Corporate Housing, Working Professional, Militairy etc

Rental Property Investor · Houston, TX · Member since 2020 · 18 posts · 11 votes

Good morning,

I am based in Texas and looking to register a STR on additional OTA outside of airbnb and VRBO. I am looking to provide housing options for potentially the following.

-Corporate housing, traveling nurses, military, disaster situation government housing etc.

My question is. Where do I need to go and what platforms are successful at helping source these guests/tenants?

Thank you,

Austin Spitzenberger

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Dee Bral

Member since 2021 · 16 posts · 9 votes

You might try MBO or Military By Owner. We have a furnished rental near a military base and have also contacted the local base's housing office. Good luck!

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Paul Sandhu
Investor · The worst town to live in, KS · Member since 2016 · 4k+ posts · 4k+ votes
4y
Advertise directly to the potential tenant.
0 Reply
John UnderwoodPro Member
Investor · Greer, SC · Member since 2014 · 13k+ posts · 17k+ votes
4y
Military check local bases. Government Housing - contact local section 8 HAP office.
Also check with HR at large employers. Check with Insurance companies that need to put up people when there is a large claim that requires homeowners to be displaced during lengthy repairs.
I get calls from a Craigslist ad, but I always have STR bookings that prohibit it except once. I got a call from workers that were scheduled to work a shutdown at a local Nuclear Power plant. They contacted me early enough to rent a couple months in my off season. They get a nice perdium to cover housing. They worked 12 hour shifts.
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Leslie Anne Morris
Real Estate Agent · Smoky Mountains, TN · Member since 2022 · 1k+ posts · 984 votes
4y
For longer bookings folks use Zillow or Furnished Finder.
1 Reply
Bonnie LowPro Member
Lender · Asheville, NC · Member since 2016 · 1k+ posts · 1k+ votes
4y
Some of your best resources are going to be:
- Furnished Finders (nurses and other medical)
- Corporatehousingbyowner (companies seeking higher end workforce housing, doctors, some construction companies)
- Sabbaticalhomes.com (traveling academics)
- apartments.com (digital nomads and travel nurses)
There are others, but these are some of the big names.
[email protected]
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Michael BaumPro Member
Olympia, WA · Member since 2016 · 8k+ posts · 7k+ votes
4y
@John Underwood said something that is important @Austin Spitzenberger. If you have a STR, trying to do medium term rentals (like corp housing or traveling professionals) at the exact same time can be a real problem.
If you take a booking from a nurse for 3 months, it will be at a discounted rate and you will lose the STR market revenue for that time. Then it goes back live and maybe you get a 3 day stay, which precludes anyone who wants a 2 month stay.
You see the issue? Now if you are talking about doing it in the off season where you get little to no bookings, that is different.
Frankly I think you are best off doing one or the other, but not both at the same time.
Another factor might be that your listing on AirBNB and VRBO will eventually get little to no activity due to the MTR stuff. Why even look when it is never available and when it is who cares. Your listing will get pushed down the list to the bottom as you are just blocking the time and not actually booking anyone.
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Dee Bral
Member since 2021 · 16 posts · 9 votes
4y
You might try MBO or Military By Owner. We have a furnished rental near a military base and have also contacted the local base's housing office. Good luck!
3 Reply
Austin Spitzenberger
OP
Rental Property Investor · Houston, TX · Member since 2020 · 18 posts · 11 votes
4y
Quote from @Michael Baum:

@John Underwood said something that is important @Austin Spitzenberger. If you have a STR, trying to do medium term rentals (like corp housing or traveling professionals) at the exact same time can be a real problem.
If you take a booking from a nurse for 3 months, it will be at a discounted rate and you will lose the STR market revenue for that time. Then it goes back live and maybe you get a 3 day stay, which precludes anyone who wants a 2 month stay.
You see the issue? Now if you are talking about doing it in the off season where you get little to no bookings, that is different.
Frankly I think you are best off doing one or the other, but not both at the same time.
Another factor might be that your listing on AirBNB and VRBO will eventually get little to no activity due to the MTR stuff. Why even look when it is never available and when it is who cares. Your listing will get pushed down the list to the bottom as you are just blocking the time and not actually booking anyone.

These are really great points. Thank you for putting this into perspective. I was not thinking about it from that angle. But yes the objective is to get more long term stay in the off season to improve my occupancy. Thank you for your help!
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Jordan MoorheadBusiness Member
Real Estate Agent · Austin, TX · Member since 2015 · 5k+ posts · 3k+ votes
4y
We use Airbnb, VRBO and furnished finder
[email protected]512-888-9122
The Moorhead Team5140 Reviews
Website View Page
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Coburn Sheppick
Investor · Phoenix, AZ · Member since 2019 · 3 posts · 1 vote
4y
@Austin Spitzenberger I think it's a great idea to take on both short and mid-term stays. We grew our portfolio up to 200+ furnished units and had this same approach and was successful. The key here is the systems and technologies used. If you are not already, you should definitely use a property management system that has quality direct integrations to the top booking channels (Furnished Finder, Airbnb, VRBO, etc.), and then you depending on the market you are in (how much corporate travel) you can list your properties on sites like OWL and PC Housing who are some of the leaders in the corporate housing space. To the point of doing both mid-term and short-term, I would have to disagree with this because so many factors come into play with demand; events, seasonality, corporate travel, Pandemics (lol), etc. So having the correct setup (PMS, and Dynamic Pricing Tools) to properly control your calendar availability to take on longer-term stays and fill the short-term availability and booking gaps with short-term reservations is ultimately the best strategy (in my opinion). The goal here is not just to capitalize on the short-term market, but also to have stabilized cash flow. Hope this helps!
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