Jeff Hurst, President & CEO, Furnished Finder

To begin with, could you perhaps tell us an introduction to Furnished Finder as it stands today?

Furnished Finder is coming up on its 10th year birthday. So, we were founded in 2014. It is a bootstrapped company that was initially focused on helping a medical device salesman rent out his extra home. We started off with a single home catering to traveling medical professionals. His name is Brian, and he spent a lot of time in hospitals and realized there were nurses looking for places to stay. So, he rented out his spare apartment. 

Over time, that single home in 2014 grew to over 250,000 homes on the platform today. What really changed a lot over the course of the company was Covid. During the pandemic, there was obviously a huge demand for traveling medical professionals and a huge glut of available housing as people weren’t able to move around. And so the site grew really rapidly to help accommodate these working heroes and traveling medical professionals. That’s really how Furnished Founder found its momentum.

I joined the company along with a new management team starting at the end of 2023, and we were really attracted by a handful of things. First, we think it’s one of the best values in real estate, if not on the Internet. You pay a US$150 annual subscription, and many of our landlords make 50 or 100 times that much over the course of a year. It reminds me of the original Internet promise of making things more available and cheaper. We have a great amount of inventory, and it’s cheaper than the competition. Whether cheaper for a landlord or cheaper for a tenant, we think it’s cheaper for both. We don’t have any booking fees, so you work out your lease directly with a landlord. We’re very referral-driven, so landlords refer more landlords, while tenants refer more tenants.

We’re much more than just for traveling medical professionals. We host traveling business people, whether it’s corporate or entrepreneurs, a lot of academics, professors, or grad students, and, increasingly, what we call relocating households. So, you might have a problem with your house, and you need a temporary place to stay, or you may be between homes because you’ve sold or bought a house and want to stay near your school or near your commute. So, we’re really thriving in the middle, which is between the short-term rentals, like Airbnb and Vrbo, and the longer-term players like Zillow or Homes.com.

What would you say have been your keys to success in the last few years?

I think the biggest key to success is just obsessing about providing great value that gives landlords and tenants control. And so, when you think about the short-term rental marketplace, Airbnb charges a minimum of 10% traveler fee. Oftentimes, it can be 15% or higher. And we charge no fees and have a US$150 annual subscription.

So, you’re willing to do some work potentially on our side because you want to save that money, and we have a great, unique inventory. But you do pay the landlord directly and sign a lease directly with them.

So, there’s a lot of comfort for the landlord and tenant, as well as the ability to communicate and be in more direct control of the transaction. But the majority of the value is that it’s really cheap compared to alternatives. A US$10,000 booking on a short-term rental site would cost you US$1,500. If you’re willing to do an hour or two of work to find a perfect home, you can save US$1,500. It might pay for a great weekend getaway.

That’s actually a home run for me personally because I’m always there in the middle. I don’t rent for one month. On another platform, you have to pay those fees, which can be substantial. But then, when you want something around three to six months, it’s actually really hard because the landlords will want you for more than one year. 

I think that’s the problem. One of our keys is that we’re building a category and educating landlords on the value of not only taking year-plus leases. In your case, you’re willing to pay a little bit more for the flexibility. You may not know if your gig’s going to be 3 months, 5 months, or 7 months, so you need to be able to extend. Landlords need to be paid a little bit extra to have vacancies potentially.

But what we see is, in general, someone who’s got a vacancy fills it closer to half a month than a month. Our average length of tenancy is over 90 days, and so, if you could have 3 or 4 turnovers a year, you’d be nearly fully occupied and not have to deal with 2 or 3 turnovers every week and the wear and tear of running a short-term rental. At the same time, you will make more money than if you had a long-term rental. Then, we think there’s a really magical spot in the middle that we’re trying to educate people about.

What is the next plan for expanding the portfolio?

Our focus is expanding our footprint in the United States, serving more tenants, and introducing the concept of midterm rentals to more landlords. So, there’s not a big geographic expansion play as much as we think we can really improve our product and technology and improve the ability of people to understand this value proposition because it is kind of a throwback. It’s not Airbnb. It saves a lot of money. It might take a little bit more time, but we think there’s something really magical there. And so, we’re obsessed with getting it right in the United States. And after we’ve solved the United States, we’ll probably move into North America, and after that, who knows? But we focus on individual landlords who are trying to make enough money to put their kids through college or save for retirement. It’s a great side hustle, and for some of them, it becomes a full-time gig, and for others, it’s always a complement.

And what will be your main message for landlords who are considering different platforms? Why should they choose you?

I think the biggest reason they should choose us is that it’s US$13 a month. For the price of three lattes, you might make US$10,000. It is a little bit more effort but a lot more control, and it really gives landlords the opportunity to take back control of what’s often the most expensive asset in their lives, make money from it, and thrive in the area.

I was the chief strategy officer, the President of Vrbo, and the chief operating officer at Expedia. This reminds me of the excitement in the early days of short-term rentals, where there’s an opportunity for people to serve a great need. Traveling nurses in your neighborhood is good, and helping a neighbor is good. It’s not a bachelor party that’s coming next door. It’s somebody staying for 100 days. You can really help people and make more money for yourself while not having all the hassle and wear and tear. So, I think a lot of it is awareness and trust more so than “Is it actually a good idea?” And once we get people over that awareness hump, I think they’re going to flock to it.

Just as a side note. I came to Portugal for 3 months, and then I have been extending my stay here in this house for one year now, and the funny part of it is I don’t even have a contract anymore with my landlord. We communicated on WhatsApp, and I kept telling him, “Oh, I’m going to stay a little bit longer.” So, it would be better if we were doing it through a platform that keeps track of everything.

Yeah, the big benefit is that our landlords typically don’t take future bookings. They take a tenant who might stay for 3 months, 6 months, or, like you, 14 months. But there’s not the pressure you might have with a short-term rental platform. Your landlord may say, “I’ve got somebody checking in next Thursday, so you need to figure it out.” It’s much more likely to be the case, “Hey, I’m going to let you know 3 weeks before your lease is up. Do you want to extend or not? I’d love for you to extend, and if you want to, then we’ll just keep doing this.”

Understood. On the other hand, what would be your main message for potential professionals and tenants who might consider you?

I think the biggest message is if you’re looking at booking for US$2,000 a month for the next 3 months at US$6,000, are you willing to look around for US$600 of savings by not paying service fees? We’ve got a unique inventory, and with US$600, you can really enjoy your trip a lot more, whether that’s putting the money in the bank, going out to a bunch of really nice dinners, or taking a weekend away to explore the area that you’re calling home for the period of your relocation. And so, I think I’d rather see the consumers keep that money than the big platforms. That’s where we’re trying to help people realize you’ve got a chance to keep that money in your pocket. Don’t spend it all on a service fee.

You previously mentioned trying to improve the platform’s technology. Would you please tell us a little bit more about that aspect of the business?

Yeah. So, our technology has been under-invested in. So, we’ve brought in a world-class team. We’re hiring new engineers, and we’re basically just modernizing the experience. So, we’re going to provide better map filters, better map experience, better search experience, and better app experience. Think of it as we’re going to make the discovery as good as what people have come to expect from an online travel agent. And by doing that, we think we can really radically improve how many tenants choose to use us.

Currently, we talk internally about how our site is a natural beauty because it has such a great inventory and value proposition. There’s so much we could do to make it more attractive for people who have gotten used to a really modern look and feel of an OTA. So, we’re going to catch up and just get to parity. It’s not about building the most innovative thing on our platform because we are a value play, and we are going to compete on the quality of our inventory and the price of our service.

And what would you say are your main competitive strengths in this very tough market?

If you’re a tenant, there are no booking fees. There’s a unique inventory, and there’s the ability to have a direct relationship where you can extend your lease in a kind of worry-free way. I think you’ve got more control as a tenant. You’ve got a direct relationship with your landlord, and you’re saving money on the landlord side. I think that now the big advantage for us again is it’s cheaper at US$149 a year. It’s not a lot of money compared to the upside as you can have 2, 3, or even 4, 90-day rentals. You’ve got the control and certainty of knowing who’s going to stay in your house and that you get to vet them and talk to them in advance. And you’ve got fewer headaches and effort that needs to go into managing a short-term business.

For landlords, obviously, price and return on investment are very important. But I think that most of them really focus on getting good people into their property. So, in the case of you having professionals, nurses, and so on, that’s definitely a play.

Also, a lot of landlords have a vacant home that they long-term lease, and people are moving their own furniture. So, do they want to invest in furniture? And what we found in talking to landlords is that investing in furniture actually pays for itself pretty quickly with the amount of extra income you can make as a midterm landlord. You don’t need to outfit it as though it’s for somebody’s most important vacation of the year. You need to outfit it so it’s comfortable to sleep in. It’s comfortable to spend time in, and you can work there. These are traveling professionals; these are not traveling parties. These are not family reunions. It’s a different type of capital outlay for furniture than you might experience if you’re going to a home in the south of France, Colorado, or on the California coast, where you’re expecting it to be more like a resort.

You mentioned your US expansion before. What are the plans for the next, say, 3 years?

If, at the end of three years, we have a great product, twice as much inventory, and maintained being a low-cost, best-price leader with no fees, I’d be thrilled. I think we can absolutely do that. We’ve got a team here who’s done it before earlier in our careers, and we’ve got an opportunity where tenants and landlords really love us. 

I think what we’re hoping the real estate community sees more and more through this article is that there’s an opportunity to do something that is a little bit different in the middle. You can help your clients rent out their homes for midterm. You might even choose not to sell a property right away because the yield on midterm rentals is compelling, and you might have clients who are between buying and selling or need to relocate. They don’t know this platform exists, so they should be coming to Furnished Finder and not just relying on an online travel agent or Airbnb.

I would also like to ask about business partnerships. Are you looking for partners? I’m referring to institutional property owners or developers who might consider you a good platform for renting studios and so on.

It’s probably more like years two and three than the first year. So, right now, we’re really focused on perfecting the small-landlord use case. You have one or two homes, maybe 10, but you don’t have 10,000. So, we need to build out our tools, processes, and technologies for that use case. And then, it’s actually a much more commoditized space to be great at serving the big multi-family providers or the big housing providers where there are already tools in place for how they work with Zillow, Homes.com, or whoever. And so, we’re going to start with the small landlords. We’re going to provide great value to them, and then we’ll see where it goes.

On the other side of business development, we are excited about the ability to partner with universities, corporations, insurance providers, and healthcare agencies, with which we already have many partnerships, to bring their tenants and travelers directly to our site and help them save money in the process.

What is your vision for the company for the next 5 to 10 years?

My vision is to fulfill that initial Internet promise of making it easier for people to access inventory in 5 to 10 years, probably around the world, and keeping it really cheap so that you remove barriers for people to enjoy it.