MTR Buy Box & Top + In-Demand Amenities

Hey everyone, I'm just going live. Um, all right, just give me one second. This is Shona from She's Got Assets. Um, thanks for joining me tonight. Have a fun quick little presentation on, um, oh my God, I forgot I was talking about, um, MTR buy boxes and the most in-demand amenities. So hopefully that is what you're looking for. I'm just gonna let everyone know that I'm live if I can. Um, let's see here, hold on. Hopefully this is working. If you can see me, just let me know, it's super helpful because otherwise I can't tell. If you can hear me and see me, please let me know, I super appreciate it. Um, okay, it looks like I'm live. Okay, I'm gonna pin this. I see a few people here. Let me know where you're calling in from. I am in rainy, dark Portland, Oregon. It's quite wintry here. It's kinda nice, so it feels like fall for sure. So let me know where you're calling in from. If you have any midterm rentals, it's always great to know. Oh dear, my background does not look amazing. Anyway, you can see my messy background. I'm gonna try and fix that because, you know, Yeah, I don't want you to see all my— you just saw my messiness in the back, so, um, don't judge me, please. All right, um, yeah, just let me know if you can just type a 1. Don't be shy. It really helps me know that you're here or that you can see me. Otherwise, I'm just talking to myself, which I don't mind, but I don't usually do that publicly, right? So anyway, welcome. Thanks for joining. And this is Shona from She's Got Assets, and I'm going to do a really quick little, um, live training on MTR Buy Box and top in-demand amenities. I'll give people a few minutes to join, but it does help if you post stuff in the comments and give me a little reaction. That's super helpful. And I'm in the meantime going to start sharing my screen here. I have a quick little presentation, so I'm going to set that up. Just give me one second. Facebook Live. Okay, here we go. All right, so everyone hopefully can see my screen. Um, if not, let me know. I'm just checking the comments here. Okay, well, so let me go into presentation mode. That's a little prettier. Present. Okay, again, just let me know if you can see my screen. Okay, hopefully you can. Otherwise, um, I won't know. So hopefully you can see my screen. Okay, looks like it's working. Oh, I didn't hit present. Okay, that would be helpful. Okay, okay, so I want to talk about the MTR Buy Box and the top in-demand amenities that I see. I think it's pretty universal. Um, just for reference, I am in the Portland, Oregon market. And again, if you guys, um, can see me and hear me, let me know. Anyway, okay, I'm assuming you can. So this is the MTR Buy Box in-demand amenities. We're going to cover it. It's a pretty quick little live stream, but I think it's helpful if you haven't heard this. It's helpful to know if you're looking to get into midterms. Maybe you have a midterm, like maybe a flip that's set or you have a long-term, you're considering converting, or you're looking to buy one, this is really good information. So a little bit about me before I dive into that. I'm Shona. It's so nice to meet you. Thank you for joining. Um, I'm the founder of She's Got Assets, Shona Buys Houses, Cedar and Porch Properties, and recently I just launched The Asset Society. It's an online community and school. It's really awesome. Um, I have my whole MTR Essentials course in there if you're interested in that. Type a comment below. I'm happy to talk more about that. I'm kind of a serial entrepreneur, clearly, as you can see from all the hats that I wear. I'm also the host of the She's Got Assets podcast and this She's Got Assets community. We have 14 doors and 7 midterms and counting, and I actually do this. And if you want to hear more of my content, you can find me in all these places. Um, so look me up there, right? Um, a little bit about me before I got into real estate. I've been a landlord a long, long time. I feel really old saying that. Um, my background's in marketing and branding I bring that to kind of real estate. Um, previous to this, I founded a creative agency that was acquired. I grew up in the vacation rental business in California. Um, this was like pre-Airbnb, very old school, like answering machines, paper calendars, no technology. Um, um, and I've helped 70+ students land $6K to $9K MTR bookings. This is what I do. Love working with people. Um, so I think the most important thing, one of the most important things when you're looking at kind of your buy boxes, who are you looking to serve? Like is it displaced families, is it digital nomads, traveling medical professionals, corporate housing, right? That kind of dictates what kind of property is gonna do best. But what I'm gonna cover tonight is mid-term amenities. These are pretty universal. I think it doesn't matter what size the property is. These are just the most in-demand amenities that I see. You don't have to have all these boxes checked, but I do think it helps you stay booked. So we're gonna cover that. So the top amenities that I see are being pet-friendly, which means having a fenced backyard. Um, doesn't have to be big, just something private. I always like to define the fence. There's like a duplex, I would like— I always like to define the yard so they're not shared. Ideally fully stocked kitchen, that's pots and pans, anything to make a meal. It's not fancy, not fancy appliances, but just kind of the basics, right? Like, um, coffee maker, toaster, things like that. I have a full list in the course, but it's just what are the essentials, right? But well-stocked, someone— people are living and working there and they need to have all that stuff in their kitchen. Um, I think a dedicated workspace is super important and just, it can be a desk in a room. It could be a dedicated room for that. So if I have a 3/2, I'm typically making one of those rooms into a dedicated workspace. I'm not putting a bed in there. That's what I recommend. A full-size washer and dryer is super important in-unit. It can be shared. Ideally it's in-unit. Um, super fast high-speed Wi-Fi. People are working from home. They need to be like nimble with that. Um, I think ideally it's like a single-level home. No stairs. And then ideally a primary bedroom on the, on the main floor, right? Doesn't— you don't have to have all this, but that's what I see in demand. Um, and just quickly, kind of the benefits of midterm, right? 2 to 3x over a long term. Your average guest stays about 3 to 6 months. I'd say occupancy is 75 to 90%. Just depends on the market you're in, um, and how you market yourself. But you're really getting high caliber guests who treat your property like home. And there's definitely a big demand for midterm rentals. Um, I'm going to talk about that in a minute. And typically gross rents, they range from like $3,000 to $5,000, $3,500 to $7,000 or more, just depending on your market and type of property. Um, so this is the buy box that I kind of go by. Um, again, you might be coming into it with an existing property. You don't have to have all these boxes checked, but I would say if you're looking to get into midterms, this is the kind of property I would go for. So first of all, do your research, make sure there's demand, right? Like, like really small towns are probably not good for this model if the population isn't enough. So look for major demand near like, you know, hospitals, corporate employers, like 150K+ population. You always want to have a study, just, you know, pretty decent sized population to make sure there's demand, right? If you're in a rural town, it's probably not a good fit. Again, I mentioned this property type and layout. You want at least 3+ bedrooms. That's really ideal. 2 baths. That supports families, insurance stays, traveling crews. Larger homes are even better, right? You can also host crews, families. A lot of times families have been displaced. It's hard to find larger properties. So those are really in demand. Um, and again, kind of location. I don't think that's ever going to change, right? With real estate, location, location, location. Um, I think it should be in a solid Class B neighborhood for the midterm model, like a safe neighborhood, well-established, close to stuff. Ideally it's walkable, but just a solid Class B neighborhood that feels good, that feels safe, and that's established, right? Typical things, right? Not too busy, not next to a double yellow line. We just want it to be in a decently nice neighborhood. That doesn't mean fancy, right? But just a solid Class B neighborhood. I definitely think single-family homes are ideal. I have a mix. Of properties. Um, but the most in demand I see are single family, right? Single level. Ideally there's a primary in the main, ideally one level, you know, no stairs, ideally off street parking and a fenced backyard. These are like really ideal. I think that's pretty universal for rentals, but especially midterms, right? Because oftentimes families have been displaced and they have their pets and so they wanna let their dog out in the yard. Right. And so the target guest segments that I see are displaced families with insurance claims or relocations or families like traveling to the area. And they're looking to buy a house, they just sold a house, they don't want to like— they want to kind of check out neighborhoods before they possibly buy another house. Like traveling medical professionals, construction crews, corporate relocations, and remote workers or digital nomads. So those are kind of the guest segments that I see coming to our properties. Um, regulations, um, understand your city county rules. What I love about midterms is they are not regulated like short terms, which are highly regulated, they can change on a dime. We're really in long-term rental territory, which means you need to have good leases and have that all buttoned up and make sure they're really specific to your county and state that you're in. Make sure they're not generic. I talk about that in the course, but that's super important. Like, um, you know, go to your local landlord association and find out where they're getting their leases because they're always kept up to date. A lot of the big sites have a little bit of generic leases, so I don't love using them. It's kind of a side note. Um, I don't recommend HOAs. Um, they often have like rental restrictions and rental caps. So do your due diligence. If you have a property in an HOA, it can work, but just know what the regulations are. So again, to recap, um, they should be pet-friendly, fenced backyard, washer/dryer, dedicated office space or desk, off-street parking, fully furnished, high-speed Wi-Fi. And typically you want all your utilities included. That's pretty common. You can do a utility cap if you want. Um, Moving on. Um, the one— the other really big thing I think that could be a little bit dicey for some people is being pet-friendly. I— most people have pets and they're traveling with their pets. So you're, you know, you get a much larger guest pool. About 70% of renters own pets. So pet-friendly policies that attract potential guests are super important, reduce vacancies, you get higher income, longer stays. And again, most insurance claims have families with pets, right? And so they're not gonna leave their pet behind if they're relocating 'cause their home was damaged. So I think being pet-friendly is super, super important. If anyone has concern about that, I can talk about it, that we're definitely navigating that with like pet rent and extra fees and furniture covers and things like that. So it's super important. So the question I get a lot is like, you have this buy box, how do you check demand in your area, right? So there's lots of ways to do it. This is my favorite kind of napkin math way to do it. You go to Furnished Finder slash stats, it's totally free. You don't even have to log in, I don't think. And these are the numbers that you're looking for. You're looking for the property listing views. That's like your demand, like the demand for the area. And then you're looking at the total rent, the total rentals. And this all shows up in Furnished Finder. Um, that's your total, that's your supply right now. You can do some super quick math. Views divided by rentals is the views per rental. And that number tells you how, what, how good of a market it is, right? Furnished Finder's rule of thumb is like 300, it's worth considering, 500 is great demand, and 1,000 is a gold mine, right? So you can go to your market, do this quick math, and really understand if there's demand there because that's, that's really important. You don't want to buy a property or make an investment where there's no demand for this model. So that is super important. And so as a quick example, Portland, Oregon. These are the views. Um, so the total views per rental is about 561. So Portland's a great demand zone, and I know that because I'm in this area. Plenty of renters, not enough supply, right? So definitely this is really quick math. There's lots of ways to do your market research. I like this way because it's super quick. It's kind of napkin math. Um, there's— we definitely want to probably do more research, but this is very high level how you can get a quick understanding of your market demand. So that's why I like it. So that is it for tonight, um, just a quick kind of overview. Um, if anyone wants a copy of that, um, that buy box that I covered, feel free to shoot me a message, take a screenshot of this. Um, but yeah, I have it in like a PDF format, so it's really handy. And if you're working with an agent and you're like, here, this is what I'm looking for— so I think it's pretty universal, right? I even just for flipping a home, we're always looking— we're looking for a similar style of property, right? But definitely midterm, this is midterm specific. Um, watch out for the HOAs and know your regulations. Um, so that is all I have for tonight. I'm happy to stay on for any kind of Q&A or questions if anyone wants me to, like, type in, um, do that quick market research. It's super easy to do, that's why I love it. Just go to furnishfinder.com. Finder.com/stats. There's lots of other ways to do— I like about this, it's free, it's really quick, and I think it's pretty accurate. So I like, always like to share that too. But yeah, and I have a couple— I have a live masterclass coming up. I think it's gonna be on Saturday, and it's all about midterm rentals and kind of some secrets about them that people don't know. I'll be sharing that, so if you're interested in that, feel free to comment and I will send you a link. Or if you're interested in the new Asset Society that I have just launched, um, definitely message me or drop a link in the comments and I'll share that. But it has my whole MTR Essentials course, so it's great for someone that just needs a little bit of support and is kind of more self-motivated. Um, you can definitely check that out, it's a great value for that. So, all right, I don't see any questions. Um, just checking in really fast before I log off. And my screen's being weird, but I know it's, um, it's kind of dinner time. So, um, yeah, but if anyone's watching the replay and you have questions, um, or questions on how to run those numbers, or you want a copy of the buy box, certainly just drop a comment in and I will get that over to you, no problem. But, um, yeah, I didn't— I forgot to send out my email today, so a little behind the ball. But well, if you're watching the replay, again, comment if you have questions. Hopefully you got value from this. Um, I super appreciate you guys watching the replay and tuning in. I try and do this every week at 5 o'clock. Um, that's generally the goal unless something comes up. So you can certainly catch me next week, and if you have any burning questions, definitely post that. I'm always looking to give, uh, value on any topics that people need, uh, help on. So awesome. I'm gonna sign off. Have a great evening, everyone, and I will talk to you soon.