WIIRE 039: Alternative Ways to Rent Your Midterm Rental

Hey everyone, welcome back to the Women Invest In Real Estate podcast! We're so happy you're here. This week, we're bringing you another midterm rental episode, and this time we’re talking about alternative ways to rent your midterm rentals. We're super excited about this because both of us are realizing that we need to be more active in targeting a wider group of traveling professionals, other than simply focusing on travel nurses. Let's get started!

Contractors

Amelia actually also loves to rent to travel contractors! Already having two travel contractors lined up to rent an MTR from her this summer, this profession is becoming much more common and it's definitely worth having in your arsenal. These tenants will be renting an MTR from her for about 5 months over the summer months, which is when construction really starts to pick up in Iowa. She is also leaving the units vacant for a bit longer than she normally would because she knows she's going to have this longer booking which makes it worth her while to have a longer vacancy. For these tenants, their company is actually paying the bill directly. The individual is on the lease, but the accountants from the companies are the ones paying the rent. Also, if you haven't caught on, Amelia prefers to rent to male tenants since they tend to cause fewer issues and do things like small repairs themselves versus calling her to take care of them.

Grace had a lead for a contractor who came in the month of December and wanted a year-long lease for an MTR property. She wanted to start with 4 months and ultimately wanted to be able to extend to a year but she also wanted a unit with a garage and unfortunately Grace didn't have one available at the time. She did not score that tenant but looking back she realizes she should have done everything she could to get that year-long lease. Additionally, Grace's uncle also is in real estate and tends to rent his unfurnished properties to a lot of gutter crews who come in from out of state. For the most part, these crews are there to eat and sleep and typically pay top dollar for the units. They bring their own air mattresses and live the simple life during their stay just because they can't or don't want to pay $100+ dollars a night for a hotel.
 

Corporate Clients

Next to travel nurses, corporate professionals are another big market to tap into. Grace knew that corporate professionals could be a great target market after working in the corporate world for a time. There are lots of employees, clients, interns, etc., who travel for a few months at a time for their company. In many cases, the company/business actually rent the unit and houses whoever they need to during the course of the lease. 

With corporate clients, you also want to keep in mind that for the most part, they are looking for higher-end properties that have a bit more polish. If you have a property in a great area with a spacious yard, garage, or even a really nice loft or apartment building, this could be a great market to look into targeting. Lastly, corporate leases also won't just fall into your lap you'll need to do some leg work and go on the offense to find these contracts.
 

Insurance Companies

Insurance companies, in our opinion, are probably the most high effort but likely offers the higher reward on the list. While we may have gotten close, we simply have not rented to this particular market yet. The idea is that you hook yourself up with insurance companies and when they have a family or individual whose home is uninhabitable due to a fire, storm, etc., they put them into your property at their expense. Typically they get a stipend or monthly allowance so this is another market where you can charge quite a bit more for rent. You basically become a short-term, midterm, or possibly even a long-term housing provider, while their home is being renovated.

One of the more challenging aspects of targeting insurance companies is that there is less often a need for this type of housing so you really need to have availability when the company calls on you. This is best suited if you have multiple properties in the area, for availability purposes, but not out of the realm of possibilities if you only have one.

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Thank you so much for listening and we'll catch you next time!

Resources:

• Get TenantCloud for your REI business
• Check out Jesse Vasquez on the BiggerPockets podcast
• Join our private WIIRE Facebook Group
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