I love a good real estate investor meetup. I'm in Northern Colorado and have had the opportunity to attend a few nearby. I take advantage of that opportunity as often as I can, and I recently met a fantastic woman who had some pretty awesome, think-outside-the-box ideas for furnishing short-term rentals.

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Host a Design Contest

Our lovely investor, Gwen, had a property that she purchased and needed to immediately furnish as a vacation rental because she had her first renter coming soon after she closed. On top of that, she has a full-time job and didn’t really have time to do it on her own.

Gwen didn’t have unlimited funds to use for furnishings, so she put on her creative thinking cap and came up with a design contest—furnish the home completely, using the extra odds and ends Gwen had at her own house, plus a $2,000 budget for purchases. Winner gets $500 cash.

She announced it on Craigslist and quickly narrowed down her applicants to the two most qualified candidates. She decided on Jenny, gave her a tour of the property and the money for the furnishings, and set her loose.

Jenny shopped consignment stores, second-hand shops, and even thrift stores, along with discount department stores like Ross, T.J.Maxx, and Marshall’s, and outlets like Nordstrom Rack.

With a tight time frame of one week, our illustrious investor needed her designer-contestant to knock it out of the park—and boy, did Jenny deliver!

Gwen estimates that Jenny did end up going a smidgen over budget, but Jenny furnished the entire property—including beds, linens, bathroom supplies, living area, the full kitchen, and even wall decor—in one week. Gwen happily paid Jenny her $500 bonus and still uses most of those furnishings to this day!

Related: 10 Home Staging Tips to Help Sell (or Rent) Your Property FAST!

Free Storage

Gwen had the opportunity to sublet an apartment from a friend for the summer—a time when our area is filled with tourists who need a place to stay. Her friend was moving out and intended to break the lease. Rather than be stuck with a break-lease fee, he sublet the unit to Gwen, who had a plan to use the unit to make some money.

The problem was her friend was moving out—and taking all the furniture with him. Since she only had the property for the duration of the summer, she didn’t want to drop a lot of money on furnishing the unit. Craigslist to the rescue, again!

Gwen posted another ad on Craigslist, this time offering free furniture storage for the summer. She explained what she was doing—the furniture would be used in a corporate rental during the summer—so readers wouldn’t have the mistaken belief that the furniture would just be sitting around.

Related: 6 Staging Tips to Follow Every Single Time You Sell a House

Enter Barb, who was going to Alaska for the summer and needed a place to store her furniture. Since it was being used for a corporate rental rather than a college rental, Barb was absolutely fine with the arrangement, and Gwen drove over with a trailer and picked it all up. King-sized sleigh bed with matching bedroom furniture and a full living room set, too. Barb even let Gwen use her kitchen items.

In fact, the only thing Barb didn’t have for Gwen was furniture for the second bedroom. Gwen did have to go and purchase that, but she made quite a pretty penny off the rental that summer, and since she provides other furnished rentals, those furnishings just went into another property when the summer was over.

Put On Your Own Thinking Cap!

Gwen's resourcefulness makes my heart sing. I love the way she thought outside the box and made money doing it. She helped others, putting $500 in Jenny's pocket, saving her friend the break-lease fee, and saving the landlord from having to try to find a long-term tenant during the summer, which is very difficult in our college town.

How have YOU thought outside the box?

Please share your ideas below.