What do I need to start a mid-term rental?
Setting up a medium-term rental is very similar to setting up a short-term rental. You can view the video below if you'd like to watch this explanation or you can read the blog post below the video to learn more.
What do I need to start a medium-term rental?
For this blog post, I'm going to list the 5 Items you need to start a medium-term rental. Let's get started.
Property. There are three ways to acquire a property for a midterm rental: arbitrage, buying an investment property or converting and existing property into a midterm rental property.
Midterm rental arbitrage - what is it? This emans that you rent someone else's property to then install renters in. You are subleasing a property, the only difference is that you are doing shorter rentals (1 month-4 months likely) and the property is furnished. You are a renter, but you are re-renting to someone else.
You are purchasing an investment property with the idea that you will run a midterm rental on it. (Note: if you need a medium-term rental calculator, last week's blog post was about that.)
You are converting an existing property into a midterm rental. Meaning, you already own a property and have decided to make it a midterm rental. A lot of people convert to a midterm rental because the laws have changed.
Furniture. Your midterm rental will need furniture. How nice you furnish it depends on who you think your tenant will be. I advise not furnishing it with Ikea though as more and more I'm seeing complaints in forums about properties looking "too Ikea."
Listing. You need to list your midterm rental property on at least 2 or the 3 sites: Airbnb, Furnished Finder and VRBO. I recommend making Airbnb one of these sites.
Professional Photos. It is insane how hard people push back on this. Professional photos are one of the best investments you will ever make. And professionals absolutely do better photos than you or your friend do. It's their job.
Smart Lock. A good smart lock will let you know who is coming and going and remove the unnecessary step of meeting each other. Assuming your smart lock is wifi enabled, you can also issues specific codes to specific people (handymen, cleaners, etc.) so that you can know who is coming and going.
I have been surprised in my consulting calls by how many people think that midterm rentals are harder or significantly different than short-term rentals. They really are not. If you have done a short or long-term rental, you can definitely handle a medium-term rental.
how can we help with your medium-term rental model?
We've been operating multiple medium-term rentals since 2017, and many of our clients also prefer this model. Please reach out to either of us to discuss more.
We also offer consulting for Airbnb monthly stays and mid-term rentals. Learn more about mid-term rental consulting here.
BUY THE BOOK ON MEDIUM-TERM RENTALS.
That's right. There's a book that can help you with your medium-term rental strategy.
Available on Amazon, you can buy it here.