Property owners frequently ask if they should rent their property furnished or unfurnished. And if furnished, should they rent nightly/ weekly, or monthly. As much as I want to say that furnished monthly rental is always the best and the only way to go, the reality is that the best answer is - it depends...

 

So here are our top three reasons to choose furnished monthly rentals for your real estate investment strategy - the ones that impact our owners with the most benefits, most of the time.

 

1. Safety, security and reliability. - You always want safe, secure and reliable renters. And since the rent on our properties is paid by a company/agency/assn/etc, it adds an additional level of certainty for our owners. Also, unlike nightly and weekly rentals, we require all our renters to pay for and pass a credit application.   

 

2. Flexibility - mid-term. - Some of our owners move out of town for an assignment or new career that may be temporary or that could become more permanent.  The ability to rent out their property on a monthly basis provides them the certainty of rental income during their absence and the flexibility to return to their property on shorter notice (and without the need for moving and storage of their belongings in the interim).  As a side note, we have several owners who have moved back to town, only to buy a new property to live in because they enjoyed receiving the rental income while out of town.

 

3. Financial benefit - the right mix of high return and low impact/involvement.  It's pretty straight-forward, if you want the highest consistency in rental income, you should rent your property unfurnished, on an annual basis.  If you want to maximize the income, you can aim for nightly/weekly, using hotel-type rates and add spare beds, bunk beds, or sofa beds to sleep as many as local laws allow and hope for little vacancy. However, our program of monthly minimum terms, with average stays of 3-4 months and around 92% occupancy rates, provides a great compromise between those two options.  

 

To summarize, we are a niche service, and our system is not right for everyone. So it's important for owners to know the difference of each system and base their decision on their priorities and interests.  

 

What makes a property ideal for corporate rentals? That is for a future posting... stay tuned...