So, why don't you just give a quick bio on yourself for our listeners? Sure thing. So, uh, professionally, I started my career in the short-term industry. I joined Home Away when it was a private company in 2010 as a director in strategy. Kind of worked my way through there. Was the chief strategy officer at Home Away when we sold to Expedia in 2015. At Expedia, I was the chief commercial officer for Vrbo for 3 or 4 years and was eventually the president of Vrbo and then was the chief operating officer when I left Expedia about 2 and a half years ago. took a little bit of time off and I've been the furnished finder CEO for about the past year and a half. In addition to having spent so much time uh in the management side of marketplaces for short-term rentals and now mid-term rentals, I am also uh three times over landlord. I use property managers for all three properties now, but they're all short-term rentals in South Padre uh a ranch outside of Gonzalez and a lakehouse on LBJ. and I am looking for my first uh midterm rental investment, but have not pulled the trigger yet. Gotcha. Yeah, really relevant experience. Glad to hear you you're you're drinking the Kool-Aid when it comes to the things you're you're an expert in. Let's just define what what is a midterm rental. What are we talking about here? Yeah, the the the easiest way to think about it uh and people will say midterm rentals, most tenants or guests actually shop for monthly rentals. Uh but it is a furnished rental uh that has a called a proper lease, a standard lease for a term of at least 30 days. And so the average term is usually about 3 months. The category really started to, you know, it's been around forever. You've always been able to do a shorter than year-long lease, but monthly rentals gained popularity and furnished in particular as the short-term rental category grew. And then during co really a couple things happened. Uh, one thing was the traveling nurse boom through the pandemic and that's really what got Furnished Finder started. We were a travel nurse housing platform. We actually own another site called travel nurseousing.com and there became a need to house nurses and traveling medical professionals all over the US and that really accelerated our growth. Coming out of that, what we've seen is more and more people need to travel in monthly furnish rentals. whether it's because they choose to as a digital nomad, maybe they can't afford to buy a house and they want to try before they buy and rent or, you know, corporate travel, travel for construction. And so we've seen the business really diversify. But the core use case is I'm going to reach out to a landlord, sign a standard term lease, typically for 90 days or more, but for at least 30. And the 30 is important because in many places there are regulatory reasons why you can't do short-term leases. Yeah. Yeah. Let's identify the categories, I think, is be a good place to start cuz ultimately we're going to compare and contrast the different strategies because they all have their pluses, they all have their minuses. Obviously, most of our content and, you know, stuff is towards long-term rentals cuz that's what we do and, you know, that's I'd say the easiest form potentially, not always, for a new landlord, but obviously long-term rental is exactly what it sounds like. You're leasing your property out for typically a year or more, but it could be less, could be a lot longer. But there's no they're typically unfernished. There's no real amenities that come with them unless you're in like a multifamily environment, which is not typically what our listeners are are doing. But that's long-term. You just talked about midterm and then short-term. I think everybody kind of knows what short-term is as well. A lot of people have different misconceptions about it, but why don't you help us understand what a short-term rental is as well? Yeah, short-term rental probably started with I think VBO was founded in 1997. The category existed before that and it really took off with Airbnb in particular kind of in the 2010 to 2015 time frame and now Airbnb is globally the largest short-term rental platform. And you know a lot of times people refer to a short-term rental as an Airbnb. You know typically those are nightly rentals often with single night minimums. Frequently it might be three night minimum or a seven night minimum. But you're most associated with leisure. You know, the use case that's typically being taken over is someone's choosing between staying in a resort or an Airbnb or someone might, you know, before the regulatory action been going to New York and trying to save money versus being in a hotel, which is really how Airbnb started was by the room rentals more so than by the house or apartment rentals. And it's it's everywhere. I think they've got 6 million homes around the world now, about 1.6 million in the US. And the profile caters towards someone who's looking for, you know, a long weekend or a leisure event. And that's given it kind of a bad connotation sometimes because people associate it with it. A not in my backyard movement of I don't want a bachelor party or a bachelorette party or loud noise in my neighborhood even if I might be fine with it, you know, on the beach in South Padre or at a lake vacation. Yeah. Let's talk about the evolution of short-term rentals because I think in the beginning it was kind of like the wild wild west. there was not a lot of regulation. You could do whatever you want with it. That's not necessarily the climate today. I think everybody's aware that, you know, a lot of cities and and municipalities are cracking down on them. How has that changed? And I mean, CO obviously had a big impact on short-term rentals and then postco there was a big contraction in in a lot of the markets. So maybe speak to that and and has that affected the midterm or like changed people's perceptions of midterms as a result. Yeah, I think it has. And so you know between you know if you take the longer horizon you know there are you know millions more homes available now than there would have been 15 years ago and what is what has happened is people started to realize that assets that were you know often times long-term hold were better monetized by being a short-term rental. And so you'd see people buy, renovate, and turn them into short-term stock. I think even more so than that, what happened was it became a convenient scapegoat for municipalities not actually zoning correctly and building enough housing to support the population. And so starting in probably 2015 16 there became a really big movement to try and clamp down on vacation rentals and try and clamp down in particular on short stays. And you started to see New York City had a version of a band. San Francisco, Dallas, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, probably every major metropolitan city county at this point has had some form of a either restriction or ban on short-term rentals. And, you know, it was meant to create more housing, but in practice, most short-term rentals are not actually affordable housing. Most of them are actually quite expensive and outfitted more for a leisure occasion than, you know, just traditional housing stock. And so what came of that is that did help fuel part of the midterm rental boom and that there's inventory now that's already furnished that is illegal to rent for less than 30 days or less than 7 days depending on where you are. And so people started converting it into a mid-term rental use case because there is more yield typically about 50% 75% more yield per month than what you get out of a long-term rental. And so they're used to turnover. they've got systems in place and they started converting into the midterm category in particular in urban areas where there were regulatory concerns. Yeah, I definitely want to talk about the differences in income or yield. But before we do that, I I you mentioned New York City, San Francisco, and all these places like ban short-term rentals. We're really sensitive to regulation I as an industry, I guess, landlords, property management companies, and everybody was looking at New York when they banned their short-term rentals. And because their big beef was, hey, you're taking up all the housing for our local people, the workers, the, you know, the service industry. They have nowhere to live. Well, it didn't really pan out. I think the rents continued to go up. They didn't see any noticeable change, which, you know, flies in the face of what they were saying they were trying to do. I think short-term rentals kind of took a little heat off long-term rentals because the politicians from my not to get political by any means, but the politicians are looking for a reason why prices are so high, not just rents, but everything. And the landlords are an easy target. Well, we can put a law that says you can't raise your rent, which is happening, especially in California where we're located. It's it's one of the most regulated markets. I see short-term rental or midterm rentals as kind of like this in between like there I haven't I and maybe this is a good question for you. Have you seen any attempts at regulation of the midterm markets compared to what's happening in the long term and the short term? The only places I've seen 30-day plus restrictions have been at more of a homeowners association level. So specific communities I've seen some of it a little bit in Hawaii coming out of the fires. there was, you know, a real effort, you know, it's such a finite amount of housing stock to convert into into I think they did 90day plus, but in general, no, you know, not at any major metropolitan, not in any other state level. And and I think it's one of those it's way more so than nightly. It's like where do you draw the line, you know, would you draw it at 30 or 60 or 90 or 180? Like there's so many use cases for monthly and so many traditional use cases for less than an annual lease that I I think it is a lot less likely to be regulated. And it's also important to remember that the people who are coming to stay them, they're nurses, they're professors, they're a family whose roof burned down and they need a place to stay in the neighborhood so their kids can go to the same school. It doesn't have the same dynamics for scapegoating that a lot of the short-term rental category has. And it also doesn't have the same disenfranchised voter element. You know, you own a short-term rental in South Padre or Aspen. You don't live there. You don't vote. You know, you can try and influence through commerce, but you're pretty disenfranchised. You know, you yourself large property manager in Ventura, you actually have means to influence city council in a way that most short-term owners really don't. And I think that's caused even more of a wedge. Yeah, I know that in our particular market, there's a city of Oxnard, which is right next door to us. They put their own tenant protection type regulations in place that don't necessarily affect short-term rentals, but they actually do because they they link them to 30 days, and it has to do with telling your tenant to move. It's a very it's the only one I've ever seen. Um, and it's not and the problem with all of these laws that they pass is they're very vague. They're not specific. There's like a hundred different scenarios that could be interpreted a hundred different ways. But I was having a conversation with another property manager that deals in that market more than we do. And they were pretty upset when they passed that law because they it's you know there's a beach community in in Oxnard and they have a fair amount of midterm rentals because the city of Oxnard has said or made it very difficult for a short-term rental. So if people want a short-term rental, they have to say 30 days or more, which then kicks in this other law. So they're just making it more complicated. But yeah, that's, you know, I think the the other classic issue with it is they're typically uninforceable. You know, there's not actually a department that's staffed to go solve the problem. There's a law and then they have people file complaints, but then there's not really anything to do with it. And that's been a big challenge for the municipalities. For sure. For sure. Okay. So, I like how I love I love the way business works sometimes. like you had this big boom of short-term rentals after COVID or during around COVID time and then that all ended once the you know the the country opened back up and people didn't have to go to certain areas to to do what they wanted to do. Now there was this glut of short-term rentals. I think in one of the markets that that I have a short-term rental in, I want to say there was like 1,500 short-term rentals pre-COVID and it was like 4,500 after or, you know, towards the end of COVID, which is like that's a 2 3x in inventory. And then the second that all the uh lockdowns were lifted, there was a there was big trouble. There was like, well, there's all these furnished houses. What are we going to do? And I think that helped the midterm category quite a bit because now there is an option. But let's talk a little bit about where the midterm strategy works best because I don't think it works in every area of every city. I think, you know, there's definitely areas in a city that that lend lend itself to to performing better than others. Can you speak to that? Definitely. And let me let me take it through two angles. One is kind of like what type of house and where, but let me start with who's coming. And that's the biggest difference. You know, you think about uh Vrbo or Airbnb. you know, the people that were coming were typically staying for, you know, three to seven nights. I think at Verba the average was five. You know, we always talked about like it was a it was we called it a complex family. It was like a nuclear family of four and a grandparent or it was, you know, and you're solving for kind of five or more people. And so, it was typically a larger format home. It was typically three bedrooms or more. And it typically had some amenities that might be hot tub or pool or yard or pickle ball or whatever it is that helped signify leisure. And so it's a larger footprint, it's a larger party size, and it typically is close to something that's a leisure destination. It's water, it's beach, it's sand, it's lake, or it's an urban center. You know, on the opposite side, midterm, uh, our average tenant party is 2.6. And so it's usually a couple or a couple and a kid, but it's very often a single traveler. You think about traveling for work, construction, or you're traveling for work and you're a salesperson, like you're usually alone. or you know your next use case is a dislocated relocated family. That might feel kind of like that Vrbo Airbnb use case, but they're trying to stay in their same commuter pattern and they're actually like in distress. They're not celebrating a spring break or a summer vacation. They need a place to stay because their plumbing burst or their house burnt down and they're willing to downsize in order to just have a safe space that's not a hotel room. And then your other big use case is going to be that you've got a uh traveling medical professional and that's typically one or often roommates. So it's one or two people. All that lends itself to kind of the sweet spot for what where midterm rentals do best. You're typically two bedrooms or less. Often, you know, I think the sweet spot's probably a onebedroom that might have a bonus room that could be a bedroom or could be an office but has some flexibility use. And then you think about it as being you're either near good public schools, which is where the families need to be, near a commuter corridor or downtown, which is where the business professionals and often construction needs to be or you're near a university. And there's a lot of traveling academics, graduate students, professors. And so from a point of interest perspective, you know, you're typically not on the river, on the lake, or next to all the high-end, you know, call it hotel destinations. A good rule of thumb if like if there's an extended stay America nearby, you know, if there's like a sweet hotel nearby, you're probably getting into the right neighborhood because they're catering to a similar type of tenant. But our approach is just giving them more value for often less money than being in one of those longerterm stay hotels. Gotcha. Gotcha. No, that makes sense. What is it typically? Do you have people that rent midterms by the room or is it usually just the entire unit? Yeah. So, we have about 300,000 listings and I think about 60,000 of them are rooms. And so, you can rent out a room at someone's house. You know, the room might be more of an ADU. Sometimes if the ADU has the right amenities, then it's, you know, the ADU is actually more like a home, but we have about 240,000 homes and then 60,000 rooms for rent. Do you see they perform? Do how do they perform differently? Uh, they perform similarly. I think you get we actually the room product on our site's a little bit cheaper just because you earn less income from a room than you do a house and there's fewer photos, a little bit less setup. But in terms of like vacancy, they're probably pretty similar. You know, I think in terms of an investment strategy, there are people who will rent out their house by the room because they think it yields more. I think if you're in that spot, it probably says more about your tenant type and that you might be having multiple different types of construction workers or maybe even undergraduate housing or something like that than it does that it's the best use for all inventory. I don't think it's a universal strategy so much as an occasional strategy. There's another platform that serves that category called Padsplit also who I think is doing interesting things for in particular affordable housing. Yeah, I've I actually have talked with the Padsplit guys a couple times. We actually manage professionally rent by the room strategy. We call it house hacking which I'm sure you've heard the term which but the the same thing they perform better in some spots and some spots is just like not appropriate. Like this is not a good spot to be doing this. So just knowing your local market and understanding who your tenant base is. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that, you know, there are neighborhoods where you might fall a little bit more into the not in my backyard short-term trap. If, you know, what was a family living in a three or fourbedroom house now is four cars with four different commuting patterns and like different noise issues. Like I could see I could see hang-ups with that in some places. Yeah. I got a specific question for you and and when you were talking about the the the use case for the product, you talked about something that we see all the time is like displaced families like there's a big uh maintenance emergency, the property is not inhabitable, they have to go find a place t often the insurance is is with them that is going to fund you know them being displaced. Does Furnished Finder deal with payment or is that direct between the tenant and the landlord? It is direct between the tenant and landlord. And that's really kind of I call us a throwback site. Like I think the secret sauce to our site is that we're very hands-off. So for $179 a year, you put up your listing and then we actually allow you to reveal a phone number and just call somebody. You know, we do have a messaging platform, but we provide email addresses, we provide everything. And so it functionally it has a lot in common with you know almost a Facebook marketplace or a Craigslist except it's more vetted with more quality controls than what you'd find in those truly open you know lead gen platforms. Okay, that answers my question cuz the the complicated part about working with insurance companies is all the insurance companies do it a little bit differently. Some of them some of them want to lease the property which I try to shy away from cuz I don't really like renting to insurance companies. Some of them just reimburse their their policy holders, but I guess that's irrelevant here. Okay, so let's talk about the biggest difference like everybody, you know, well, let me frame the question a little bit. We live in a coastal community in Southern California. It's very expensive. You don't have cash flow investors running around like you would in like a Cleveland, Ohio, buying properties, renting them out for the mortgage, and putting some cash in their pocket. We have investors here. the strategies are different. You got to be a little more creative. You got to have a little more capital. So, when we come across a landlord who wants to us to help them manage the property, ultimately the the question comes up like how much can you rent it for? I they're also considering short-term. They're also considering midterm. And they want to know, well, what's the best one for me? What's involved? I think everybody knows like midterm short-term like progressively becomes more work for you if you're not going to have it professionally managed. But the part that's a little bit murky because the furnished, you know, the mid-term market is not as developed as the short-term market or the long-term market is in how much how much can I get? You know, what's the yield? And obviously, this is something you you have some expertise in. So, let's talk about that. What kind of frame the conversation from a, you know, two-bedroom, two bath house in our market that long-term would rent for $3,000 a month and then kind of take it from there. Yeah. Two. So, let's say longterm it's renting for $3,000 a month unfernished. I'd say the starting place like you would expect to get at least $4,500 a month furnished. And you know, most of what we hear in occupancy, you know, your occupancy is probably going to be typically a desirable property in the9s. You know, our power landlords usually talk about like it's greater than 95% occupancy because there's a, you know, typically a less than 30-day lease up period and you have a 30-day notice period. So, if you're hustling, and it is more hustle than a short-term rental, then you can stay leased pretty much year round. And so, start with it's about 50% more rent and depending on the use case or even the time of year, you might be able to get more than the 50%. It just really depends a lot on who your tenant type is and how much willingness to pay they have. And so, I often think of it, if you're coming from the long-term side, it's like, what's my return on furniture? And so if I'm going to make an extra $1,500 a month and how much is it going to cost for me to furnish the house? Uh it's not like furnishing a short-term rental. You know, there's not six different 70-in TVs and you're not trying to wow somebody with your Viking range or, you know, all the different things that go into a short term. It's much more functional. You know, we typically advise that for somewhere around $7 a square foot, you can be in the game. You can provide someone what they need and then you kind of add on along the way. The other big difference is if you are going to use a manager, it's actually management fees. You know, management fees are typically around 25% and short-term, but when you take into account all the things that they either pass on or keep from the it gets closer to 40 or 50%. Because there's taxes, there's cleaning fees, there's service fees, there's all sorts of things that are kind of hidden honey holes or passroughs. And midterm has a much more affordable management structure because you're doing three or four turns a year. There's just a lot less work. And so that can be a big difference. You're kind of trading out of some wear and tear, out of some fees and into that profit pool versus short-term. On the long-term side, you know, you're going to turn it over a little more. You're going to have a little bit more wear and tear, but you're going to make 50% more or even 100% more in rent. And that furniture, you know, take a deduction on it and you can typically use it for quite a long time. We encourage people to buy furniture, you know, not IKEA, but real furniture that's going to last you a long time and use partners like Manoan to go source it so that you've got stuff that actually stands the test of time and you can get a great return on furniture that way. Gotcha. So 3,000 you're saying average 4,500 for the midterm strategy and then I think it's really hard to say what a short-term would produce because there's totally so much variation. But I think is it fair to say that if you have someone who knows what they're doing that they're going to they're going to make more than a midterm on a short-term rental? I I I I think for the right location for sure. You know, if you're talking about where you are and you're, you know, a short drive or even a walk to the beach, you know, you've got a uh you've got a profile that lends itself to leisure also. Definitely. I don't think that's always the case in urban anymore. And I think there is has become such a glut of inventory and also so many use cases. I mean, they've built a lot of hotels and hotel service have gotten better and there is increasingly I think scenarios where if you're going to have a short term that's only 40% occupied, you are better off in a mid-term strategy because you could have more predictable cash flow and you can probably just make more money by catering to a different tenant type and not fighting it out on Airbnb. Yeah. And I think cuz we get contacted by short-term rental owners who are like, I'm done. I'm I'm done with this. like it was great in co times, it's not now and it ain't worth it. What can I do? That's happening more and more in our business. So, it it tracks it. It makes sense. And and for seasonal owners, I think it even makes more sense because a midterm strategy for someone who might want to be there a couple months out of the year still accommodates that. You know, if we call them winter, if you're a winter Texan and you want a midterm when you're not there, you know, you can still do that in yield. You know, there are hybrid strategies, but it's very hard to hybrid out of a long-term strategy because you're long-term. And so, but you can hybrid between the midterm and short-term and potentially you've got an urban property and there's a festival and you want to block it off for that month because you can actually do well renting for a festival. Yeah, we have a I'm involved with a management company up in Idaho and the whole short-term midterm is the thing there because they the short term during the season performs phenomenally, but in the winter time it's going to sit vacant unless you unless you're willing to be flexible, lower the price and just get it rented and they're already furnished. So, they don't really lend themselves a long-term rental, but it's kind of like a little niche compared to what we do here. We see that, you know, in Michigan we see that a lot, too. you know, incredible short-term rental market for the summer, not great in the winter, but there is enough commerce and things going on that there's a real midterm monthly furnished rental market. Yeah. Okay. So, I think we've we've articulated that nicely. Let's talk about Let me tell you a little bit of pain point that we have. People come to us, they want to rent a furnished house out. Okay. Why are we doing that? Well, we just don't want to move the furniture. Okay. Well, let's take a look at the furniture. So, I think sometimes, not always obviously, but the the people who want to keep their house furnished, they're doing it out of a convenience factor. And and maybe that furniture is not very nice. Like, when we've looked at this these options, it's like, okay, yeah, it's furnished, but no one's going to want to live on this furniture. You really should throw the furniture in the trash. It's not like it's like current updated nice furniture. Would that work in the midterm or is it like short term? Like it's got I mean I kind of know the answer to this question but does any of the data on your site address that like if they don't do it well? We don't have great available data on something that would feel like quality of fit out or quality of design aesthetic yet. You know I hope you know let's play it to talk again in a year and I think we'll be able to build some interesting products that help to address that issue. You know what I'd say what I'd counsel someone who's in that situation. you know, one, you know, if you just don't want to be hassled, I guess you don't want to be hassled. But like, I don't think it's that economically rational. But on the flip side of it, you don't, you know, it's $179 a year. And so, you don't, it's not that much of a risk to, okay, you've got it furnished, you want to you want to monthly rent it, build a listing, give it 3 weeks, and see what happens. and you might find that there is an actual use case because if you do know that you're close to a university or close to a lot of construction or whatever it may be. I have been personally surprised how often there are use cases where people are like, "Yeah, for that amount of money, I'll do it." And I I think it's always instructive to just think about, you know, that three-bedroom house that's kind of dated. You know, think about someone whose alternative is to rent two or three rooms at Extended State America. you know, they're going to be in for $9,000 for a month. You know, if you've got three rooms at $100 a night, like that's where you are. And the type of house you're describing maybe for $3,500 a month furnished, you're willing to get over some of the aesthetic concerns because you're thrilled to have a house with a living room and, you know, a backyard for your pets, even though the furniture is not of the same quality. And those dynamics get really interesting where location can matter a lot. and potentially somebody with subpar furniture but a fully paid off mortgage can have a great cash flow business with a monthly product. Yeah, I never really thought of it that way that you make a good point. Like and the other thing that we're not factoring in is we don't know what the guest's house looks like. Maybe their furniture is is worse. Maybe their living conditions are worse and this is an upgrade for them. I guess you never really know. I do like that it's very little commitment to try this out. Like a couple hundred bucks for the the software, throw it on there and see what happens. And if it doesn't go good, you know, our average our average customer is making well over $10,000 a year for $179 bucks. And yeah, you know, people make $179 mistakes, but I don't think we're one of them. Okay. So, let's talk about So, let's ignore that little scenario. We just Somebody has a they, you know, they're moving out of state. They they know they want to rent the house out and they are trying to figure out the different strategies. what's really involved in somebody who's not really hands-on, not a big DIY person, but they want to do midterm. What does that look like? Because I know for the people we have conversations with, a lot of times they're moving out of the area and they want like the easy button to be hit. And and if they have to go buy a bunch of furniture, do a bunch of stuff, that's an impediment to them doing it sometimes. So, what is what's really involved? Because everybody has what they think is involved. We want to know from you like what's actually involved. Doing it fully remote, like not even being there for the setup is possible, but you've got to have either a manager or network. And so we have a podcast at Furnished Finder called Landlord Diaries where the host lives in Denver and has 11 monthly rentals in Iowa and all of them are basically managed through kind of friends and family connections. And she has signed an arbitrage lease and gone from unfernished to furnished with a guest in 48 hours. So like you can get this stuff done if you are really logistically coordinated and want to get it done. You know what I'd say is, you know, the furnishing aspect. You know, you can do preparation planning for it. You can order stuff in advance. You can get things to arrive at the same time. It doesn't have to be weeks or months. You know, it's not short-term rental. You can actually do it on a relatively low design budget. There are also companies out there, and Manoan is example of one we partner with that have design services or will connect you with a local designer and you just press the easy button. Hey, this is your budget. This is the format. Take a look. Do it for me. It is very often part of a property manager solution where the property manager will say, "Hey, I charge a markup on the furniture and this is my service and I'm going to go set it all up for you." But you don't have to deal with it. And that way the manager will actually know for everything in the house if something breaks, is it under warranty? How do I replace it? You know, what is kind of my skew count to make it all easier. And that that can make it a lot easier. And so if you're going to be fully remote, I typically would recommend you find a manager. You know, there are plenty you can find on our side. Bigger Pockets actually has good resources for this, too. And if you're going to go it alone, it's a lot easier than short-term. You know, you're doing turnover three or four times a year, and you need to have a good cleaner. But you do still have to be available like a, you know, landlord all the time, and maybe a little more so because you've got people who are less familiar with the house, and when something goes wrong, you need to be able to help them or know who is going to help them. Yeah. So, you threw out a figure earlier uh a per what was the per square foot in in cost for furniture? Yeah, we typically advise that if you're you know if you're you can do this for about $7 a square foot, you know. Okay. So, 1,500 foot that's roughly 10 grand. So, that's that's actually not bad cuz you're not you don't have to think of everything in these scenarios, right? That's right. When it comes to furnishings, no, I mean, you don't you don't have to have gone out and found the crockpot and the cappuccino maker and all the different things. You need it to be comfortable and describe what you have. But that you think about that 10,500 and then we go back to the extra $1,500 a month you're making. Okay. Well, you know that gets you to $18,000. So you've paid for your furniture in 8 months and then you're cash flowing and like that that's where it gets interesting but it's a little more work. Yeah. No, that makes total sense. What roughly what what what's the average management fee that professional managers are charging? I don't have great statistical data on it. I think that it would be close to like probably 15% somewhere in the 10 to 15% range. Okay. You know, long-term I think is usually well I guess you would know long-term very well. It's a premium to long-term but a more significant discount to short-term. And what I've understood from it from the long-term managers I've talked to is that it usually fits into their footprint and operating model. It's not that different than what they're doing with the exception of you're doing it more often in terms of the turnovers. Yeah. I know you and I had a had a meeting prior to the podcast and we were discussing that and I didn't really well I didn't really analyze it as as a as a vertical for us to go into seriously but after our conversation it's pretty similar like the only real difference like you said is you do it you know a handful of more times a year well professional management companies who who are good at what they do there's systems in place for all that it's really not it's more work there's more things that have to happen but it's you're not reinventing anything you're just hitting the button to start the process totally five times instead of one time. So, you know, and you and you deserve to charge more for more work and so you can build it into your fee structure. And I think that, you know, as you make the leap to short-term rentals, it's a whole lot more work because then you're more of a hospitality company. Like you are thinking about being sure they understand what restaurants are available and being sure that they've got the right, you know, they've got the right streaming services or whatever else may be available. That's not part of the midterm program. Yeah. No, I like that. Do you guys participate or advise or provide marketplaces for like helping people acquire properties for this or is it strictly the platform? You know, overwhelmingly we're a we're a marketplace where we help uh help tenants find landlords. We do have a tool if you go to the site Furnished Finder back/stats where you can type in any city and it will show you the most up-to-date I think it's to the up to the last month how many searches are happening how many people are coming what's the average rent by format things to give you a flavor for it we're in the process of revamping that architecture and improving that page and so I hope to have a much better experience to share by the end of the year but it's a great starting place you know I usually encourage people who are thinking about the space one it's like go to Airbnb and look homes that are like yours and see how much they're renting for and then assume they're not rented all the time. Go to Zillow, look at homes that are like yours and see how much they're renting for. Go to Extended Stay America or Homewood Suites or one of the long-term brands and hotel, whatever's close to your house, and see what their average rate is. Those are the triangulation points to figure out how much you can charge. It's going to be more than Zillow. It's going to be less than Airbnb. And it's probably going to be less than the hotel. And that's when you know you're really on to something. If you can charge less in a month than that hotel experience, but provide a way better experience, that hotel's there because someone did a lot of work thinking about where to put it, there's not a lot of mistakes in that market. And that's where you can really start to dial it in more. Yeah, they have professionals that are doing their due diligence for sure. No, I like that. That's good. I'm just thinking about our area. We have a handful of those long-term brands in each city that we manage in. So, the people that come to us typically aren't do trying to do all this on their own. Otherwise, they would, you know, plenty of people manage long-term rentals on their own. In fact, the stats are like 65 70% of properties are managed by the owner. So, not professionally at all. So, but the people that come to us, they are looking for help. They are looking for a solution. And I could see this being just a different tool in the toolbox for us. Like, it all ultimately boils down to what they're trying to accomplish. you know, do they want most of the time the the mortgages they have on these properties are pretty high and they're taking a loss on a long-term rental. So, if we can get them to where they're not taking a loss or even cash flowing a little bit, that would be a huge win. Huge win. Yeah. And I think, you know, feeding into that, you know, so you're saying 65% of long-term is self-managed, correct? I think probably short-term is closer to the opposite. You know, it's probably closer to 60% is professionally managed. And you know, it's often because the person is literally not in the same city and so they, you know, they hired a manager or the manager may have been the realtor and if it's not working out, they're expecting management, not planning to go cobble this together. In the monthly space for our platform, it is more independent landlords, but a lot of that's our technology is not yet well set up for someone who's using professional software to just connect and have it turn on the way you might expect Zillow Rental Manager or Co-Star product. and we've got to build that out to better serve that use case, but we are slightly more tailored to the independent landlord. Yeah. I'm just thinking in our particular case like if we launched this vertical for your software would just be like a a lead source for the people that want to live in the properties and then we would just plug them into our systems that we already have in place because it's very similar to long-term. You would set up an email alias and probably a separate phone number and that'd be about it once you created the listing content. Yeah. Yeah. Well, this has been a great conversation. Is there anything we didn't touch on that you think is relevant to an accidental landlord who's considering this as a potential option? You know, I I I think the uh the only thing I'd mentioned, you you touched on how in your area, you know, you can't just go out and buy a cash flow positive, you know, rental on a whim. And, you know, I've always thought of, you know, short-term rental, it's short-term is more of an appreciation play. And they occasionally cash flow really well. There's always exceptions to the rule. And in the midterm space, I think what's interesting in this macroeconomic moment is that you've got a chance to basically bridge a gap. You know, it's not it's not a stellar time necessarily to be selling. So, you inherited a place or you're getting married, you're not sure what to do. I think it's a really compelling bridge solution and that's why some people are getting out of short term and into it. But also, I think that dynamic of should I sell or not, you know, you're not committing to take something off the market for a year. take it off for two or three months and keep it market it as for sale and see what happens in a way that's a lot less possible when you're unfernished and I think that's a dynamic we expect to see more of. The only other thing I'd mention is, you know, no, we're not a household name. A lot of people haven't heard of Furnished Finder yet. And for those thinking of trying us, as a thank you for being a u being a loyal listener, we'd like to offer a coupon code for people and it's accidental 20 to get 20% off the already cheap $179 listing. Awesome. Thank you for doing that. Very gracious of you. I was just thinking about what you were saying that well the name of the show is accidental landlord and the majority of our clients are what we consider accidental landlords and that's not a negative thing by any means. It's just how they came to be in the situation they're in. And it really I don't want to say it bothers me, but I I feel bad for for the accidental landlord when they decide to sell because it's too much of a hassle. Like that bothers me because I know that holding on to that real estate most of the time is in their best interest. Rarely does selling, yeah, you absolutely need to sell this property. There are cases where selling is the right move. Most of the time holding it, leveraging the equity, buying more real estate is a better move, but a lot of the times because they're not intentional professional investors, it's hard for them to grasp that. So yeah, it's near and dear to our heart. Our founder, Brian Payne, I think is is an accidental landlord from California. He got married. He had an extra place. They decided to rent it out furnish to nurses because he worked in a hospital. It worked and they're like, "Oh, we can do this again." And again, and that's how Furnished Finder came to be. And so when we talk internally, we always talk about is they are they a Brian, you know, are they someone who did not mean to be a landlord but just kind of stumbled into it and how do we help them be successful? And no, there's other ways to do this. And I think that's the challenge, right? because our our company is big on education, hence the podcast is like we're trying to level up these accidental landlords so that they can benefit from the real estate that they have and and getting more. Same for you guys. Like if the midterm strategy, I think, is a little more intimidating to an accidental landlord who has no experience for sure because there's a little more to it. But if people like you and us provide them with as much of the easy button as we can, I think that's a a valuable service. the the use case I'd say where it's sometimes less stressful to go monthly is that someone's got an emotional attachment to the furniture. You know, for whatever reason, they're like, "Well, just I just don't know if I can part with it." And then it's like all of a sudden this house that you care about is someone else's home or saving them in a difficult time and they're perfectly happy to love the furniture that maybe ought to go. Um, and that can be a way that saves hassle and just kind of turns on the turns on the cash register. So, it's it's funny you bring that up. We have a fair amount of content around how you have to emotionally disconnect from your house. Not even the furniture cuz most of the time we're unfernished, but there's so many that have a connection to the house and they make really bad decisions because of those emotional connections to the house. But yeah, well, this has been great. I appreciate you coming on the show. I think this is something we're seriously going to consider as an option, especially, you know, our whole thing is we want to help our our why is we want to help people get closer to financial freedom. And we do it through long-term rentals, but honestly, like more options is better. Like it's not always just long-term rentals. There's different verticals out there that can do the same thing. We're 11 years old. Uh come check out the content. We've got 200 people in customer support and sales that answer questions all day long. And so reach out to us and we'll help however we can and hope to be part of the journey. Awesome. Thank you, Jeff. Appreciate you coming on the show. Thank you, Peter.