How the calculator works
- Occupied time. Nightly: 365 × occupancy = booked nights. Monthly and yearly: 12 × occupancy = leased months.
- Turnovers. Occupied time ÷ average stay. A 60%-booked nightly home with three-night stays turns over about 73 times a year; a 90%-leased mid-term home with three-month stays, about 3.6 times.
- Percentage fees (platform and management) apply to rent collected. Flat costs — listing subscriptions and furniture — are per year. Utilities and internet you include are paid all 12 months, occupied or not.
- Fixed home costs are the same whichever way you rent, so they don’t change which strategy wins — they show whether each one covers the home.
Nothing you type leaves your browser, and the sample home is placeholder numbers, not a market estimate.
Finding your numbers
- Nightly rate and occupancy: your own booking history, or comparable listings on the booking sites in your area, across a full year — not just peak season.
- Monthly rent: comparable furnished homes on the sites mid-term tenants use (some call them midterm or medium-term rentals) — see where to list mid-term rentals. If you already rent nightly, a monthly discount off your nightly rate is another anchor: on Airbnb, Nexxus’s founder uses about 15–20% off. Step by step: how to price a mid-term rental.
- Long-term rent: comparable unfurnished leases nearby. If you’d lease the home furnished for a year, price it as a furnished home, not an unfurnished rental.
- Turnover costs: quotes from your cleaner, plus restocking and the small repairs you do between stays. A mid-term move-out usually needs a deeper clean than a nightly one; a long-term move-out often needs paint and repairs.
- Utilities: mid-term and nightly rentals usually include utilities, internet and streaming; long-term tenants usually pay their own.
- Furnishing: the furniture, linens and kitchen items you replace in a typical year — or your furnishing budget spread over the years you expect it to last.
What it leaves out
- Taxes. Lodging and occupancy taxes you collect from guests and pass on, income tax and depreciation. Some places treat stays of 30 nights or more differently for lodging tax — check your state and city.
- Rules. Whether nightly rentals are allowed, licensed or restricted where the home is, and what tenant law applies to longer stays.
- Your time. Nightly rentals take daily attention; mid-term, weekly; long-term, monthly. If you’d pay someone to do it, that’s the management fee field.
- Seasonality and ramp-up. A yearly occupancy hides slow months, and a new listing takes time to fill.
- Up-front furnishing. The calculator spreads furniture over the year; the first purchase is a one-time cost.
Reading the result
The biggest number isn’t always the best strategy. A nightly rental that nets a little more but turns over seventy times a year is a very different job from a mid-term rental that turns over three or four times. The full trade-off is in mid-term vs short-term rentals.
We moved from nightly to mid-term for a better tenant base and less turnover, and accepted a bit less cash flow for it. Run your own numbers — then decide what the difference is worth to you.
Plenty of operators don’t pick one: they run most homes mid-term, fill the gaps with nightly stays and lease a few by the year. That only works when every stay length shares one calendar and one ledger — which is what Nexxus mid-term rental software does. Open the live demo set up for mid-term to see it, no sign-up.
Mid-term rental calculator FAQ
How do you calculate mid-term rental income?
Multiply the monthly rent by the months the home is actually leased in a year (12 × your occupancy), then subtract what the strategy costs you: cleaning and repairs at every turnover, listing and platform fees, any management fee, the utilities and internet you include, and furniture replacements. Subtract the home’s fixed costs — mortgage, taxes, insurance, HOA — to see what it leaves you each month.
Are mid-term rentals more profitable than long-term rentals?
Often in gross rent, because a furnished home rents for more than an empty one. But a mid-term rental also pays for furniture, utilities, more turnovers and more vacancy between tenants. Whether it comes out ahead depends on your market’s furnished demand and your costs — which is exactly what this calculator compares.
How much can you make with a mid-term rental?
It depends entirely on the home, the market and how well it’s run, so there’s no honest average to publish. Put your own rent, occupancy and costs into the calculator above. For rent, look at comparable furnished homes on the sites mid-term tenants use, not at unfurnished long-term rents.
What occupancy should I use for a mid-term rental?
Your own history if you have it. If you don’t, work it out from stay length and the gap between tenants: a home that rents for three months and then sits empty for two weeks between tenants is occupied about 87% of the year. Be conservative in your first year while you build lead sources.
Should I switch my Airbnb to a mid-term rental?
Run both columns with honest numbers first — including cleaning and restocking for every nightly turnover and the hours those turnovers take. Many operators — Nexxus’s founder among them — moved from nightly to mid-term for a steadier tenant base and far less turnover and accepted a little less cash flow. Check your local rules for both before you switch.
Is this calculator tax or financial advice?
No. It compares operating income before income tax and leaves out lodging taxes you collect and pass on, depreciation and financing details. Talk to a CPA before you change how a home is rented.