Medium term rental demand and vacancy

[David Zimmer]

I'm reading 30 Day Stay and am considering renting my 2/2.5 townhouse as a MTR. It is close (2-3 miles) to the hospital, downtown and the two universities in town. I've looked at the Furnished Finder stats (below) but am not sure how I could determine what kind of vacancy and demand I could expect. I've compared these stats to a nearby similar city (Gainesville) and the stats don't differ too much. One observation is the number of private units there is 5, where in my city there are 22. Obviously there are a whole lot of factors, but maybe people here have some additional recommendations. Thanks!

[Nicole Heasley Beitenman]

From our research, there isn't anything that's going to give you concrete numbers. As you probably saw, Furnished Finders only gives you search numbers for your area. We've talked to anyone we know who works for the hospitals in our market for their opinion. We've looked to see how many MTRs are being advertised in our market. We follow local news regarding hospital/medical center development (if they're expanding, hiring, laying folks off, etc). We're going to give it a shot. Worst case scenario is that it doesn't work and we revert to LTRs. 

[David Zimmer]

Thanks Nicole! I'm doing the same - talking to people I know in the area and gathering what info I can. I think will create a listing a couple of months in advance and see what kind of interest it receives. Thanks for the reply.

[Allen Duan]

Just want to second what Nicole says. It's much easier to estimate MTR rates you can expect to get than it is to estimate vacancy rate. If you can talk to other MTR owners in your market, they can give you insights on the vacancy. At the end of the day you'll just have to try it out and see what happens =)