As you can tell from the updates on the site, I’ve made the pivot from renting cars on Turo to renting furnished apartments on a monthly basis. So why did I make the switch? And why mid-term rentals? I’m glad you asked.
As you can tell from my last post, titled “My Turo Business Died,” things were not going well with my car sharing business. Bookings were down, expenses were up, and fundamentally renting cars is a very challenging business. I knew I needed to make a change, and focusing fully on real estate made the most sense at the time.
We started the Turo business in the summer of 2022, and ran it until early 2026. Along the way we also picked up a couple duplexes that were being managed by a property management company. All four units were rented to traditional long-term tenants. Things ran very smoothly and we were rarely contacted about any issues. We received statements every month and a direct deposit that was usually just enough to cover the mortgages. We had achieved the dream of passive income from rental properties that all the podcasts like to talk about. We were just missing one thing…Cash Flow!
There was never anything left over after paying the mortgage. Property management fees were 10% of gross rents, and most months there were some kind of small maintenance or repair items to pay for as well (I mean these are 100+ year old houses we’re dealing with, so that’s to be expected). Then you factor in vacancies (usually not more than a month or two), turnover expenses, and the dreaded new tenant placement fee (equal to one month’s rent) and we had losses by the end of the year. We were saved by depreciation at tax time. Needless to say we wanted more from our rental properties.
Since buying the first duplex I had been intrigued with the idea of furnishing at least one unit and trying out mid-term monthly rentals to increase cash flow. The topic became very popular during Covid when a lot of investors started renting to traveling nurses. And it just so happens that the largest hospital in my market – Cleveland Clinic – was ranked as the #2 hospital in the world for 2025 by Newsweek, and they also happen to employ a large number of traveling medical professionals. I made the decision to give this a try.
To test this out I decided to convert one unit over to MTR once the current tenant’s lease was complete. I sold a Turo car to fund the purchase of the furnishings. My plan was to sell another car to furnish the second unit if I was able to get the first one booked fairly quickly. And so on until all four units were furnished and all the Turo cars were gone. The plan worked exactly as designed.
Each unit was booked a couple weeks after listing it as available on Furnished Finder, with the exception of the 4th one which was actually booked before I had it furnished. With full occupancy I’m able to generate 70% more gross income over renting them long term. And the monthly revenue is nearly double (93% higher) what I was able to generate monthly from Turo on average in 2025. But the best part about pivoting from cars to real estate is that I’m now working with appreciating assets (excluding the furniture) instead of depreciating liabilities, making this business viable for the long term.
As I did with the Turo business, I will provide updates on the progress of this new venture including the good, bad, and ugly of being an out-of-state mid-term rental operator. I’ve learned so much in a short amount of time and I’m excited to share it with anyone who might be interested in trying out the MTR strategy.
