What Is A Midterm Rental: The Best Kept Rental Secret

Have you heard the term midterm rental and wondered what is a midterm rental? I was so there just a couple years ago back in 2019. I had a bad long term tenant situation, the kind that makes you want to throw in the towel on real estate investing altogether and I was done.

But that same year, I launched my first Airbnb with my husband and it was a huge success. Like we made triple our long term rental rent projections for that house. So I knew I needed to find a way to get more of these Airbnb type properties and get out of long term rentals.

Enter, midterm rentals. I was able to totally get out of long term rentals, grow my revenue and transform my business with midterm rentals.

This post is all about answering the question what is a midterm rental.

What Is A Midterm Rental

Midterm Rental Meaning

A midterm rental is a furnished rental that is leased out to a tenant for longer than 30 days but shorter than a year. Sometime they can be for longer but the typical tenant stays for 3 to 6 months.

Midterm rentals are also priced at a premium compared to long term rentals. This is due to the properties being fully furnished, utilities included and the convenience of a shorter term lease.

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What is a midterm rental vs short term rental

The difference between a midterm rental and a short term rental is that a short term rental is a furnished rental that is rented for shorter than 30 day stays. These guests pay hotel rates, by the night to stay in your furnished rental. Whereas a midterm rental has a set monthly rate.

Most municipalities have regulations hosts need to follow for a short term rental. This is not the case with a midterm rental because the way a municipality differentiates a short term and long term rental is one that is rented for 30 days or longer.

Most cities have a TOT tax due for each stay and this is not needed for a midterm rental. Yet another win for midterm rentals.

Short term rentals and midterm rentals are similar in the fact that both are furnished, should offer additional amenities and design matters. You want to be the best listing on the marketing website so having a thorough description and great photos matters.

The best mid term rental strategy

The best mid term rental strategy is similar to what I would say a successful short term rental strategy entails. It starts with understanding your guest avatar, curating a great listing, taking professional photos and marketing in the right places.

Treat your property like a hotel or Airbnb and make it attractive to potential guests. Supply amenities to make them comfortable and feel like they are on a retreat. Be hospitable as you are booking tenants and look for ways to go out of your way to make them feel comfortable and transition smoothly.

Check out this article for a more in depth look at short term rental strategies!

Mid term rental websites

The best mid term rental sites for finding tenants are below.

1. Furnished Finder

Furnished finder is the best place for individual landlords to connect with traveling professionals. The traveling professional makes the housing request and you as the landlord can reach out directly to them for screening, fit and booking.

2. Airbnb

Airbnb has a long term housing arm of their website and settings for you as a host to attract long term stays. I like Airbnb’s system because guests can instant book a long term stay and it takes so little effort on your end as the host to set up the stay.

Of course, there’s risks with this because anyone that stays longer than 30 days has tenants rights. Depending on your state, this could be super harmful if you do not collect proper documentation from them and have trouble getting them to move out at the end of a stay.

Do your research and understand your state laws. This will help you ultimately decide how to attract and host long term stays.

3. Facebook

Facebook marketplace and Facebook groups are another great place to post your midterm rental. I personally have never signed a traveling professional from Facebook but I have plenty of close friends who have. I do advertise there just to keep my listing exposed to potential tenants.

4. Long Term Rental Websites

Zillow, Redfin and Apartments.com are all great long term rental websites for also capturing traveling professionals looking for a shorter term lease.

5. Housing companies

Nationally, regionally and locally there are housing companies that help place temporary workers or traveling professionals. These types of companies also work with insurance agencies on finding housing for people displaced by a home insurance claim.

Personally, I’ve worked with housing companies a couple times and it’s always been a great experience. If you have a lot of listings, intentionally connecting with these housing companies is a great way to get a good flow of leads constantly into your business.

6. Companies in your area that bring in temporary workers

Looking for and directly reaching out to companies that bring in temporary or traveling professionals is a way to get leads into your business as well. This would require local knowledge on large construction projects or remodels.

An example would be Amazon building out a new facility or the city putting in a solar field or a nationally recognized brand building a new hotel. Most of the time these companies have their own project managers they fly out to do jobs of this scale and they pay for their employees housing while they travel.

Mid term rental property management

If you’re not wanting to be an owner operator and want to hire a property manager, I can help you understand the current state of midterm rental property management. Currently, it’s not a popular business model for companies to take on midterm rentals.

You would need to reach out to a traditional short term rental property management company and see if they can take on your mid term rental. The bummer there is the fees they would charge you would be between 15-30% of the monthly revenue instead of 10% of long term rental revenue.

I am a huge advocate of self management. If you have an extra hour per week, you can manage 1-5 midterm rentals easily. There are so many tools out there to help you seamlessly integrate into your business to run it fully remotely.

Check out this article for the best tools on remotely running an Airbnb or Midterm rental business. I promise you, it’s life changing!

Mid term rental lease agreement

Lastly, another super important topic for mid term rentals is the lease agreement. I strongly recommend you talk to a legal professional in your state regarding this topic because you do not want to miss anything or not protect yourself in a certain area!

For my business, we use a traditional rental agreement that would include all the same protections as a long term rental. After hosting midterm rental tenants for a couple years, I’ve learned to include a few more things in these agreements as well and it’s always an evolving document. As I learn more or things happen the document template is updated for the next tenant.

What other questions do you have about midterm rentals? Let me know in the comments below.

This post was all about answering the question what is a midterm rental.