What is a mid-term rental?
You’ll also see it written as midterm rental or medium-term rental, and in investor circles simply as MTR — the middle of the three rental strategies next to STR (short-term, nightly) and LTR (long-term, yearly). Corporate housing, travel-nurse housing and insurance housing are all mid-term rentals with a specific kind of tenant.
What makes it its own category is that it is part booking and part tenancy. Like a vacation rental, the home is furnished, listed on booking sites and turned over between stays. Like a long-term rental, the tenant signs a lease, pays monthly rent and a deposit, and lives there — they get mail, go to work and call you when the dishwasher breaks.
How long is a mid-term rental?
Anywhere from one month to just under a year. Tyler Sorenson, Nexxus’s founder, has run furnished mid-term rentals since 2019, and in those rentals the typical stay is two to six months. One-month stays happen too — they often get someone in the door, and a surprising number extend once they’re settled.
The 30-night line matters beyond marketing: in many places a stay of 30 days or more is treated differently from a hotel-style stay for lodging taxes and tenant law. Rules vary by state and city, so check yours before you set a minimum stay.
Who rents mid-term?
Mid-term demand comes from people whose work or life puts them somewhere for a few months. Four groups make up most of it:
- Travel healthcare workers — nurses and allied health on 13-week assignments, often extending. See renting to travel nurses.
- Construction workers and project managers — crews and leads on multi-month jobs.
- Relocations and families between homes — a new job before the house closes, a sale before the next purchase.
- Insurance housing — families displaced by a fire, flood or major repair, usually placed through their insurer. See how ALE placements work.
In the founder’s rentals the four are a fairly even mix: at any given time, 50–70% of tenants are business travelers of some kind, and the rest are interim, insurance or relocation stays. A mix like that is a strength: when one source slows down, another usually doesn’t.
Mid-term vs short-term vs long-term
| Topic | Nightly (short-term) | Monthly (mid-term) | Yearly (long-term) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Typical stay | 1–29 nights | 1–12 months, most 2–6 | 12 months or more |
| Furnished | Yes | Yes | Usually not |
| Who rents | Vacationers and short trips | Travel nurses, project crews, relocations, insurance | Households settling in |
| Agreement | Booking terms | A lease or rental agreement | A lease |
| Paying | Per stay, up front | Monthly rent + deposit | Monthly rent + deposit |
| Turnovers | Constant | Every few months | Once a year or less |
Plenty of operators run more than one. The founder’s own path covers all three: nightly cabin rentals in Northern Arizona first, then furnished mid-term homes, with 5–10% of them on year-long leases — at furnished rates, because they’re priced as furnished homes. The full side-by-side, including when each one makes sense, is in mid-term vs short-term rentals.
Pros and cons of mid-term rentals
Why operators move to mid-term
- A better tenant base. Working professionals and families on a plan, not weekend parties.
- Less turnover. A handful of move-ins a year instead of a handful a week — less cleaning, less wear, less time.
- Steadier income. Monthly rent on a lease is more predictable than a nightly calendar.
- Fewer rules to trip over. Many cities restrict nightly rentals; stays of 30+ nights are often treated differently.
What you give up
- Peak cash flow. In a strong season, a well-booked nightly rental usually earns more per month.
- Vacancy gaps. A month between tenants costs more than a couple of empty nights.
- Furnishing and utilities. Mid-term homes need to be fully furnished and usually include utilities and Wi-Fi.
- Tenancy obligations. Longer stays can come with tenant rights — leases, notices and deposits need to be right.
We moved into mid-term for the tenant base and the lower turnover — and accepted a little less cash flow for it. For us it was the right trade.
How to price a mid-term rental
There’s no fixed formula — your monthly rate is what you set — but a few anchors help. Look at comparable furnished homes in your area (not unfurnished long-term rents), at what the traveling professionals in your market are paid for housing, and at your own nightly rates.
On Airbnb, a monthly discount does that work — the founder’s rentals use around 15–20% off the nightly rate. That keeps the monthly price competitive for 30+ night guests while still reflecting that the home is furnished, utilities are included and a stay is flexible.
Price the home as what it is. A furnished home on a year-long lease still goes at a furnished rate — the tenant is getting a furnished home, not an empty one.
The full method — furnished comps, per diem as a ceiling, channel fees, deposits and extensions — is in how to price a mid-term rental. To compare a home as a nightly, mid-term and long-term rental with your own numbers, use the mid-term rental calculator.
Where mid-term tenants come from
Mid-term tenants come through a handful of channels. In the founder’s rentals, roughly:
- Airbnb — about half of stays, with monthly stays enabled and a monthly discount set.
- The company’s own website — about a quarter. Inquiry and application forms from people who found the homes directly: five to seven a week now that the site shows up in search.
- Zillow and the other listing sites — about a quarter, including the long-term sites a listing syndicates to and Furnished Finder, a lead source for years.
On top of that come insurance adjusters and the companies that route displaced families to landlords, and employers who house their people directly. The lesson from those numbers: a direct site you control is worth building early — those leads cost nothing per booking, and the channel grows as the site earns search traffic. Every channel, with what it costs, is in where to list mid-term rentals.
Leases, deposits and extensions
Use a lease for every stay. The founder’s, drafted by an attorney and titled a “short-term rental agreement,” takes a refundable security deposit of at least $1,000, allows extensions and requires 30 days’ notice to vacate. Early move-outs are the hard part; one fair rule is to refund the dates you re-rent to a new tenant when someone has to leave on shorter notice.
Your lease should cover the term and monthly rent, the deposit and how it’s returned, utilities and what’s included, the furnishings and their condition, notice and extension terms, early termination, and who is allowed to live there. Rules on deposits, notices and when a guest becomes a tenant vary by state — have your lease reviewed for your state. This is general information, not legal advice. The clause-by-clause version is in mid-term rental lease agreements.
Running mid-term rentals without the spreadsheets
Many mid-term operators run on a long-term rental tool, Airbnb, screenshots and spreadsheets — Nexxus’s founder did for years. It works until it doesn’t: calendars that aren’t unified mean double bookings, and every year-end means nights of reconciling platforms — or a big CPA bill. Mid-term needs the lease, rent and deposit side of long-term software and the calendar and channel side of vacation-rental software, in one place.
That’s the gap Nexxus fills. See what that looks like in mid-term rental software, or walk through the live demo set up for mid-term — no sign-up.
Mid-term rental FAQ
What does MTR mean in real estate?
MTR stands for mid-term rental: a furnished home rented for roughly one to twelve months at a time, usually 30 nights or more. It sits between an STR (short-term rental, booked by the night) and an LTR (long-term rental, usually an unfurnished 12-month lease).
What is considered a mid-term rental?
A furnished rental with stays of about 30 nights up to (but not including) a year, paid monthly under a written lease or rental agreement. In practice most mid-term stays run two to six months, for people who need housing for a job, a move or a displacement.
How long is a mid-term rental?
Typically one to twelve months. The sweet spot is two to six months — the length of a travel-nurse contract, a construction project or an insurance repair. One-month stays happen too, and often extend once the tenant is settled.
Are mid-term rentals furnished?
Almost always. Mid-term tenants arrive with a suitcase, so the home needs furniture, a stocked kitchen, linens, Wi-Fi and utilities included — which is also why mid-term rent is priced above an unfurnished long-term lease.
Are mid-term rentals profitable?
They trade peak cash flow for stability. A mid-term rental usually earns less than a well-booked nightly rental in high season, but with far fewer turnovers, lower cleaning and wear costs, fewer platform fees and steadier occupancy. Whether it beats a long-term lease depends on your market’s furnished demand and your furnishing costs.
Do you need a lease for a mid-term rental?
Most operators use a written lease or rental agreement for any stay of 30 nights or more, with a refundable security deposit and clear notice, extension and move-out terms. In many states a stay that long can create a tenancy with tenant protections, so check your state’s rules. This is general information, not legal advice.