Katie Lyon, co-host of The Landlord Diaries podcast and Marketing Director at Furnished Finder, discusses the benefits and services provided by Furnished Finder, a midterm rental company. She explains how Furnished Finder expanded from serving travel nurses to accommodating various types of travelers, including remote workers and families with the pandemic allowing for more remote workers across the globe. The transparency and affordability of Furnished Finder, as well as the process of tenant screening and lease agreements, are highlighted. The importance of ‘City Proof of Concept (POC)’ and trying a city out before you uproot your whole world.
FurnishedFinder.com has amazing data that can be used for city and neighborhood analysis for decision-making. Furnished Finder offers transparent pricing and tools for landlords and travelers in the midterm rental market. The platform aims to provide all the necessary resources for success without hidden fees. Midterm rentals offer flexibility and freedom for both landlords and tenants, allowing for longer stays and the opportunity to explore new locations. Managing midterm rentals can be easily done remotely, with minimal involvement from the landlord. The average length of stay in midterm rentals is around 90 to 110 days, making it an attractive option for travel nurses and project-based workers.
To explore Furnish Finder’s services, visit their website and connect with them on social media.
Tune into The Landlord Diaries podcast.
Takeaways:
- Furnished Finder offers affordable and transparent midterm rentals for various types of travelers.
- The demand for midterm rentals surged during COVID-19, accommodating travel nurses and remote workers.
- Midterm rentals have diverse use cases, including housing for professionals, families, and individuals undergoing home renovations.
- Furnished Finder provides a platform for landlords and tenants to communicate directly and establish a good relationship.
- City proof of concept is essential before making a long-term move, and Furnished Finder housing request tool and data analysis can assist in the decision-making process.
- Furnish Finder offers transparent pricing and tools for landlords and travelers in the midterm rental market.
- Midterm rentals provide flexibility and freedom for both landlords and tenants.Managing midterm rentals can be done remotely with minimal involvement.
- The average length of stay in midterm rentals is around 90 to 110 days.
Mariette Frey is a relocation strategist, life coach, and host of the Moving Tips + Tricks podcast. Every week on Smart Move Monday: Coach Mariette’s Corner, she offers free coaching to help listeners move with clarity and confidence. Check out her favorite tools, trusted show sponsors, and more at www.decidingtomove.com. Free spots are limited — coaching roster opens soon!
—
Listen to the podcast here
Using Furnished Finder For A ‘City Proof Of Concept (POC)’ With Katie Lyon
Introduction To Katie Lyon & Furnished Finder
I’m very excited about our guest on the show. Katie Lyon is a fellow podcaster, and she co-hosts a podcast called The Landlord Diaries, which we’ll totally get into. It’s all about midterm rentals and real estate investing. They discuss topics like investment strategies and property management. They also give tips for using a company called Furnished Finder, which they both are employees at. We’re going to talk a little bit about that.
Furnished Finder is a mid-term rental company which is different than short-term rentals like Airbnb and VRBO. If you’ve been listening to the show and I hope this isn’t the first time but if it is the first time I always suggest doing a City Proof of Concept before you move to the city of your dreams because there’s so many things that happen in a city and you want to get to know a little bit better.
I always talk about five days or longer, but if you can move for like a month or so before throwing caution to the wind and just getting rid of all your stuff, Furnished Finder is always the way to go in my opinion. I always recommend them. When they reached out after I sent a note to them saying, “Can you please be on my podcast?” They graciously said, “Yes.” I was super excited to have them.
—
Katie, welcome to the show. I’m very excited about having you.
Thank you. I’m so excited to be here.
Furnished Finder started in what 2014, and you guys were focused on like travel nurses and medical professionals, right?
We started in 2014. We took a couple of deviations to get to the business layout that we are now with the marketplace. Initially, it was all based on traveling medical professionals and most people just know them as travel nurses, but there are all sorts of traveling medical professionals. It just grew and expanded. It’s taken off. It’s exciting.
Expansion Of Services
I imagine, especially because you don’t just do travel for professional or medical professionals anymore. You do all kinds of travelers, remote workers, people who are like renovating houses. People have been displaced by fires. I heard about that. I imagine COVID was a pretty big explosion for you guys when it came to like people trying to use you.
Impact Of COVID-19
COVID was big on a couple of fronts. The demand for travel nurses and traveling medical professionals definitely surged during that time, just because one area of the country might have been experiencing a really big peak in COVID cases, or severe COVID cases. Another area of the country might’ve been not experiencing that peak.
There was a lot of shuffling within the needs for travel staffing. That was a huge thing. This is a little bit more post-COVID, but we all lead much more remote lives now. I feel like, and I don’t have the hard data behind this, but I feel like it’s much more uncommon for someone to go in the office five days a week, if they have a job that’s remote friendly versus having like a flexible schedule or a hybrid schedule or an option schedule.
We’re just lifestyles have changed so much that it was a huge shift for both of those. The medical needs just went through the roof. We saw the rise of digital nomads or traveling families that might have been homeschooling, or people who wanted to spend a month next to grandma in the summer. Things like that, where we just all adapted and valued this flexibility in our lives.
Post-COVID, we saw a rise in digital nomads and traveling families—whether homeschooling or spending a month near Grandma—reflecting a new value for flexibility. Share on XIt was much needed, first of all, but I think it taught everybody a really big lesson that they can work and enjoy where they live. I imagine because you guys have over what, a couple hundred thousand properties across the country now?
Diverse Use Cases For Midterm Rentals
Yeah, we’re at about 250,000. It’s growing every day, which is just crazy, but the demand is still so high. The demand still far outweighs the supply, and this midterm rentals, that’s what we like to refer it as a 30-day plus furnished stay. I think it’s just still in its infancy, so much as we all continue to adapt to this remote lifestyle and the flexible options. It’s crazy how many use cases there are for these 30-day-plus rentals. You wouldn’t think, but really, like you said, you’ve got people who maybe their house was damaged.
You have the traveling professionals. Not just medical, but you also have athletes. You have professors. You have people who are just on contract. You have maybe engineers who are coming to work on, like, planning a gas line. Special projects. I had an inquiry at one of my properties recently for some grandparents who just wanted to live closer to their grandbabies for the summer. You have like all these different use cases. It’s really cool.
Affordability & Transparency Of Furnished Finder
One, you are a landlord with Furnished Finder. You have several properties. Can you talk a little bit about the process? I get asked a lot about like college kids who have an internship that they’ve got a two-month internship. They cannot afford to do Airbnb for two months with all the booking fees and all the stuff. I know you guys don’t have booking fees or commissions or anything like that. That’s a huge cost saver because when somebody is renting from you, they’re paying like the month’s rent, not like the month’s rent plus $600 for fees.
That is the biggest differentiator between us and any other platform. For us, it’s you who pay to list your property. You pay $149, and you can list your property for a year. During that, you’re going to get unlimited leads. What that means for a traveler is you know that everybody on the site is serious. It’s like they’ve paid a little bit of the entrance fee, but then what the price listed for rent, we’re not adding any padding to that.
A lot of times, the price you see is inflated by the website, by that marketplace. Ours truly is, like, if I’m a landlord and I need to charge $1,600, that is what you are going to pay. That means a much more affordable experience for the traveler. Furnished Finder itself, like, you aren’t going to pay any fees on Furnished Finder as a traveler. We’re all just about trying to make these connections between the traveler and the landlord.
Permits and Regulations for Midterm Rentals
I know with short-term rentals, there are all kinds of permits.
Generally speaking, every area is different. The law varies by state and county, and city, and some HOAs are all different. You definitely need to check. Generally speaking, 30 days and up is classified as a long-term rent. That’s for insurance purposes, for legal purposes. All of those still put it into two buckets, short term or long term. They say long term is 30 days or more. That makes it way easier for a midterm rental landlord.
It makes it easier for the traveler, too, because you know that you’re going to have a lot more options. You don’t have to worry about a lot of those. A lot of times, the taxes don’t apply if you’re 30 days or more. It’s definitely state and city specific, but I’ve found that in a lot of cities and states that once you hit that 30-day mark, that crazy tax you have goes away, which is so nice.
Tenant Screening & Lease Agreements
That is so nice. Somebody that’s coming to your service is not just going to be their run of the mill has a crappy place. If they want somebody who’s going to live there for 30 days or longer, they’re probably really taking care of their properties. They’ve got to protect themselves, too, I’m sure. Talk about the process a little. When you join, it’s not like you talk to the owners. It’s like you physically go through and talk directly to them. It’s not something that Furnished Finder is like brokering. Tell me about that.
This is like the biggest learning curve for travelers and for landlords because you’re used to going on to an Airbnb or a VRBO or whatever. You’re just like, click, book. You’re done. That’s great if you’re going somewhere to stay for a few days. When you’re living in a place, you want to know the landlord more. You want to know probably more about the area. You probably want to know more about, like, “What’s the bed like? Do you have blackout curtains?”
That relationship becomes a lot more important. If you’re visiting, if I’m going to Miami for seven days, I don’t need a relationship with that Airbnb host. If I’m going to go live somewhere for six months, I want to know that the connection there is a solid one. First thing is you’re going to connect with a landlord that you see on the site that has a property you like, “We don’t control the way you connect with them.”
That’s another difference is a lot of these other sites want to keep you on the platform because otherwise they’re going to lose their little commission or their percentage. With us, we’re going to give you their phone number of the landlord as long as they specify, it’s okay, obviously, their email address, and you can also message them through the system. That’s cool because we’re like, however you want to communicate, communicate. You have the chance to sort out all the details. Like, “Are you okay with pets? Is there a pet deposit? Is the rent a little high?”
Maybe you’re going to stay six months. You’re wondering if they can do a little less rent. You get the chance to go back and forth and communicate, and get to know each other. Once you come to agreement, we do have a sister company called KeyCheck. KeyCheck originated because we didn’t want to leave travelers and landlords in the dark. We didn’t want to say, “You’re on your own.” This process is a little bit different than the typical websites.
On there, you can do a tenant screening. I always tell my tenants to think about that, like an application fee, if you’re going to apply for an apartment or something. It’s $39. Traditionally, the tenant pays for it because it’s like an application. It’s a very secure screening where it just does like a credit check with a soft pull. It does a background check and an eviction check so that the landlord can feel really comfortable with who’s on their property. The landlord on their side can also access lease templates and online payments.
That way, if you’re a traveler and you’re like, “I want to put this rent on my credit card so I can rack up those miles.” You have the ability to do that. It’s pretty much like you’re going to connect. You’re going to come to an agreement. You’re going to do a tenant screening. You’re going to come across a lease, and then you’re going to complete the payments. It is pretty step by step, but it’s just a little bit more involved because this whole process is a little more involved. You’re not going to stay there for three nights.
As a landlord, you have skin in the game. You’re doing all the things that you need to do and making sure this is a nice property. Also, as a tenant, we’ve got some skin in the game. We’re going through the background checks. You, as a landlord, feel comfortable. That was one, granted, I’m in a subdivision where I have an HOA, and it’s a minimum two-year lease. Somebody’s renting the place out. I know it’s crazy.
It’s high.
The other side of it is that, like, “I’ve never thought about renting out my place because I just built it. It’s really nice. I don’t want somebody like you,” think of traditional renters, which I’ve rented from places, and I’m a great tenant. Not everybody is. You hear horror stories or people squatting and somebody that’s going to go through the process of getting a background check and all that stuff. They probably aren’t the bad guys.
We want everyone to feel really confident in the traveler and their choice of landlord and their landlord, their choice of tenant. That’s what we want, because these are professionals traveling, and you know that. People aren’t going to rent your house to party for six months. They’re there for a purpose. This just helps facilitate that and makes it so everybody feels really good and confident. It just sets the standard for that relationship going forward.
People aren’t renting your home to party for six months—they’re there with a purpose. Share on XIt makes it just smooth. I always think with my tenants. I’m like, “I want to get all of my expectations clear, day one.” That’s where a lease comes in. You get to put your house rules, and you get to put what exactly is included in rent, what pets are okay. It makes it so everything is just laid out on the table, and you’re set up for a good relationship.
As a landlord, and I guess this is both for Furnished Finder and just in general, because a lot of the listeners that I have on the show, it’s twofold. We have some college-age students who are graduating and are going to go out in the world and find the city of their dreams. Other people have been dreaming about moving for ten years, and they just never pulled the trigger, going to and they might rent out their own house and rent somewhere. As a landlord, what are some things that you look for, and what are your expectations?
Communication & Relationship Building With Landlords
As a landlord and I have just a little background. I have ten rentals. They’re mostly within the state of Iowa. That’s where I’m from originally, and my family and I do it together. They’re still there, so it makes it a nice location for us. I’m looking for tenants that they have a clear background history. I’m looking for tenants who communicate really clearly. I’m looking for tenants with a purpose for their stay. That tells me a lot about who they are and what they’re using the property for. As I mentioned, I had that inquiry from grandparents who were coming to stay.
I was able to tell them, “There’s a third bedroom and we put a trundle bed in there if your grandkids ever want to spend the night.” If it’s a travel nurse, I’ll make sure to tell them like, “This isn’t a busy area, or it’s a quiet area. We’ve put in things like blackout curtains to make it better for you, and the mattress is comfortable.” It lets me communicate to them what are the important factors. I think that’s really helpful. Just asking what they’re staying for and what their plans are is helpful.
Housing Request Tool & Data Analysis
I’m sure you know the property and the area better than anybody. Being able to leverage you as a property owner, you’re going to know, like, “I have a bike in the shed. If you want to go take a bike ride, here’s a safe path.” I think that that’s the two things that I was always looking for when I was looking for a place, because real estate agents cannot tell you, that this is a “safe area” or this is not a safe area. They have some bounds. I will always tell people like, “I feel safe in this area.” Like, “This is an older neighborhood, but it’s full of families.” Things like that.
I want them to feel really comfortable because they are professionals, and even a recently graduated student who’s looking for an internship, they’re a professional. They’re looking for a home. That’s how I differentiate it in my mind, too. When you’re doing a short-term rental, you’re looking for a stay. You always say, “I need somewhere to stay. I need a hotel to stay at. I need an Airbnb to stay at.” These tenants, when you’re looking for somewhere 30 days and up, you’re looking for somewhere to live.
They’re not tourist.
No, and it’s like a very clear differentiation. Like, “You want these things that make you feel cozy. You might want some extra blankets. You definitely want your own linen, like extra linens.” You’re going to be doing laundry there. You care if there’s a washer and dryer. If I’m going to an Airbnb for five days, I don’t care if there’s a washer and dryer. I’m not doing laundry on vacation. It’s just a different frame of mind, but it’s really important that you let anyone, especially if people are traveling and they’re trying out a new city, that you give them an accurate like, “This is what it would be like to live here.” They can get a true feel of it.
It’s important to give travelers—especially those trying out a new city—an accurate sense of what it’s like to live there, so they can truly get a feel for it. Share on XCity Proof Of Concept
I think that’s huge. That’s why I coach around the city POC, because as a Proof Of Concept, the whole definition of a Proof Of Concept is to try something before you buy it. Just to make sure it
works for you. I have a friend of mine who was looking to move to Asheville, and they found a property on Zillow that was for sale. They fell in love with the pictures.
In passing, I mentioned this concept and I said, “Why don’t you go live there for a couple of weeks?” He and his wife both work remotely. They’re a quiet, lovely couple, and just go check it out. You can do that. They stayed in two different areas, and it turns out they live now nowhere near where that property was. There were all kinds of stuff around the property or something that they didn’t love, but it gave them an opportunity to go on little excursions, see what the local grocery store was like. Check out the area.
There are some places where, if I were to have done the POC in some of my earlier moves, I probably wouldn’t have moved to that area, where that stayed at all. I also probably would not have lived in the particular neighborhoods that I was in because they weren’t safe or great or anything, but I didn’t even know what my options were because they were big cities. You don’t see the suburbs around that could be ten minutes from where you want to be. It’s like half the cost and later and quieter.
You don’t know the city’s personality yet. Even if like you’ve decided on, “I want to move to Asheville.” It’s in this market, and I think it’s going to be a long time until we get out of a market that this would be sufficient for. It’s like, it’s nice to have a property that you can stay at on a monthly basis until you find the exact right house. If you’re looking to buy because inventory is low. You’re like, “I don’t have as many choices. Interest rates are higher.” You’re like, “I’m not looking to buy and sell 42 times. I want to get it right the first time.”
I’ve had some people as tenants who were either remodeling their home so they could keep their interest rate. I’ve had tenants who were like, “We’re moving here, but it’s taking us a while to find a house, and we’re looking to get our roots settled.” I’m like, “Great.” Even if let’s say you want to move to Denver, but you’re not sure which suburb or which area, that can be helpful too. You can take some day trips or explore here and there.
You don’t make good decisions when we’re under pressure and there’s very little to choose from.
You’ve got to get there and you’ve got to experience a little bit. We also have a tool on our website. It’s called a Housing Request. This is one of my favorite traveler tools. If you’re on our website, right at the top, there’s just one thing that says Housing Requests. What it does is you put in your information and your wishlist. Like, “I’m looking for a three-bedroom. I want my own private unit. I’m not looking for a room share situation. I have pets. Here are my dates. Here’s my budget.”
You can put in your details that you’re looking for and submit it. What Furnished Finder will do in the background is they will take a look at our database of landlords and listings, and they will distribute your housing request to those owners and listings where it’s a match or it’s a close match. Again, is just us opening the doors for those communications. You’ll start getting messages from landlords like, “I have exactly what you’re looking for. Let me tell you a little bit about it.” You might get messages like, “I know you’re looking for a three-bedroom. I have a four-bedroom. Would that work?”
“I know this was your budget. Do you have any flexibility, or do I know you wanted free parking? My parking is $50 a month. Would that still work for you?” Our goal there is that it can save the traveler a little bit of time, especially if you’ve got a lot going on, because moves are not easy or cheap. We can just filter the crowd for you a little bit. It’s almost like speed dating, like we’re starting to set the tables for you. You can look through those, and you can message back who might be a fit. That’s something that is cool, and it’s handy for landlords. If we have someone who might be a great fit, we can tell them a little bit more about our properties.
Making Informed Decisions
You have another, there’s like a whole data tool too, which I was looking at, which is really cool. Can you explain that a little bit? For me, if I’m looking into a city and I see a lot of people live over here, and nobody lives over here. I’m going to live over here.
The first thing is when you go and you search the map, you’re also going to see a physical map, and it’s going to have dots where properties are. You can definitely find some hotspots that way. You can compare that if it’s a city you don’t know anything about. “What’s pulling everyone to the West side? Sometimes the East Side is super expensive. Sometimes it’s all acreages.” You’ll never know, but it gives you some insights.
The hard data is great. It’s on our site, and it’s where you can do some research and see what a typical property is going to cost me here. In this country like that can vary so much. You might not know. I always tell people I’m like, “When you’re on Furnished Finder, look at the areas we have that actually pull data and statistics, and then spend some time in the map and pull your own inferences as well.” Those are just as important.
When you're on Furnished Finder, look at the areas where we've pulled data and statistics, and then spend some time with the map to draw your own inferences as well—those are just as important. Share on XI imagine, too, like somebody just looking like to buy a house in the area, even if you live in that area, that data is probably really incredible as a tool. Just in general.
Nice. Yes. It helps landlords know how to like serve the demand there. It can also be really helpful. Let’s say you’re going to go try out a new city. Don’t leave your property empty. You can put it up on Furnished Finder. It’s $149 to list your property, and you can backfill it and then pay your mortgage or offset your mortgage, or help to cover some costs. If you’re going to go try out, like you said, this Proof Of Concept, you’re going to go try out a new market for 30 days, you’re not going to take your couch.
You’re going to leave your stuff. You immediately have a furnished rental on your hands. Being a midterm landlord is not as intimidating as being an Airbnb host. We have so many resources on the website to help walk you through it. Again, our travelers are professionals. We have a lot of travelers do that, where they’re like, “I’m going to go here for a project or a contract or whatnot. I’m going to backfill mine.” It works. It’s like you’re helping everybody by offering another rental and more options.
Benefits Of Midterm Rentals For Travelers
I don’t think people really understand how incredibly expensive it is to move in and out of a place if they haven’t done it in a while or done it ever. You’re not paying the first month’s last month’s rent plus the rental of couches and beds and things like that because people do that. There are companies out there that you can rent all those things from.
You’re paying all of that on top of your fees for the actual rental itself, which is insane. That all adds up. Even if somebody was moving, like I had a guy that I had a conversation with, probably, I think it was like last summer, but he had a lot of flexibility and freedom in his job, and he was thinking about moving to North Carolina. When I said like, “Where are you thinking about moving to?” The minute somebody’s like, “I’m moving, I grab popcorn, I’m so excited. I cannot wait to hear this story. Why do you want to move? Tell me more, love it.”
That’s the thing. He’s like, “I heard about this and that city and that city. I think I’m just going to like spend a week in each.” I was like, “Why would you spend a week? What are you going to get in a week in Michigan? Nothing.” Everything’s magical over a weekend. That’s why I always tell people at least five days, but like over a couple of weeks or a couple of months, you can explore. If you decide like, “I don’t want to move here at all.” Now you have somewhere to go back home to, and you didn’t just waste a ton of money.
Reasonable Fees & Deposit Policies
The fees get insane, especially when you’re looking at Airbnb and Vrbo and a lot of these platforms that you book on their platform. The fees get insane. Especially as a traveler, it’s insane. It’s very typical with a midterm host like on Furnished Finder to require a deposit, but it’s usually like a third of the month’s rent. It’s not the same as a long-term rental. We just want to know that you have some skin in the game, and again, like if something breaks, it’s not a big issue. It’s all just much more. Everything is more reasonable.
Do you typically get that deposit back, or is that something that they put towards rent or something?
I have only had, and I’ll speak personally here. This is the joy that I get to be like a landlord and a furnished renter. I get to be like, “Here’s my experience.” It’s not like it’s my actual real experience. I have had one instance where I kept half of a deposit, and it’s because there was a hole in the duvet cover. There was a pan that my cleaner for the life of her could not get like a residue off of. I don’t know what they cooked. It was probably delicious, but it just ruined the pan, and they were fine. They were like, “Great. Thank you so much. No problem.” Again, it was like everything was reasonable. It’s so refreshing to have that.
I can imagine. I think that 30 days is such a great minimum because you get a lot of experience in that area. You get to travel around, you get to experience what that town really would be without really having a whole lot of risk. I think that today’s buyer, especially with the mortgage rates being as low as they were, people not wanting to give up their properties, this is such a great alternative.
I lived in San Diego. San Diego is amazing, but after like a year there, I was like, “I don’t know, I need I need like more business.” As I was newer in my career, I was traveling a lot, and it was such a fun experience, and I would love to go back for a month or two, but I don’t want to move back there. To do that, you like you have to have some opportunity because I know I just spent a couple of days in an Airbnb, and it was a Dateline episode.
First of all, we couldn’t get in touch with the person who was renting it out to us. There are all kinds of scary noises. We’ve got a lot of stuff going on. We cannot find more towels. Like, “What’s happening?” We never heard back from them. At the end of the weekend, it was supposed to be like a $100 a night, with all the fees and everything, we paid almost $400 for like the worst weekend ever.
Transparent Pricing & Tools
It’s insane. It adds up so quickly. It gets the fees get to be a lot. Even when we’re looking, we’ll try to look for, like you said, a property, like a $100 a night, or we’ll set our budget and we’ll think that we built in enough padding for fees. We definitely did not ever. It gets to be so much. What travelers may or may not realize is that on all of those sites, you pay a fee, but the landlord also pays a fee. Everybody’s getting dinged.
That’s why we flipped the script, and on Furnished Finder, it’s like, “No.” This is like, “You’re going to pay a low, reasonable fee to list your property.” That lets us ensure that the quality is great and everything. We’re like, “We want you guys to all find great tenants and we want tenants to find great landlords, but like, we’re not going to take a cut of it. We’re not going to add on.” I always tell people it’s like they give you the cupcake, and then they take the frosting. I want all of my frosting. I want it.
What travelers may not realize is that on most of those sites, both they and the landlord pay fees. Furnished Finder flipped the script. Landlords pay a low, reasonable fee to list their property, which helps the company maintain high quality across… Share on X“I paid for the whole cupcake.”
“Don’t give me a free cupcake and then take the frosting. I’ll pay you a dollar. Let me keep my whole cupcake.” It’s nice, especially in today’s world where, like, I feel like there is a fee for everything. I will say, like our sister company KeyCheck, I don’t call them fees. There are prices associated with things like a lease template or a background screening, but they’re all so transparent.
They’re all so low that it’s like, these are just tools, and we want to make sure everybody has the right tools to set them up for success. I don’t know, it’s just I always look at something and I’m like, you get DoorDash and all of a sudden my 20 order is $72. I’m like, “What has just happened in this life?” I love that. I love that about midterm rentals, too. It’s just, everybody’s just good. People are trying to find houses, homes.
Flexibility & Freedom
It gives you flexibility, and it gives you freedom, and it gives you a safe place to stay where you can actually talk to the landlord, and then they feel good about you. I know a lot of people, like a friend of mine that I work with, they’re going to do a sabbatical. Great opportunity for her to rent out her house. She lives in Boca. There are so many things that people can do if they want to go away. Some people have had a dream to travel to Europe for their whole life, and never did it. Now they’re in a place where they could like, “Here’s a great opportunity. Rent your place out for 3 or 4 months and go live in Greece or Italy.” That’s what I want to do when I’m retiring.
Managing Midterm Rentals
It’s much less to handle as a landlord, as well, I will say. I haven’t had a short-term rental yet. If I’m being honest, it intimidates me a little bit, the management side of it, because I’m like, “If you message me at 10:00 PM and you need like an extra towel, I don’t know how to help you.” As I said, I have ten properties and we manage them with my family. We have full support. That being said, I have a full-time job. I have young kids. I have countless dogs. It’s very manageable for me to do that.
A lot of times, I’ll talk to my tenant at check-in and at move-out. That’s it. They’re not there to vacation. They’re living there. Maybe I’ll be like, they might let me know, “The fridge isn’t working.” Just general questions, but it’s like, I handled it all from my phone. I’m 850 miles from my closest midterm rental. There are three of my rentals I’ve never stepped foot in, and it’s fine. Everybody still feels comfortable and welcomed, and taken care of.
Average Length Of Stay
That’s amazing. Average length of stay, what is it like, 60 or 90 days? What is it?
It hovers between like 90 and 110 days. You’re seeing that three-month mark, which lines up with Travel Nurse contracts pretty well, but also a lot of other work contracts. A lot of people are going on three-month contracts for projects. It’s also pretty common, like if your dishwasher floods and you have to get put in insurance housing, they say it’s going to take a month. That’s going to take three. That means you’ve got four tenants a year.
That’s pretty great. That’s so much nicer than a short-term rental.
I know.
Exploring Furnish Finder
If somebody wants to explore your services, Katie, where do they go?
Go to FurnishedFinder.com. If you’re a traveler, you can search the map. If you’re a traveler and you want to make some revenue off of your own property while you’re traveling, check out the list, your property, or if you’re any other type of property owner. Under the resources tab, I will say we have resources for travelers and landlords. We have a great podcast that’s landlord-focused called the Landlord Diaries. You’re welcome to connect with us on social media. Pretty much search for us and you’ll find us. We all just live and breathe midterm rentals, and we’re here like to make this space better than it has ever been before. We’re pouring our hearts and souls into it every day, and we cannot wait to see what happens with it.
Conclusion
I am very excited about this. I think that this is going to be a great alternative for a lot of people. It’s going to open up a lot of doors and give them some freedom to do things that maybe they didn’t anticipate being able to do affordably in the past. Thank you so much. I’m sure this won’t be the last time we have you on the show. Thank you so much for doing the interview. I cannot wait to see how this goes. I feel like a lot of stuff is going to come out of this.
Same. I hope so. Thank you so much. It was so good to chat.
You too.
Important Links
About Katie Lyon
As a marketing leader specializing in product marketing and strategy, I help drive engagement, growth, and adoption by connecting users with the tools and insights they need to succeed. My expertise spans customer engagement, content marketing, events, and strategic partnerships, with a focus on fostering brand loyalty.
🔹 Marketing Strategy & Growth – I develop and execute marketing initiatives that drive awareness, adoption, and engagement for landlord-focused products.
🔹 Operations & Execution – I ensure seamless execution of marketing programs, working cross-functionally to optimize impact.
🔹 Thought Leadership & Education – I lead webinars, sponsor and speak at industry events, and create content that empowers landlords and mid-term rental operators.
🔹 Customer Advisory & Advocacy – I manage our customer advisory board and feedback loops to align product development with real user needs.
🔹 Event & Partnership Marketing – I oversee event sponsorships and marketing initiatives that elevate brand presence and industry influence.
Passionate about growing communities, driving brand engagement, and creating value through strategic marketing, I thrive at the intersection of product, customer experience, and industry leadership.