How Do I Price My Mid-Term Rental?

Question

Hello,

I am considering buying a condo and I'd like to underwrite the deal both as a long term and mid-term rental. I am very familar with how to price a long term rental. I feel a bit in the dark about pricing a mid-term rental. Any help on how to figure out pricing would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

-Felix

John Racine · Answer

Felix, since you already know how to price the long-term side, start there and use that rent as your floor. Then find out what the condo could do as a short-term rental. That's your ceiling. A good mid-term price lands between the two.

How I'd build the number:

1. Know the STR numbers. Look at what comparable nightly rentals near the condo gross in a month, using tools like AirDNA or PriceLabs, or by checking Airbnb calendars and rates. If your monthly price outpaces what the unit could realistically do as an STR, guests will find better value elsewhere and you'll sit empty. The MTR price has to stay competitive with that.

2. Pull furnished comps at the monthly level. Search Airbnb for a 30-night stay over a few different date ranges near the condo, same bed/bath count, and note the total guests actually see. Check Furnished Finder and Zillow for furnished monthly rentals too. Give more weight to listings that look like they're actually booking than to asking prices.

3. Figure out who your guest is. Travel nurses, insurance relocations, corporate moves and job-site crews are different guests with different budgets. Check what's driving demand near the condo before you pick a number.

4. Add back everything a lease tenant normally pays: utilities, internet, furniture, supplies, cleaning between stays, and some empty days between bookings. For a real example, one unit I run would get about $2,700 a month as a long-term rental. Furnished, it brings in roughly $4,000-$6,000 depending on the month, with about $500-$1,000 a month in added costs. Underwrite to the slow months, not the good ones.

5. Run the comparison. If a slow furnished month, minus the added costs and minus furniture spread over a few years, doesn't clearly beat the LTR rent, it's an LTR deal.

Because it's a condo, read the HOA docs before anything else. Many associations set minimum lease terms or cap the number of rentals, and that can rule out 30-day stays entirely.

If it does pencil out, set the calendar up for extensions. I run 30-60 day minimums and keep the 60 days after each stay open so a guest can extend. Extensions are where mid-term numbers really improve, because every extension is a turnover you skip.

Roughly where in Louisville is the condo? How close it is to the hospitals and major employers would change my estimate quite a bit.

Felix Sharpe · Answer

Hi John,

Thanks for the response. I just sent you a connect request. I can give you more details in direct message.

Thanks,

-Felix

Ryan Brown · Answer

I’d start by browsing Furnished Finder and seeing what people are asking for similar units in the area. Look for comparable bedrooms, location, condition, furnishings, and what’s included in the rent. Those are asking prices rather than confirmed rental income, but they’ll give you a starting point.

I also have a cautionary condo story right here in Louisville. I purchased a condo in Coppershire and rented it mid-term for 90 days. Then the HOA changed the rules to prohibit leases shorter than 12 months, which took that option off the table.

So I’d make sure you’re comfortable with the numbers as a long-term rental, too. The mid-term option can be attractive, but in my case, the HOA changed the game after I’d already bought the property.

Nick Pavlakis · Answer

I'd ask a few nearby furnished-rental operators what they actually collected over a full year, including empty weeks. Asking rents alone won't give you that. For the condo, work out how many occupied months you'd need to beat the LTR option after utilities and furnishing costs.

John Racine · Answer

@Felix Sharpe glad it helped. I accepted your connect request.

One thing I'd add for anyone underwriting mid-term: people assume the demand is all travel nurses, and that's what makes it look risky. If one hospital's contracts dry up, you're empty. In practice, the guest pool is a lot wider than that. Insurance relocations (families displaced by a fire or water damage), corporate moves, people relocating who need a place while they house-hunt, and job-site and construction crews all book 30+ days. I've had a construction crew stay over three months.

Because those guests book for different reasons, they don't all slow down at the same time. When one source is quiet, another usually fills the calendar, so demand tends to stay steadier than people expect.

The other piece that keeps my units full is running them as an MTR/STR hybrid instead of straight mid-term. The calendar is set for 30+ day stays with 30–60 day minimums. When there's a gap between mid-term guests, short stays of a few days up to two weeks fill it, so the unit isn't sitting empty waiting for the next monthly booking. Between the wider guest pool and the gap fills, I'm averaging 11–18% higher occupancy than the market across all my properties, based on PriceLabs market data.

One caution for your situation: the hybrid only works if short stays are allowed. Check the condo's HOA docs and the city's rules on stays under 30 days. If short stays aren't allowed, underwrite it as straight mid-term and budget for some empty days between guests.

So when you check demand near the condo, don't just ask "is there a hospital nearby?" Look for two or three of those sources in the area. The more you have, the more stable your occupancy will be, and the less you need to discount your monthly price to stay booked.

Don Konipol · Answer

What I did when I was in the business was I would look at comparable FURNISHED long term rentals and arbitrarily add 20%. I’d make adjustments to asking rent as the market dictated.

How Do I Price My Mid-Term Rental?

How Do I Price My Mid-Term Rental?

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