Owning properties to let can be a great source of revenue, but it’s often difficult to decide how to let your property. Will you be letting for short lets on Airbnb? Will you provide accommodation for students? Will your property be used for corporate housing? We’ll stop on this last option because it’s a term that often leaves landlords feeling confused. If this sounds familiar, don’t worry because we’re going to tell you everything there is to know about how to rent your home to corporations.
Defining Corporate Housing
Corporate renting your house works similarly to Airbnb in that you’re providing short-term furnished accommodation to people trying to avoid traditional hotels. However, instead of targeting your home for vacations, you’re aiming at the professional market.
When you rent home for corporate housing, you need to provide additional amenities to vocational lets. For example, in vocational properties, you provide rooms that can be shared - increasing capacity. Whereas, for corporate lets, you need to treat each room as if it’s a separate hotel room. Typically, you need to include office supplies, desks, and monitors.
Why Is Corporate Housing Popular?
There are many different reasons contributing to the popularity of corporate housing. For example, they’re simple and require zero effort from the business, it’s cheaper than a hotel, and they can be used in any capacity. Further, since working from home became more prevalent, home-working individuals and corporations like to travel while they work.
Another reason why businesses prefer corporate housing is that it’s private. If a business can come and go for the duration of an agreement, they don’t have to worry about clearing up private documents every time they leave the property. Instead, they can make sure of storage provided by the landlord.
Who Is Corporate Housing For?
Corporate housing is for any professional, whether they be blue or white collar, that’s staying in your local area for a short-term duration. For example, construction businesses provide corporate accommodations to their team. Many businesses prefer using corporate rentals because it’s cheaper than hotels, workers are all together, and they’re typically more relaxing. It’s not only manual workers that benefit from corporate housing. Business executives and higher-level personal enjoy the luxury of a furnished property when they’re travelling for business.
How to Rent to Corporate Housing
As a landlord of a short-let property, the aim is to fill the property for as long as you can through the year, as you need to cover expenses even if the house is empty. When renting to a corporation, your lease agreement is with a business rather than an individual tenant. Therefore, any damage caused is charged to the business as opposed to the resident. The reason it’s set up like this is because businesses enjoy the flexibility to use the property when/if they need it, which is a bonus for you because it guarantees rent for the entire period, even if it’s empty.
Why Should You Choose Corporate Housing?
On average, corporate housing is more profitable than long-term letting. You will need to put more work into offering corporate housing, but the increased profits are a no-brainer. The aim of providing corporate housing is to beat hotel rates by around 40-50%. Before setting your rate, you need to explore the local hotel market for stays of 30 days.
Deciding on Your Audience
Corporate renters come in different shapes and sizes, so you need to narrow down your audience by deciding who you’re trying to attract. For example, if you’re looking to provide a place for construction workers to rest their heads, your amenities can be simple and rental prices can be kept low. However, if you wish to bring in more high-end clients, you’ll need to provide additional amenities, including:
Outdoor areas for BBQs
Bedrooms large enough for king-size beds
High-quality entertainment systems
Swimming pools
Customer service
These are just a handful of additional amenities and services you can find and implementing them and maintaining the services will be time-consuming. If you’re pushed for time, you can always look for a property management service like UpperKey, which becomes your tenant to guarantee your rent.
How to Market Corporate Housing
Marketing for corporate housing works slightly differently for vocational properties because it’s not always as simple as putting your property on Airbnb and optimising the ad. Instead, you may need to put in the work to find clients and target them directly.
If you’re trying to attract construction workers, this will involve following press releases for any large projects in your local area. Then, you can start reaching out to the relevant companies. Further, you can get on social media and build a website to market your property online - using digital platforms to network with prospective clients.
How to Find Corporate Renters
To do well with corporate housing, you’ll need to be positioned in a popular business city - like London or Paris. However, you still need to market the property and find tenants. If you’re contacting businesses yourself, the best people to speak to are the HR managers, as they will liaise with those higher up the chain.
To find HR personnel and viable businesses, you can use LinkedIn or search for contact information on company websites. When pitching, you need to be brief and simply provide a description of your property, plenty of pictures, and what you offer over your competitors.
Managing a corporate property including sourcing tenants is difficult, which is why there’s an alternative. You can outsource property management to a team of professionals like UpperKey, which will pay rent for the entire agreed period, and you won’t need to lift a finger when it comes to property maintenance.
Corporate Housing on Airbnb
Although Airbnb is typically associated with vacation properties, there’s an entire section dedicated to corporate housing. It works practically the same in that you have to list your amenities and try to beat your local competition. However, optimising an Airbnb listing is easier said than done and comes with more work on top of maintaining the home. Again, this is another reason to outsource your property to an Airbnb expert like UpperKey. They will list the property and take care of every single part of the rental process.
Why Don’t Businesses Just Buy?
If a business travels often to a city, you may be asking why they don’t simply buy a property in the destination, which they can use whenever they like. Although this would be logical, it comes with a mountain of other work. For example, if you own a property, you have to deal with the maintenance as well as any taxes. Therefore, corporations prefer to use rentals and pay to cover these services, allowing them to focus on their products and services.
Summary
If you’ve been thinking “I want to rent my home for corporate housing but have no idea how”, you’re not alone. Corporate housing is a great alternative to offering long-term lets and vocational lets. You will need to narrow down your market and target your amenities accordingly. Further, when it comes to marketing the property, you need to put in additional work by sourcing clients and pitching your property. To alleviate the stress, a property management service like UpperKey is a great option.