What to Look For in Furnished Short Term Rentals

Finding perfect furnished short-term rentals for your team isn’t always easy.

But here’s the thing:

You must know what to look for.

When booking lodging for a remote work team, you need to look at more than just the property’s price and its availability.

It’s also in your best interest to take into account several other important factors, including:

• Lease terms
• How utilities will (or won’t) be bundled
• Difficulty of sourcing said utilities
• How amenities and location will affect the quality of life for your team
• How to find out more about a company’s or property’s reputation and business history/standing

In short, dig a bit deeper into each potential property to guarantee it’ll serve your purposes and help your team maintain a quality standard of living.

We’re here to help you figure out exactly how to do that. Travelers Haven does a lot of this back-end work for you, which is why our service is quickly gaining popularity among companies who place workers out in the field.

Let’s dive in and talk about it.

The Basics of What You Want in a Short Term Rental

Remember, this is going to be someone’s home away from home! You want your team in a place they can feel good about.

1. A Nice Place to Stay

Regardless of whether you’re renting condos, furnished apartments, or even an extended stay hotel — it needs to be up to snuff.

In other words, you don’t want to book something that looks or feels low quality. That sends the wrong message to your team.

2. Quality Furnishings

Whenever you’re exploring short-term housing options, be it in New York City, Los Angeles, or anywhere in between — you want it to be move-in ready. You don’t expect your traveling workers to haul their couches and beds with them after all.

The included furniture needs to be durable and high quality to provide a comfortable living environment.

You don’t want your team to arrive and find out that there isn’t any furniture in the apartment/house. (Or that the furniture there is cheap and/or beat up.)

3. Lease Terms That Align With Your Needs

If you’re looking for a particular length of stay, you’re going to want to be pretty stringent about the lease terms.

If your team only needs to be on location for three months, then you’ll need to find a short-term lease that can accommodate that length of stay.

This can be a challenge, though. A lot of apartments only rent for six or 12-month increments.

Travelers Haven can help with this. We’ll talk more about that in a moment.

4. No-Nonsense Lease Agreements

Look closely at the lease agreement to ensure it doesn’t include clauses that hinder your team’s timeline or living requirements.

This isn’t always easy to navigate. One of the best methods to see if a particular rental company has a good reputation for their lease terms is to do an internet search and find reviews.

This can reveal how trustworthy a company is to do business with.

5. Bundled Utilities

Utilities must be easy to navigate. You don’t want your team to show up and for there to be no electricity, water, or gas turned on in the rental.

Wifi is another essential utility that you never want your team to go without.

The best-case scenario would have the rental company bundling utilities and handling this for you.

6. Close Proximity to Amenities

Business travelers aren’t just traveling machines that eat, work, sleep, and repeat.

They also have more diverse needs.

Book your team’s short-term apartment or corporate rental near a part of town with access to amenities. This means groceries, a gym/fitness center, drug stores, nightlife options, laundry services, restaurants, basic retail stores, parks, etc.

7. A Rental That Allows Pets

Never forget — your remote workforce consists of individual humans who have lives of their own. Some of them may have beloved pets that they’ll want to bring with them.

Therefore, it’s always important to ask about the pet policy when looking at monthly rentals or other corporate housing options.

This is a detail that many travel managers overlook, but it’s so important!

Understanding Multiple Rental Blocks When Booking for a Team

When booking accommodations for a team, you’ll often find it easier to rent apartments, hotel rooms, or even houses in blocks. This means that you’ll rent several at once — not just one at a time.

This often saves money but may require you to submit a Request for Proposal (RFP) to the rental company (or hotel) to see precisely what it will cost you.

Industry-Specific Needs to Keep in Mind When Booking for Your Team

Housing for nurses, military personnel, construction workers, and other traveling professionals sometimes requires extra consideration.

Traveling Nurses

Travel nurses have many unique needs that are important to consider when booking furnished short-term rentals.

Among other things, they’ll need:

1. Flexible lease terms that’ll fit with the requirements of their contracts
2. Proximity to the workplace
3. A pet-friendly rental so that pets can come with them

Traveling Construction/Infrastructure Workers

Proximity/location is crucial for construction workers since they’ll need to wake up and be at the job site early — often before dawn. For this reason, booking closer is always better.

Blocks of apartments or multiple bedroom apartments will likely also be necessary, as these teams will tend to be larger and will benefit from housing together or in the same area.

Sports And Entertainment Professionals

These professionals can’t afford to be distracted by a loud or chaotic neighborhood.

It’ll also be crucial to make sure that they’re close to their working location, as they’ll tend to be working in the same place for the duration of their stay.

Say your team is working in Jersey City, it may be tempting to book those cheaper short-term rentals in Long Island City — or even in midtown. It might surprise you how those extra 11-16 minutes of drive time can turn into 45-55 extra minutes every day when rush hour hits.
 

Disaster Relief

Disaster relief workers need a range of amenities to ensure that they’ll be able to recharge and refuel when they return home from the field.

Specifically, make sure that these professionals have access to wifi, electricity, heat, air conditioning, etc.

You don’t want to book them housing within the disaster zone that will have random power outages or “spotty” internet.

Military Personnel

Active duty and contract professionals working for the military need secure rental times to ensure that no surprises will crop up in the middle of a project.

This is important for all professionals, of course. However, it’s even more important for military projects, as their timelines tend to be very set in stone with little flexibility.

This is why AirBnB isn’t the best corporate rental option — because it lacks that high level of professional consistency.

Travelers Haven offers a more secure service that you can count on.

Related: How to Find Proper Housing for Nomadic Healthcare Workers

How Travelers Haven Addresses These Needs

Travelers Haven offers what’s called “workforce housing on-demand” or “on-demand housing.”

This is a housing option that works for you, on your terms, without requiring you to do a bunch of leg-work or searching to find the option that works best.

Here’s how it works.

Step 1:

You visit the Travelers Haven website and fill out the details of your stay.

Step 2:

Travelers Haven will contact you and get some additional information, to figure out exactly what your team will need.

Step 3:

Travelers Haven sources the best furnished short-term rental options for you and then contacts you again to let you know your options.

Step 4:

You choose the best option for your team and book the rental. And that takes care of everything.

When you book with Travelers Haven, you’re assured that:

• Rental payments will be easy and handled directly through Travelers Haven
• Bundled utilities are added to your monthly rent payment (super convenient)
• Your team will get the lodging they need for the required duration — no extra complications
• You have access to 24/7 customer support through Travelers Haven to help you with any issues you may have with the rental
• Your rental will be fully furnished, including a fully-equipped kitchen – according to your stated needs
• Your rental will be pet-friendly
• You’ll now be dealing with a company that’s not only a pleasure to work with but who is on your side when it comes to providing high-quality housing for remote workers and teams

Discover: Best Practices for Creating an Employee-Friendly Housing Strategy in 2022

Researching the Leasing Company’s Reputation and Standing

One caveat with furnished short-term rentals is this:

The short-term/corporate rental space often feels like a gamble. After all, pretty much anyone can lease an apartment on a short-term basis and try to make money off it.

This begs an important question:

How will you know if the company you’re looking to lease from is reputable?

Well, if it’s a major company, you can do an internet search and look up customer reviews to help grant you peace of mind.

This research tactic doesn’t always work — especially when dealing with a small LLC that operates a few short-term rentals and doesn’t have any official reviews online. This can be especially tricky when these small companies have impressive websites and learn how to market themselves.

You just never know what you may be getting into with these types of leases.

We here at Travelers Haven believe that on-demand housing is truly the way of the future for remote workers. We believe that short-term rentals should be handled by someone who has the best interests of the renter at heart.

That’s why we do what we do.

Simply put, we love remote workers, and finding them high-quality housing is our mission!

You may also like: What Is A Corporate Lease [Explained]?

Conclusion

Hopefully, this post has helped you feel confident in sourcing high-quality, furnished short-term rentals for your remote workforce.

Just remember — this is your team’s home away from home.

Find them a nice place to stay, and try to cut out problems by vetting properties with a keen eye for detail.

You’ve got this!

If you need some assistance, give us a call. We’d love to help.