Welcome to another exciting episode of The Landlord Diaries! This week, we delve deep into the world of monthlyrentals and the vast array of opportunities they present for real estate investors. Whether you're a seasoned landlord or a newcomer, we've got invaluable insights to help you maximize your investment potential. Proudly brought to you by Furnished Finder, the largest online marketplace for monthly rentals, let's dive into the latest updates and resources to elevate your landlord experience.
To catch up on the latest episode, click on your preferred podcast platform to subscribe, like, or leave us a review. You can listen the The Landlord Diaries Podcast (opens in new tab) on YouTube, (opens in new tab) Spotify (opens in new tab), and Apple Podcast (opens in new tab).
Embracing the monthly rental revolution
Monthly rentals present a unique and burgeoning opportunity within the real estate market. Unlike short-term rentals, primarily used for vacationing, monthly rentals cater to diverse needs such as travel for work, medical reasons, academic positions, and more. Furnished Finder is at the forefront, providing a platform that saves you from booking fees, markups, and commissions and favors direct bookings. Learn more about how you can list your property effectively at Furnished Finder (opens in new tab).
Keep up with industry trends: insights from Jeff Hurst
In our latest podcast episode, we welcomed back Jeff Hurst, President and CEO of Furnished Finder, who shared significant updates and insights. Having extensive experience with platforms like Vrbo and Expedia, Jeff offers valuable expertise in optimizing landlord experiences and tenant satisfaction.
Key takeaways
Diverse tenant types: Monthly rental tenants are not just traveling medical professionals. We see an influx of corporate travelers, displaced homeowners, digital nomads, and academics.
Updated Property Details Page: Soon, landlords can expect a more modern, user-friendly property details page with enhanced photo viewers and trust signals.
Elevating your property listings
To stay competitive and attract reliable tenants, it's crucial to keep your property listings updated and visually appealing. With our planned updates to the property details page, investing in high-quality photos and completing all property information will enhance your chances of securing bookings. For more about how to optimize your listings, check out our guide on Creating an Irresistible Property Listing (opens in new tab).
Driving tenant demand: our continuous efforts
Our commitment to increasing tenant demand remains stronger than ever. We've been enhancing our search engine optimization (SEO) strategies and stepping up our marketing efforts. These initiatives ensure that more potential tenants discover the value Furnished Finder offers, ultimately bringing you more booking opportunities.
Celebrating a decade of success
Furnished Finder is turning ten this year, marking a significant milestone. Over the past decade, we've strived to empower landlords and transform lives through real estate investments. As we look forward, our goal remains to offer unparalleled value and support to our community.
What lies ahead
Increased marketing initiatives: Expect more targeted ads and offers across popular platforms like Google, Facebook, and Instagram.
Comprehensive product enhancements: From better tenant screening to user-friendly online payment processing, new tools are continually being developed to improve your experience.
Join the conversation
We are constantly evolving based on your feedback. If you have any suggestions or questions about our new products, or if there's something specific you'd like to see from Furnished Finder, let us know! (opens in new tab) Your input is invaluable as we aim to serve you better.
Discover more
Gain further insights on this topic in episode 109 of Furnished Finder’s podcast, The Landlord Diaries (opens in new tab). Ready to take your rental business to the next level? Head over to Furnished Finder (opens in new tab) and start optimizing your monthlyrentals today!
For the latest news and updates, make sure to subscribe to our podcast and read more informative articles on our blog (opens in new tab). By embracing monthly rentals, you're not just gaining tenants; you're building a future filled with potential and growth.
Episode 109 Transcript
Welcome to the Landlord Diaries, where we talk about midterm rentals and the opportunities behind them. We'll share landlord stories, talk about maximizing investment potential, and discuss how to live the very best landlord life. This podcast is proudly brought to you by Furnished Finder, the leader and largest online marketplace for midterm rentals.
Remember to like and subscribe if you enjoy our content. Hey, hey, everybody, it's your Landlord Diary host, team of the Landlord Diaries, Kelly and Katie, coming to you as active midterm rental hosts on Furnished Finder with around eight to 10 properties each. And today we get our next update from our CEO and president, Jeff Hurst, Katie, what were your big takeaways?
Yeah. So you guys, we talked to Jeff with episode 100, um, about some exciting stuff that we're working on behind the scenes, and this is kind of chapter two to that, and we're going to keep you guys updated behind the scenes. This is something that going forward, we really want to do is. Keep everybody in the loop about what are we doing behind the scenes?
What are we working on? What are we prioritizing that you'll be able to see in the near future? So today we get to talk about a new product that's coming your way. Um, it's called worry free waiver. It's going to be really, really helpful for landlords of all different types. Um, just to kind of help give you a little bit of security.
Um, and, and we'll go into the details that I won't, I won't spoil it, but you can hear about it all here. Um, we also talk about the fact that the Furnished Finder is turning 10. Um, and all of our landlords are going to hear more about some exciting things we're doing with Furnished Finder Turns 10, a really big contest, um, that we're going to be announcing soon.
So keep your eyes peeled for that, but just enjoy this conversation we have with Jeff. We talk so much about different tenant types, how you can serve them, how you can make yourself stand out in the marketplace, how to use these tools that we are, that we are revealing. I mean, it's just jam jam packed with actionable stuff.
So. Take it in, digest it, and get excited for the future.
Let's welcome back our Furnished Finder President and CEO, Jeff Hurst. If you did not catch Jeff's most recent State of the Union address, please return to episode 100 of the Landlord Diaries podcast. Today, we're going to share exciting platform updates, new products, and give you insight and tips on how to secure more bookings for your midterm rentals.
Jeff, thanks for being with us today. How are you? I am doing great. Thanks for having me on Katie and Kelly. And, um, I'm from a new location today. My family is actually in a midterm rental in Crested Butte for part of the summer. And today I'll be talking a little bit about updated look and feel of the site.
And I've been getting complaints by my family on the updated look and feel of Jeff and this beard that I've grown in the mountains. So don't be surprised or off put if it doesn't look like the Jeff you saw on episode 100. I feel like it's mandatory though. Like you come to Colorado, you got to get a flannel shirt.
You got to get the beard. Next, you got to get like an IPA and you'll be all set. I am all set then. Okay, good. Perfect. You're all, you're all set. You're fully Colorado. Resident like Katie. I've got the, I've got the green light. That's good. Stop at Casa Benito on the way home and you will be all set.
Perfect. All right. So Jeff, give us, give us a little brief, um, insight into your background for anybody who maybe this is the first time they're hearing from you or they're like stumbled upon our episode today and they're like, okay, wait, wait, wait, who is Jeff and why is he here? Sure, so I am the president CEO furnished finder and have been that for just over half a year.
Prior to that, I had spent almost my entire career in short term rentals. And so I was the president of prior to that. I was the chief strategy officer Homeaway. And at the tail end of my travel career, I was the chief operating officer of Expedia Group, uh, overseeing, uh, the strategy and analytics and operations for all of the brands across Expedia Group.
I took about a year off when I left Expedia and was looking for something to do and was introduced to the founders of Furnished Finder and we hit it off and the rest is history in the making. Well, we've heard a lot from landlords since our last update, uh, through surveys and feedback in our Facebook group of over 140, 000 members and with our great customer service team as well.
So, Jeff, why don't you share some of the things we've learned from our landlords this quarter? Great. Yeah, I've actually had 3 conversations just this week. And so when we say, we want your feedback, we do take it seriously. Someone is going to read everything. And in many cases, you're going to get an email from Katie or Kelly, or me, or a phone call saying, can we chat?
The biggest things I've learned have really been around and I'm going to combine a couple of things. What I've learned from conversations, we also ran our 1st survey, um, Since I joined the company to better understand how landlords are feeling, the biggest things I learned were as follows. 1, not surprisingly, like, everyone's thinking about some version of return on investment, and that return is a combination of how many tenants do they have and how much money they make from tenants on Furnished Finder, and then how much time do they have to put into it to get to basically.
Get those tenants. And people are asking us for some combination of just provide me more demand or just make it easier. We asked about a lot of other things, but those two are really in a league of their own of what people want. And so, and the back half of the year, that's where we're really focused is how do we deliver against those things?
Second, big thing I learned was that we're really helping a lot of people make a lot of money. And I knew it in the abstract, but what we learned from our survey was that, on average, people are making more than 10, 000 a year off Furnished Finder. You know, reminder 10, 000 for 150 investment and a subscription, pretty world class in terms of return.
And the top 10 percent of our landlords are making well over 20, 000. Um, it's, you know, wrapping your arms around what all that means is still something that I'm trying to do. I think we've got some big opportunities to get more demand to more people because there are people, and we hear this in the anecdotal feedback too, of like, I've been on and I saw some leads, but I haven't had a booking.
How do we make it a richer experience for everyone? Um, As opposed to an awesome experience for most people. And so that's one of the things we're going to be working by getting more demand in the system and also better distributing that demand. Uh, from some of the things I talked about in episode 100, like better up to date calendars and more honest calendars.
Yeah, that's one of the things that I have loved, um, that we've really been focusing on lately is it's like, we don't just want Furnished Finder to be great for some people. We want it to be great for everybody. And even if that means that you rent out, a spare bedroom in your house for three months of a year, you should have just as great of an experience as someone who maybe has 50 properties on the site, right?
Like the success should be, should be even because the opportunity is there. The demand is there. We have so many different traveler types. So let's tap into that a little bit more about these traveler types. We have some, you know, we're always battling this myth that That all of our tenants are travel nurses.
So Jeff, I'd love to hear you talk about that. I'd also love to hear you tell our landlords a little bit more about these pro tenant agencies that use our site and maybe some tips about like, what do we, what do we want to see landlords. Do when interacting with those. Absolutely. And so, yeah, I mean, you know, we own a site called travel nurse housing dot com.
If you just stumbled upon our site for the first time and read the homepage, you would basically think all we did was medical housing. And for a while, that was pretty much all we did, but it's not at all the case anymore. And so when we think about where our tenants are, we think about them in five ways.
There's this group that are traveling health care, and they're who we build. The site for and with, and they're a huge part of what we're going to do going forward, but they're not the only part of it. They actually represent about 30 percent of our total tenants. Basically, our biggest and fastest growing tenant type is what we say is traveling for work, and that's both corporate and military.
And in the corporate sense, it tends to be more small business or entrepreneurial or regional. And so it can be one of the mega companies like a Meadow or an Apple or an Amazon or a Google. But we probably get a little bit less of that than we do. People who are traveling because they're tradesmen, they're traveling sales, they're an accountant, or they've basically got a career where they need to be somewhere three days a week, and it's easier to get a place for 30 days and commute home than it is to be there in and out of a hotel all the time.
And so this use case is growing really fast. It's almost 50%. It's our largest use case, and the biggest encouragement is that what are they really looking for? They're looking for a convenient place to be able to get to and from work that's safe where they can sleep. It feels like the use cases we've been great at before.
And we think that there's a huge opportunity because a lot of them are actually more price conscious. They might own a small business, or they may not have the same type of T and E expenditure budget that some of the bigger players have. And so they're really looking to save that 10 percent we talked about.
And they're also really enthusiastic to have a direct relationship with a landlord. As opposed to just be at the rotating desk of one of the, you know, extended stay type hotels. And one of the landlords I spoke to last week said she had a seven month renter in Reno who was in town preparing for manning and leaving a bowling convention.
I had no idea you could have a bowling convention last that long, but that's the type of thing that people are doing. And you start to have, so you've got this big group of traveling for work. We've got this next group, which is about traveling for health care. And then you've got three groups that come after that, and they're all about the same size.
One is basically people who are dislocated or relocated, and that includes people who might be moving to a new city and want to try before they buy. It also includes people who may have had an insurance claim, a roof that burnt down plumbing that burst in Texas in a freeze, and they just need a place to stay.
And we're increasingly seeing that it's like, whereas traveling health care is about being near hospitals. And traveling for work is about being where being near big commuter corridors, dislocated, relocated. It's really about being close to a school. It's like, can I keep my family near where I want them to be?
The 4th group that we see a lot of is, uh, digital nomads and long term and that group is, you know, uh, growing a lot. And it's also basically people who are in a position to where they may not think of this as their secondary residents. They really think about it as their. Primary residents, and they're moving around the country and trying these new things and midterm rentals.
And so we're very excited about that group, too. And then, finally, we have academics. There is a big population of academics who are either professors, non tenured professors still moving around, finding their footing, or even grad students, and they're looking for a place to stay often with a young family or married couple who needs to be close to an academic institution.
And so when you think about the places, Furnished Finder is strongest. It's usually places that have big hospitals, big academic institutions and, you know, a vibrant, um, basically corporate infrastructure. And so we see that a lot, and that's one of the things we think we could compete the best on is you also have a lot of people in these groups, you know, they're not making half a million million dollars a year.
You know, we are providing a product that's a value product because we let landlords book directly with tenants. And you save the 10 to 15 percent that comes out of other platforms. And that's the critical thing we need to get to come across more in messaging. If you make 80, 000 a year and travel nine months on the year with maybe a 1, 500 housing allowance, you're going to give over a week's worth of after tax Basically, earnings to a platform just for booking there, and I'm willing to do a lot of work to keep a week's take home pay in particular.
If that work is browsing the Internet, you know, after an evening bite or evening cocktail while I book my next place to stay. And so we're doing a lot of education there. And of those 5 groups. The only one that's not growing really fast right now is health care, and that's because we're coming off the biggest health care boom of the last several decades, but every one of them is growing close to 50 percent except that.
And so we're trying to get more information to the hands of landlords that can better cater to these different use cases. Today's episode is proudly sponsored by Furnished Finder, the ultimate platform for hassle free midterm rentals. Whether you're a seasoned landlord, or just getting started, Furnished Finder has everything you need to find your next tenant.
With Furnished Finder, you can say goodbye to booking fees, markups, And commissions and hello to direct bookings. If you are ready to experience all the benefits renting your property for 30 days or more, head over to furnished http://finder.com where you can list your property for one low annual price. We make it easy to get started.
The uses for midterm rentals are. So expansive. I mean, you think about short term rentals and it's pretty much your, your vacationing, right? You're taking a trip, you're doing something for leisure. Midterm rentals are just so many different use cases. It's not, is your property right for midterm rentals?
It's what type of midterm rental is your property correct for, right? Like, where does it fit? So I love that you tapped into that and were able to share that. And you guys, booking fees are not Like, 10 to 15 percent is a lot when you're thinking about a short term rental, when you're thinking about a weekend stay in Vail or, you know, a week in San Diego.
When you're talking about 30, 90 days, a 10 to 15 percent booking fee is so much. It's so much. So for the traveler to be able to keep that in their budget, for the landlord to be able to put that into amenities to add to their property and things like that. Like. the whole community gets served better. So that's why like, we are just truly all about it.
And like Jeff said, it's a little bit more work, like you've got to connect, but it's, it's just so much better for everybody. So, all right. Um, talk to us more about, um, I know we've heard some people in the community lately where they might be contacted by like an agency, right. Or, you know, Like a placement company or an ALE solutions and a temporary housing company, places like that.
Can you talk to us about, um, how landlords should be approaching those types of users within the platform? Because as we grow this traveler demand, that type is going to grow as well, right? Absolutely. And you know, so there's, I think people are used to potentially getting outreach from nurse placement agencies, you know, and like people who are placing, uh, basically health care professionals.
And so they've seen that, you know, we've got a lot of logos on our site. We used to do a lot of partnerships there. What's changed is how many more in these other use cases I'm describing. Agencies are using our site because the agencies care as much or more about saving the 10%. They've got professionals who are vetting and finding homes for corporate travels.
They've got professionals who are vetting and finding homes for professors, you know, people who work for the universities. And they've got professionals who are also doing this in particular, as Katie mentioned, the company like ALE, who are doing this for insurance all the time. And so what we're doing is investing more and understanding what those agencies need to use our product more efficiently.
We haven't made any product changes more, but we're doing a lot of discovery. And it's been fascinating to learn just how many of these companies are out there and what they most like to do. Because often we're looking for information that may not yet be available on our side. They very frequently use housing requests, and they very frequently call you.
And so they'll, you know, we've got users that will review 10, 20, 30 phone numbers for a tenant to go learn as much as they can about the different use cases. And so the encouragement I have for everybody is to be open minded when you get these, because I think sometimes you're like, well, wait a minute, who are you and what's going on is to remember that they're actually a professional doing a service for another professional.
You know, they're helping someone find housing. And so the more information you can provide them, the better off you can be to help get that tenant. And in many cases, they're actually tenants that have, you know, by nature of using an agency, they may have access to different budgets or different, um, basically accommodations than you would otherwise get through Furnished Finder.
And that can be really exciting in terms of your ability to yield more or provide different services in addition to the midterm rental. And so expect to hear more from it. But these power users are really driving a lot of demand through our site, because they really value that you can save that 10, 15 percent and still get an incredible accommodation for a tenant.
Yeah, I love this conversation about tenant types. There's so many reasons people travel, travel at the midterm level. I'm excited to get to those updates that we promised you guys. And we have a new product, the Worry Free Waiver. How is it an exciting tool that every midterm rental host should add to their tool belt?
Yes, this was another thing we surveyed and it's a, um, it's a product I'm fairly familiar with in short term rentals. And so in short term rentals for a long time, the obstacle was really around someone's got a home and they're requesting a security deposit. And am I going to get it back? Or if somebody does 80 worth of damage, am I really going to charge him for it and risk getting a bad review?
And so it was this weird source of tension, you know, and you hear with some of the platforms that have done away with it, that there's really a lot of problem getting money back for damages from the platform because they. Okay. Guarantee it, but there's not really a great way to go get the money when you're owed the money.
Uh, we had a product at Verbo that was similar to this called property damage protection. And what we did was we worked with one of the leading players in the space who's called Wavo to build a waiver. That's really perfectly suited for midterm rentals. And what do I mean by that? Well, you know, these are long stays.
You don't need to price them by the week. So we need a product that one, um, Has similar coverage, but it's cheaper. Um, and then the 2nd thing that's really unique about midterm rentals is 1 of the biggest risks a landlord faces is that the tenant leaves early. And so we're providing some coverage against early departures so that you can actually recoup lost income in the event.
The tenant does not complete the lease. They signed. And you're left holding the bill or trying to find a basically backstop tenant on short notice. And so we're going to be launching this product in the end of summer. We'll be doing a lot of promotion to our landlord base to be sure they understand it and hopefully also doing a podcast episode about it.
Once we've got more to share and more use cases to talk through, the big things that we've heard from people are that. You know, meaningfully, almost 40 percent of landlords want a product like this. Um, and the considerations are really around how easy is it to use? And how much is it going to cost? And so we're working through that, but we're going to offer a product that we think is the most competitively priced and comprehensive product in the market, because there really isn't something like this out there, you know, the short term products are more expensive.
And then some of the long term players have products, but you've got to have 6 months and you've got to have income verification. You've got to use all their products and and and. To where it doesn't actually meet the needs of, well, I've got somebody who's showing up in three days, what do I do? And we want to meet that need and make it easier for tenants and landlords to basically provide great stays and avoid the hassle.
This is like one of the things that we've heard from you guys the loudest, right? Like we've always heard, well, what if I have a nurse who their contract get cancels or get canceled early, or, okay, I want to accept pets, but what happens if they do damage? Or we hear all of these concerns. So it's like, we've come up and we've, we've worked with Weivo to develop this product.
And it literally, is so perfect for all of those concerns. And we're going to be sharing with you guys all the different ways that, that you can use it. Um, there, there's a lot of different ways that you can, um, use it not only in practicality, but also to pay for it, or you can pass the cost on to your, to your tenant, if that's how you'd like to do it.
But there's a lot of different ways that you can use this product that works for your business, whether your business is one spare bedroom in your house or a massive portfolio. So yeah. This will be something that like we could spend so long talking about. Um, and we will, we'll have an, uh, an episode on the landlord diaries where we talk all about worry free waiver.
But for right now, like, just get excited and know that this is a product that came as a direct result of like the messages that we heard from everyone out there of like, what if this, what if this, what if this, and there really wasn't a midterm product, like Jeff said. So it's like, yeah. We came in and we're like, all right, let's make the midterm product.
And it's, it's going to be really great. I'm excited to use it as a landlord myself, too. So here's the plugin. If you have questions about worry free waiver or want to know more about it, then start adding it. In the comments, as soon as this episode is over, we want to hear from you guys on what you're looking forward to for this product and any other products you'd like to see from Furnished Finder as well.
So, Jeff, you have a new look while you're in Colorado, that rugged outdoor man look. What about the new look coming to our property details page on Furnished Finder? What can you share that's exciting on that front? Absolutely. So the, um. You know, we talked about we're trying to get you more demand and we're trying to make things easier.
And so worry free waiver is something we think does both. You know, it can remove an obstacle to a tenant booking, and it can also save you time by not having to process whole deposits. The other thing we're doing is like, we've got to get you more demand. And one of the big obstacles to this, I'm like, we're not, um, we're not shy about talking about it.
We're not self conscious about it. Like we know our site needs a more modern look and feel. And so I talked about that in episode 100 of, you know, kind of a natural beauty and we're investing in, um, Basically, bringing out all those features and highlighting it and the biggest thing we're going to start with is the property details page.
And so that's each of your individual pages that highlights your own listing your own unit. And we're going through and completely updating that. It's going to have a bigger photo viewer. It's going to have more prominent maps. It's going to highlight different information than we're able to today. It's gonna be faster.
It's gonna look better on mobile, but it's also going to start to talk a lot more about trust and about calendar. And the way it's going to do that is the about landlord pages are going to highlight things that help us better understand what you provide as a landlord. So we've already got icons like Offers online payments or offers tenant screening.
We'll start to actually populate more about usage there so that people can see, you know, that this is a landlord who's done a lot of bookings. You know, they may have they may have done 8 bookings and you don't feel that on the site the way you do on a short term side or a hotel site. Because a really great landlord might only have two or three bookings a year and maybe don't even get a review.
And so you don't have the review velocity that helps populate trust. So we need to populate trust in other ways. We'll be providing landlords with better information and tutorials around how they can do that by using our products. Or how they can do that if they choose not to use our products, but there will be some advantages to using our products simply because we know how they get used and we can provide that information back to tenants.
The other big thing that's going to change is calendar, and so the calendar is going to have more information on how it was updated and what it means. It's the biggest source of confusion, and I talked about it on episode 100 is the way our calendar treatment works, and we need to improve that so that somebody who's got.
A home that's been open for 2 weeks, but not booked is not penalized for the availability date being 2 weeks in the past. And we do that by making sure everybody provides honest calendars, but we also do it by changing the user experience. So that when something is 2 weeks in the past, it doesn't say available 2 weeks ago.
It says Available, which is what it actually is. And we'll be counting on landlords to tell us when it's not available. And then over time, if we're not sure that the landlord is basically keeping up with the availability of the calendar will populate something that's more subtle, like contact for availability.
As opposed to just demoting it and sword or making it presumed to be unavailable to where a tenant doesn't find it as often. So these are big changes that start with the property details page improving and the ways you can get ahead of it. Now, you know, if you don't have awesome photos, they're about to be way more important because the viewer is going to be better.
If you're not using our key check products, then there's a more incentive to do that in the future than there might've been in the past. And so we encourage you to do that. And then lastly, please be on the lookout for blog posts and emails from us that help you navigate how to get the most out of this.
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Pay attention and, and watch out for these emails that will be sending and, um, tips and tricks. Kelly and I are gonna be sharing on episodes just like this. Um, we're gonna be walking everybody through this. We're not just gonna throw everybody to the wind and say, figure it out. Right. We want to make sure that everybody understands, but we're working on making these tools so, so, so much better, but for you to reap the rewards of them, we need you, like Jeff said, like to make your property photos amazing, to fill out all the details on the property details page, to respond to messages when tenants send them out, right?
Reply to those leads. Um, all of these trust signals that we're, we're going to be. Including there to make your property more appealing to travelers, right? But if you don't use them or you don't include them on your listing, then it's kind of like, well, if we're not using them, they're not going to have the impact.
So that's where it's going to be really a partnership between us and you guys as the landlords. So I'm really excited for all of this to come to fruition because the result is it's just going to be more bookings, better tenant leads, better listings. And I think everybody is going to have, um, An increase in their results from furnished finder with less and less effort, right?
Which is at the end of the day, like the goal. So Jeff, let's hear a little bit more about how we right now are working, um, internally to get more of these tenants, more tenant demand, because what we really want is like, you know, all these midterm listings should have all these midterm tenants. So share with everybody a little bit of like behind the curtain, what we're doing every day to keep that demand strong.
Yeah, we talked about some and episode 100, and I'll just reiterate, like, if you've ever been a part of a home build, there's this really slow period. And then there's just fast period. And then there's a slow period and a fast period. But, like, you kind of are in the architecture phase where there's a foundation being laid and you feel like we're just planning and getting permits and planning and getting permits and all that sort of stuff.
Like, we've been there. And then there's a phase where they frame the house and you're just like, holy crap. It's all happening so fast. This is great. We're coming into that face. And so property details page is an example of that. But the work we've been doing, that's more like foundation architecture, permitting, planning, all of that has been getting us to a place where we can be more effective at spending money on marketing, where we can be more effective at search engine optimization.
Where we can host more content on our site. You might notice we've been publishing more blogs. We've been pushing out more content via email, and that's all a result of our investment and better technology and also our investment in people so that we can get the word out and provide you with more demand.
And so we have never spent a lot of money on bringing in tenant demand, because for a while, we didn't have to. We were smaller, and we also didn't really have the infrastructure to do it well. Well, now we're bigger, and we have the infrastructure, so we're going to be spending more and more money, you know, and channels that you're all on, whether it's searching on Google or browsing on Facebook or working on Instagram or wherever you may be, we want to be serving up content that helps remind people.
Hey, why don't you make an extra week salary this year by booking on Furnished Finder? We want to be sure people know, hey, there's homes that are only available on Furnished Finder. Go check it out. And so you're going to be seeing a lot more of that. And what does that really mean for you as a landlord?
Mainly, it's just good news. You should have more tenants. The other thing it might mean is we do get a lot of feedback from people. It's essentially, well, I signed up on this house to have travel nurses, and I'm not sure if I want anyone that's not a travel nurse. I don't think that's going to be, you know, maybe you've got a duplex right next to a hospital, and you're always have travel nurses.
But for a lot of people be open minded. There are incredible professional travelers from all those different demographics I described and have the conversation and see if they're a fit for you. Because I think we're going to start to find that there's a way broader universe than what we're historically known for.
And as we start to reach more and more of these customers with our great value proposition and great messaging. Then we're going to be able to provide you even more value. And that's going to be high quality tenants, and it's going to be a heck of a lot more of them. Yep. You are absolutely right. Just because they're not a traveling medical professional does not mean they're not reliable or not professional or not great, great tenants.
I actually have someone moving into a property today, um, who is his staying at the property for a little over a month while they recover from a kidney transplant. Like what a cool use case. We come across them all the time. Um, so I just think it's, it's amazing. Like once you really start thinking about how people are using these midterm rentals, keep your mind open.
And that's, what's great about furnished vendors. You get to talk to these potential tenants, right? It's not like a blank messaging system. It, you can trade phone numbers, FaceTime each other, call them on the phone, email, whatever you want to get to know these people and form those relationships, which is really what midterm rentals and furnished finder about.
So you can't, you really can't emphasize that point enough of like, this is not pay me 15 percent and trust the matrix. It's all going to be fine. Like trust yourself, have the conversations. And what we want to do is as you host great experiences for tenants, That we can give you more of them. And so we need to know that you're finding a tenant.
And if you're have such a narrow niche, you're looking for that. You don't find tenants. It's going to be hard for us to send you more tenants. But if you're really great at serving a niche, because you've got a place that's next door to a hospital, and it's perfectly outfitted for traveling nurses, and it's always full.
Awesome. Like, do it again. Get another property. Keep at it. But if you're trying to figure out how to get a place to work, and maybe it's close to a university and a hospital and a school and a major, you know, highway intersection, then you're probably going to have a lot of options and figure out how to cater to the different ones, you know, universally, or figure out which one you really want to go after to and make your place unique.
Yeah, I think that's so true. Be unique, be amazing, like offer amazing customer service and hospitality. That is something that with midterm rentals, it's still important to have that hospitality, right? It's, it's important to have those relationships and make check in easy, make checkout easy, make connecting to the wifi a breeze.
Don't make this stuff difficult. Make your photos. Incredible. If you want to have an incredible experience, um, put your, put your best foot forward as well. So, all right, Jeff, we are turning 10 this year. I feel like we're, you know, the kid in fifth grade or fourth grade where it's like, we're finally two full hands as a company.
We are 10 years old. Um, so I want to hear from you because you know, you've, you've been in the rental industry for a while. I want to know what stands out to you in the past 10 years coming from short term rentals and kind of learning about midterms. And what are you excited to see in the next 10 years?
Because what a huge milestone for Furnished Finder to reach two full hands. Yeah, I think the, um, looking back on my experience at, uh, Vrbo and Expedia Group, but in particular, call it the first 10 years where I was really focused on Vrbo. The, the most gratifying thing for, was basically talking to homeowners who created life changing wealth and experiences by hosting on Vrbo.
And the stories that were always the best were, Talk to someone like this is how I retired. This is how I put my kids through college. And even for my family, like, we bought, um, we bought a lake house, uh, 3 years after I joined Verbo was this huge stretch, like this scary, Oh, blank moment of like, can we afford this?
And what's this going to be like? And it's my kids favorite place on earth. And it will probably pay for them to go to college because we were able to do something that without short term renting, we wouldn't have been able to do in a way that was really unique and value creating. Basically, for them, and what's exciting to me as I look at midterm rentals right now, and right now I'm looking to screen with 2 people who own and operate midterm rentals.
And I know that you're doing the same thing. Like, we're in a position to where people are able to build wealth creation and change their lives by providing an incredible service to people who do not have great options. And so midterm rentals are going to be a huge category, and it's not well served.
Because it shouldn't be taxed 10 to 15 percent like the short term stuff. And it has a different set of needs than a long term rental, and we're here to serve it in a really efficient value minded way. And my dream is that 10 years from now, I'm looking back on this, and I'm at a conference or that I get an email or someone brings me on LinkedIn and the comment is basically like.
You really helped change me or my family's life. Like, this is something you did that made it possible for us to achieve a dream that we were not sure we could have achieved otherwise. And I am totally confident, based on what we're hearing from landlords and the progress we're making, that we're on an incredible path to do that.
And I'm just excited for each of you that's watching the podcast today and learning and on this journey with us to be a part of it, because it's going to be a really great 10 years. Jeff, that's actually a great way to end this episode because your first episode 100, we did get a ton of comments on how Furnished Finder has changed people's lives and made it possible.
So go back to episode 100, read the comments, and we want to hear from you on this episode. If that's already happening and you already have great feedback of how Furnished Finder is making your life better. Then we want to hear at the notes, but that's not it. We also want to hear what you want more of.