What Is a Mid-Term Rental (MTR)?
If you’re here, you probably understand what MTR means by now so you can skip to the next section. But if you’re new, here’s some information to get you caught up to speed. According to MiniStays, a mid-term rental is a rental that houses a tenant for more than 30 days. A mid-term tenancy can range from 30 days to under 12 months, but MiniStays shares, “from data we’ve collected, the most common length of stay is between two to three months.”
Another detail MiniStays includes is that medium-term rentals are typically furnished like short-term rentals. Tenants aren’t required to buy their own furniture since the landlord would supply the unit with basic amenities and furniture already. “While mid-term rentals are generally less admin work than a short-term rental, you will still be placing tenants more often than a long-term rental,”.
In other words, you may spend less time handling maintenance requests and rent payments from the same tenant. However, you will need to plan to have more than one tenant live in the unit throughout the year. “Systems and automation are your friends [when owning medium-term rentals], and building a team is one of the best things you can do for seamless resolutions to property issues.”
So Where is the Best Place to Find or List Your Mid Term Rental?
There are many places to advertise or find mid term rentals but in this article we’re going to compare two of the top platforms dedicated to monthly furnished housing. And those are Furnished Finder and MiniStays.
MiniStays
MiniStays was founded by Mid Term Rental Hosts and Guests for Mid Term Rental Hosts and Guests. The founders were frustrated with what the market had to offer the mid term rental space, so they partnered up to create an all-in-one booking platform dedicated to monthly furnished rentals. MiniStays allows properties to be listed for 30 days or longer. All of MiniStays users are verified and bookings are done directly on the platform. Their mission is to create a community based around trust and transparency. The founders made sure to include all the features that frustrated them with platforms currently available. This includes secure bookings, collecting security deposits, performing background checks, user friendly interface, and a custom dashboard to track reservations. It’s free to list your property and only has a 2% service fee when a reservation is made.
Furnished Finder
For the last few years, Furnished Finder has become a leader in mid-term rentals, focusing on Travel Nurses. They offer furnished properties that are available for stays of 30 days or more. They got their start in 2014 with a focus on traveling nurses and medical professionals. The site grew exponentially during Covid, going from < 50,000 homes in 2020 to over 250,000 today, making it one of the fastest growing consumer peer-to-peer marketplaces. Furnished Finders growth came largely from Mid Term Rental Hosts and Guests trying to find an alternative to Airbnb because of their high fees. Not all users are verified and bookings are made directly with the Host, off platform, which has lead to a lot of complaints around scams and trust among users. Listing your property is not free, it costs Hosts $179/year per property to list with no certainty of getting any bookings.
Why MiniStays is the Better Alternative for Mid Term Rentals
First and foremost, MiniStays is a complete booking platform from start to finish. Every aspect and feature was designed with Mid Term Rental Hosts and Guests in mind. Here are just a few key takeways on why MiniStays is the superior option when it comes to listing or booking a mid term rental vs Furnished Finder:
- All users and properties on MiniStays are verified and bookings are made directly on the MiniStays platform. This is a major advantage over Furnished Finder for several reasons. Furnished Finder is known to be plagued with scammers, users uploading fake properties to steal from hopeful guests or fake Guest accounts looking to take advantage of Hosts. This also causes issues with reliability of property’s availability. Because bookings are made offline, that means Hosts need to manually update their calendars in which they often forget. This causes a lot of frustration for guests needing to inquire to 20+ listings before finding one with an accurate calendar or many times Hosts are just non responsive. Not having bookings on platform also makes it harder for Hosts to track reservations and remembering when to collect rent each month, especially when hosts have several properties.
- Free to List Your Property! MiniStays is always free to list your property. Furnished Finder’s pay to play model charges Hosts’ $179/year per property to list with them. It may not seem like a lot for an entire year but if you have multiple properties that you’re considering listing it can add up. Especially when you have no idea if you’ll receive any bookings at all! We’ve heard from 100’s of Hosts that have paid the fee and never even received a single inquiry let alone a booking request. We’ve also heard how difficult it can be to cancel your membership with them and Hosts get charged the fee even after they’ve tried to cancel. With all of the additional features that MiniStays provides, it’s free to list and they still only charge a 2% service fee. Sounds like a bargain with no risk to me!
- Security Deposits – Part of having bookings done on the MiniStays platform, means that MIniStays collects security deposits for you. MiniStays allows Hosts to set their own Security Deposit amount. For guests, the security deposit is all that is needed to reserve your stay and then the first rental payment is paid on the check in date. So Guests don’t need come up with a large amount of money to reserve a property.
- Cancellation Policy Protection – Have you ever had a Guest flake out last minute and had no recourse because Furnished Finder doesn’t have cancellation policies? Or your a Guest and your Host kept your kept your entire security deposit and/or kept your entire rent payment without being pro-rated? Well, MiniStays offers several Cancellation Policies for Hosts to choose from. So, you’ll be protected if a Guest cancels pre maturely or a guest can be refunded depending on the cancellation policy.
- User Friendly Dashboards – If you’re familiar with Furnished Finder, you’ll understand what I mean when I say that it looks like their site was created 20 years ago and hasn’t been update since. The interface is clunky. It’s cluttery. It’s slow. Overall, it’s just outdated. And again, because reservations are not done on the platform, you’re not able to track your reservations, edit them, cancel, extend etc.. MiniStays has a very user friendly interface with seamless dashboards that make it easy to track and alter all of your reservations in one place.
- Marketing to All Travelers – Furnished Finder only markets to healthcare professionals and travel nurses but there are many demographics that need monthly furnished accommodations. MiniSatys markets to everyone including medical professionals, snowbirds, military members, relocating families, displaced homeowners, insurance claims, athletes, college students and many more! Covid was also a major catalyst for the surge in Mid Term Rental popularity. Now that so many people can work from anywhere, they’re taking full advantage of that by not getting locked down in one location for an entire year. Now you can travel the world year-round and all you need is your suitcase and your laptop. More and more people are doing this and experts predict this trend is going to continue to explode for the foreseeable future.
Mid term rentals have been growing in popularity in recent years. Choosing a platform to showcase your property shouldn’t be difficult nor expensive. That’s why when we compare Furnished Finder or Airbnb vs MiniStays, MiniStays is the clear winner as the best overall platform for mid term rentals. There’s no debate. Try it for yourself and do a side by side comparison.
