Landlord Diaries - The Monthly Rentals Podcast

A single mid-term rental can stay booked year-round with just 2 to 4 travel nurse tenants. In this episode of The Landlord Diaries, co-hosts Kelly Bailey and Katie Lyon break down how to attract healthcare professionals on Furnished Finder, how to price against Airbnb, which amenities actually matter, and the top cities being searched by healthcare professionals right now.

Travel nurses are one of the most reliable tenant types in the mid-term rental space. Their contracts run 13 weeks on average and many extend an extra term. If you are a real estate investor, landlord, retiree exploring a side hustle...

Struggling to get bookings for your monthly midterm rental? Your listing looks great. So why aren’t the inquiries turning into bookings? Kelly Bailey has six years of tenure on Furnished Finder, eight midterm rentals, and hosts the Landlord Diaries podcast. She’s also part of the Furnished Finder team. In this Listing Lab, she audits Tatiana’s two bedroom condo in San Jose, California, and walks through the messaging habits that turn warm leads into signed leases: reply speed, personalization, lead tracking, showing requests, and the follow-up cadence most landlords skip.

Kelly also breaks down the differ...

Two habits separate midterm rental landlords who book consistently on Furnished Finder from landlords who don't: reply speed and calendar accuracy. Katie Lyon is a mid term rental landlord and part of the Furnished Finder team. In this video, she shows you exactly how to do both better, the fast-reply template system that works even when you have a day job, and why a stale calendar quietly costs you bookings and search visibility.

The faster you reply and the more current your calendar, the more visible your listing becomes. Visibility drives inquiries. Inquiries drive bookings. Bookings drive...

Short term rental slow season doesn't have to mean an empty or unpredictable calendar. STR expert Stacey St. John shares how she adds midterm rentals in the slow season to cover costs and build a furnished rental business that earns all year.

Landlord Diaries hosts Kelly Bailey and Katie Lyon talk with Stacey, a short term rental coach who turned $50,000 into a 7-figure real estate portfolio in just a few short years. She runs her Myrtle Beach rentals as short term stays 8 months of the year and switches 85% of her short term rentals to midterm 4 months of...

Why isn’t this 3 bedroom home booking? Kelly Bailey has six years of tenure on Furnished Finder, eight midterm rentals running at over 90% occupancy, and hosts the Landlord Diaries podcast. She’s also part of the Furnished Finder team. In this Listing Lab, she audits Angela’s 3 bed, 2 bath home near Mall of America in Minnesota and walks through the fixes that could turn around a listing that hasn’t booked since July. 

Kelly also breaks down why relocating families are the fastest-growing tenant type on Furnished Finder, how to view your listing through their eyes, and why the D...

Pricing your midterm rental is one of the hardest parts of being a landlord, and most landlords get it wrong in one of three ways. Katie Lyon has 13 midterm rentals in her portfolio and is part of the Furnished Finder team. In this video, she breaks down three signs your rental pricing is off, how to spot the signs in your Furnished Finder dashboard, and the Market Insights data landlords should check before touching their price.

Pricing isn't a one-and-done decision. It's a conversation between your listing and the market. Check the signs, adjust one variable at...

They booked one month on Furnished Finder to escape the Arizona heat. Thirty days later, this Phoenix family was planning to move to the Pacific Northwest, and list their own home as a monthly rental. Nick and Danielle Golden walk landlords through the exact 30 day relocation test drive they ran, from their Furnished Finder search to the moment they realized they were making a life decision, not taking a vacation.

Relocating families are now Furnished Finder's fastest growing tenant segment. More than doubled year over year in 2025, they represent 20% of overall tenant demand and rising. In this...

Is your Furnished Finder listing invisible in search? Kelly Bailey has five years of tenure on Furnished Finder, eight listings running at over 90% occupancy year after year, and hosts the Landlord Diaries podcast. She's also part of the Furnished Finder team. In this Listing Lab, she audits a real 2-bed 2-bath listing in Gainesville, Florida, and walks through the pricing, photos, amenities, ranking and fee opportunities that any landlord can apply to their own listing today.

Kelly breaks down how the Fast Responder tag works, why pet-friendly matters more than most landlords realize in this market, and...

As of September 15, Airbnb service fees moved to a flat 15.5% commission on the host side, and the old fee break for long stays over 30 days is effectively gone. Katie Lyon is a midterm rental landlord with 13 units listed on both Airbnb and Furnished Finder, and she's part of the Furnished Finder team. In this video, she walks through the real math on a typical midterm stay, why raising your rate 15.5% still loses you money, and what this change means for landlords running both platforms.

Katie also covers why cleaning fees and pet fees need to be adjusted...

Ruben Galindo more than doubled his rent by converting all four of his long-term rentals to midterm rentals. His very first conversion went from $1,725 a month to $3,995, and he spent under $6,000 to furnish the property. In this episode of Landlord Diaries, Ruben walks us through exactly how he made the switch, what it cost, and how he now guides his real estate clients through the same decision.

Ruben is a San Antonio investor who has spent 33 years in law enforcement and around a decade owning rental properties and working as a licensed real estate agent. He proves...

In a recent Furnished Finder survey, 57% of tenants said they skip listings when the midterm rental deposit is too high. Kelly Bailey has eight midterm rentals on Furnished Finder, hosts the Landlord Diaries podcast, and leads the Listing Lab series. In this walkthrough, she reviews a real Washington DC listing and shows how to research fees and deposits against your local comps so you can find out whether your listing is priced to book or priced to sit.

Furnished Finder Pricing Worksheet
https://www.furnishedfinder.com/blog/how-to-price-your-furnished-rental-a-landlords-guide

Want your listing considered for the...

Curious what midterm rental amenities justify a higher monthly rental rate? In this video, we break down the six amenities for your furnished rental that help remote workers or relocating family pick your listing and pay higher rental rates. Three are non-negotiable. Three are premium amenities tenants will pay extra for. The No Vacancy series is brought to you by Katie Lyon, a midterm rental landlord who is also part of the Furnished Finder team. 

If you want more bookings at a stronger rate, this is the checklist to run your listing against today.

Want t...

Airbnb saturation crushed Bob Anthes’s nightly rate from $220 to $80 in 90 days. He feared selling was the only option until he discovered midterm rentals, and rebuilt his rental business with Furnished Finder. Four years later, Bob has 5 midterm rental listings in two markets, cash flows $1,800/month on his original Wilmington property, and doubled another unit's rent from $875 to $2,000 with one strategy shift.

In this episode of Landlord Diaries, Bob walks through the exact pivot from short-term to midterm, why Furnished Finder Market Insights drives his pricing and acquisition decisions, and the 3 habits that keep his listings booked: fa...

About 20% of Furnished Finder's inventory is room rentals (around 60,000 units nationwide) but most new landlords have no idea how to price one or whether their market can support it. Kelly Bailey has been a Furnished Finder landlord for over five years with eight midterm rentals, and she's part of the Furnished Finder team. In this Listing Lab, she walks through her exact process for researching a room rental market using Leander, Texas as the live example, so you can decide if a room rental works in your area and how to price it.

Here's what's covered:
0:00...

Your midterm rental tenant is going to live in your property for 30, 60, 90 days or more. That's a long time to be wrong about someone. Katie Lyon is a midterm rental landlord and part of the Furnished Finder team. In this video, she breaks down the one decision that separates landlords who sleep well at night from the ones who don't: running a real tenant screening every single time. She covers what a photo of an ID actually tells you, why references and work contracts fall short, and the three reports that give you the full picture on each applicant.<...

Ana-Maria turned the 400 square foot casita behind her San Antonio home into $18,000 a year in additional revenue on Furnished Finder. No real estate background, no massive portfolio, no full-time real estate career. Just one extra space, rented intentionally to travel nurses, professors, and military members on monthly stays.

As a single parent working in marketing and communications, Ana-Maria desires to supplement her income and provide for her daughter. In this episode of Landlord Diaries, she shares exactly how the casita became a steady revenue stream, why she chose Furnished Finder over Airbnb (Airbnb would have taken almost 20...

About 20% of Furnished Finder's inventory is room rentals (around 60,000 units nationwide) but most new landlords have no idea how to price one or whether their market can support it. Kelly Bailey has been a Furnished Finder landlord for over five years with eight midterm rentals, and she's part of the Furnished Finder team. In this Listing Lab, she walks through her exact process for researching a room rental market using Leander, Texas as the live example, so you can decide if a room rental works in your area and how to price it.

Here's what's covered:
<...

Most landlords treat banking and bookkeeping like admin chores. The ones who get it right treat them like the operating system of the business.

Jamie Banks manages her real estate finances for three mid-term rentals across two markets in just two hours a month. In this episode, she walks us through the exact financial system she has trusted for three years, the mistakes she made before switching, and the bookkeeping habit that helped her sell one of her most profitable rentals without paying capital gains tax.

Whether you own one property, rent one room, or...

If your midterm rental reviews are just okay, or your tenants are messaging you constantly, these five things are probably missing from your property.
Katie Lyon manages 12 midterm rentals and is part of the Furnished Finder team. In this video, she breaks down the exact items she stocks in every single property, the ones that improved her reviews, reduced late-night messages, and made her tenants' stays genuinely better.

Here's what she covers:
0:00 - Why these 5 things make or break a tenant's experience
0:20 - A real workstation setup (the #1 review driver)
0:45 - The Wi-Fi...

What if your tenants paid for your wedding? Alex and Ashley bought their first home in Apple Valley, California with a plan built in: set up two rentable spaces, list them on Furnished Finder, and let the income do the work. Within 18 months, rental income paid off their construction loan. Now that same income is funding the backyard wedding they're throwing in May 2027.

In this episode of Landlord Diaries, we sit down with Alex and Ashley, night shift workers, first time homeowners, and first time landlords who turned an in-law suite and a converted RV garage into...

America has between 32 million and 130 million empty bedrooms sitting unused every single night. The housing shortage is estimated at just 1.8 to 7.5 million units. If you can do basic math, you already know what that means, and Atticus LeBlanc, founder and CEO of PadSplit, is here to break down exactly why room rentals are the fastest, most profitable way for landlords to close that gap.

In this episode, Atticus walks us through the exact room rental conversion that took his net operating income from $1,100 to $2,400 a month. He shares why the traditional buy, renovate, rent playbook does not...

He found a mid-term rental listed at $3,500 a month and knew it was worth nearly double. After taking over management, that property was renting consistently for $6,500 to $7,000 a month. In this episode of Landlord Diaries, David Kamenetsky of DOMA Luxe Properties shares what it actually takes to turn a struggling monthly rental into a high performer. Most landlords assume the market is the problem when bookings slow down. The truth is the answer is almost always inside the operation: pricing, design, photography, tenant targeting, and how quickly you respond to leads. Today we break down exactly how to diagnose...

Landlord Diaries show hosts Katie and Kelly have managed hundreds of midterm rental bookings on Furnished Finder and maintain over 90% occupancy year after year. In this episode of Landlord Diaries, they break down their exact midterm rental booking process & property management tips behind those numbers so you can apply it to your own real estate investing today.

What you'll learn in this episode:

What do you do when you inherit a house you never planned to keep, sink $100,000 into renovations, and fall in love with a property 1,000 miles away? You figure out how to keep it without it becoming a financial burden.

In this episode of Landlord Diaries, Brenna De Wilde shares how she inherited her father's home in Grand Rapids, Michigan, completed a full gut renovation mostly by herself, and chose mid-term rentals on Furnished Finder over Airbnb and long-term leasing. What followed changed how she thinks about retirement, real estate, and what it means to be a landlord.<...

Wondering if your city has enough monthly rental demand to make a midterm rental worth it? In this episode, Furnished Finder Senior Product Manager Kristen James shares how landlords and real estate investors can use the updated Market Insights page to understand rental demand, pricing, tenant types, amenities, and local market opportunity before making their next move.

If you are a landlord, real estate investor, entrepreneur or someone building looking to build cash flow through real estate investing, this episode will help you answer one of the biggest questions in midterm rentals: “Is my area a good fi...

In Linda Allen’s market, long term rent for a 4 bedroom home sits around $2,000 per month. Instead of signing a traditional lease, she used market research to launch it as a midterm rental that brings in $5,000+ per month.

In this episode of Landlord Diaries, we break down how analyzing midterm rental demand helped her choose larger vs smaller units from the start. But here’s the most interesting part, she got started through rental arbitrage without purchasing the property. Today Linda manages six midterm rentals using simple, repeatable systems.

In this episode, you...

Most landlords are collecting rent the wrong way… and it’s creating more stress than it should. From late payments to manual tracking and risky apps like Venmo or Zelle, the way you collect rent can either simplify your business or slow it down. In this episode of Landlord Diaries, we sit down with Saad Dar, VP of Sales and Partnerships at Baselane , to talk about how landlords can simplify rent collection, banking, and financial management all in one place.

Episode Highlights

What happens when a real estate investor hands off 13 midterm rentals for two weeks to a property management team while traveling out of the country?

In this episode of Landlord Diaries by Furnished Finder, Katie shares what happened when Zach and Amanda Palmer stepped in to manage her monthly rentals while she was on vacation with her family. They break down the systems, communication, tenant management, and operational habits that made it possible to keep everything running smoothly across multiple furnished rentals.

You’ll also hear how Zach and Amanda are building their own midterm re...

What if you could keep the income of short term rentals but lose most of the daily work? There is a powerful middle ground between Airbnb and long term rentals that most investors completely overlook. In this episode of Landlord Diaries, we sit down with Tim Hubbard, CEO of Corzly and host of the Short Term Rental Riches podcast, to unpack why experienced short term rental investors are adding midterm rentals.

Tim has hosted more than 50,000 guests across 10 countries and manages more than 200 properties worldwide. His portfolio includes both short term rentals and monthly furnished rentals, giving...

Can a firefighter and paramedic build a profitable midterm rental business while working demanding W2 jobs? In this episode, you will learn how monthly rentals on Furnished Finder can create consistent income, significantly fewer turnovers than Airbnb, and a scalable real estate side hustle without quitting your job.  

Mike and Celine Gonzalez share how they transitioned from accidental insurance bookings to a thriving monthly rental portfolio that now includes STRs, MTRs, partnerships, and a coaching business.  After discovering Furnished Finder through this very podcast, they listed their property before it was even finished and received multiple 3 to 4 mo...

What if you could buy a 10-property portfolio in just 5 years by keeping it simple and stacking the right strategies at the right time? In this episode of Landlord Diaries, we sit down with Thach Nguyen, real estate mogul, mindset coach, and founder of Springboard to Wealth, to break down the step by step framework he teaches that helped him build to $100 million in real estate assets. 

Thach walks us through the 4 steps to getting started in real estate, from house hacking and value-add deals to equity growth and ADUs, Thach s...

Why did this NPR host skip Airbnb and never look back? In this episode of Landlord Diaries, The Monthly Rentals Podcast by Furnished Finder, we sit down with Ilona Limonta-Volkova, host of NPR’s Money Memories podcast and Forbes columnist, to break down why travel nurses and other monthly rental tenants continue to be one of the most reliable and landlord friendly renter groups, especially for first time investors. From avoiding short term rental (Airbnb) regulations to attracting professional tenants who stay longer and are gentle on your property, this conversation sh...

Monthly rentals are no longer a niche real estate strategy. In this episode of Landlord Diaries, Furnished Finder CEO Jeff Hurst joins Katie Lyon and Kelly Bailey to unpack the first-ever data-backed report on the rapid rise of monthly rentals, created in partnership with AirDNA.

Whether you're a short-term rental host, long-term landlord, or new investor looking for better cash flow and less turnover, this episode reveals why monthly midterm rentals are outpacing short-term rental growth, how cities across the U.S. are seeing explosive demand, and why monthly rentals now make...