Anyone have any luck with Furnishedfinder?

Question

All I get is email blast messages from travel nurses who all want to rent an entire lake house by themselves/no room mates but their budget is $1,500 a month. Are these people smoking crack? You can't rent an apartment in the ghetto for that price here, let a lone an entire house....on a lake...furnished...for 3 months.

Then of course I have ONE bite from a sane travel nurse...and her WFH husband...and their pitbull. None of which fly with me.

Are people having success with this mid term rental stuff renting by the room or something? If so to whom? 95% of that site is travel nurses and they ALL seem to have a water budget but champagne taste.

Colleen F. · Answer

@Jack B. we successfully rent a couple rooms in MA/RI where costs are also high so it is over $1000/room.  Although people say you can't get people to take rooms, some sane people do and they are fine with it. There are some unrealistic people out there though. Why do you think you get paid more in this area, it costs more, you don't get to bank all the housing allowance.

If you want to do the whole house you might do better on VRBO or airbnb with a 30 day stay but you want all avenues out there. If you are close to a university you can also try sabbaticalhomes for visiting professors.  Just be clear what you are renting and use the delete key for the difficult ones.  I think many health care travelers don't do enough research before deciding on an area.

Allen Duan · Answer

Furnished Finder is a lead generator. Like any business, you'll have a certain percentage conversion rate for your leads. We get lots of bookings from FF in Los Angeles over 25 properties, but the response rate is low. We see 5-10 new leads every day that we review and decide if we have something that meets their needs.

Lauren Kormylo · Answer

I haven't had any luck yet renting my 4 bedroom house on FF.  If you look at this article, https://www.nomadicare.com/travel-nursing/7-things-you-have-... you'll see that travel nurses are paid a per diem amount, and they try to get something cheaper so they can pocket the difference, that's why they're cheap and try to bargain with you.  It has a link to GSA.gov, scroll to the bottom of that site and you'll see a calculator for per diem daily lodging rates for your area.  That's the max that a nurse could get, and may get less, so your place may be way too expensive for them. Furnished Finder recently announced that now half of their customers are not nurses, but people looking to relocate or need housing while their home is being remodeled or repaired after being damaged. Those would be more likely to be your ideal guests.

Jack B. · Answer

Thank you!! Yeah the last nurse I talked to even tried to negotiate it down. I had to tell her she is insane. You can't rent a room for what she was asking here in Seattle, let alone an entire place furnished on a short term lease!

Zachary Deal · Answer

This has been said but posting in as many places is definitely the best route and including local/national FB groups. Reaching out directly to hospitals in your area may be a good route as well.

Andrew Bosco · Answer

@Jamie Banks has the best answer. Max out exposure and get it on other platforms. You can go the extra mile by building local relationships with employers.

Elisa Michals · Answer

I see the same things that you are posting above. I have better luck with my one bedroom suites or studios. As for the 3/2 house- Furnished Finder has been a bust for me. Zillow and Airbnb have been much better.

Jack B. · Answer

I already am. My point is, this doesn't seem to be an effective market for FF. Seattle is one of the most expensive markets in the country and I get a lot of inquiries from people from BF middle of nowhere where the rent is $600 a month. Then they come here and want an entire place to themselves, furnished, on a short term lease and on a lake with AC, etc for the price of a car rental....An entire house on my lake rents for 6K a month...

I think a lot of these travel nurses can't afford expensive markets or just don't want to pay. They keep saying they want a place to themselves, no room by room. Yet my gf rented a room when she moved here for $1,500 a month...a room....a ROOM. These travel nurses don't seem to understand economics and that they are not going to move from an area where you can buy a house for the price of a VCR to rent an entire house furnished for less than an apartment is here....

Shannon Strickland · Answer

@Jack B.

If your model is rent-by-the-room, is that super clear in your listing? I treat the listing copy as the first step in screening.

Maybe you could seek input here about how your FF listing appears.

Shannon

Jamie Banks · Answer

In my portfolio, we get ~50% of our leads from Furnished Finder throughout our portfolio in 5 markets. There are some leads that don’t match our product, but we reach out to each one to start the conversation. Apart from Furnished Finder you should be listing on other sites like Airbnb, VRBO, and Zillow.

Anyone have any luck with Furnishedfinder?

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