In 2009, Kathleen Hurt took an exciting new job in Nashville. She lived in Atlanta with her husband, Ed, but commuted each week to Nashville for work.
Kathleen spent her first three months in Nashville living in a tiny apartment before buying a three-bedroom home that better suited her needs. She says she was committed to her job and staying in Nashville for the long haul.
After nine months into her job and six months in her new home, Kathleen’s plans to stay in Nashville came to a screeching halt.
Kathleen was fired from her job.
“I was devastated,” she says. “I was committed to being at this job for many years and didn’t want to leave this way. On top of it all, I had a house in Nashville but no job to help me pay for it.”
Ready to move back to Atlanta to be with her husband and put this Nashville “ordeal” in the past, Kathleen put her home up for sale.
Ed and Kathleen Hurt
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But the universe had other plans for Kathleen
After waiting several months for an interested buyer to come along, Kathleen says she was feeling defeated.
“I was nearing retirement and now had two mortgages and an empty house. I didn’t want to have money going out the window with nothing coming in. I had to do something about it,” she says.
Kathleen’s daughter had a brilliant idea. She suggested that Kathleen rent out the Nashville house as a corporate rental on Corporate Housing By Owner (CHBO). When Kathleen looked into CHBO, she says she realized just how perfect her home, which was located near an airport and hospital, would be as a furnished rental for a traveling executive.
Kathleen listed the property on CHBO and says she got a tenant within just a few days.
Fast-forward seven years, Kathleen is still offering her Nashville home as a corporate rental (and it’s still listed on CHBO!). In fact, she has had a steady stream of high-quality renters stay in her property including an NFL player and a lung transplant recipient that needed to stay near the hospital for several months post-surgery.
“Because I’ve had renter after rent in my home for the past seven years, the home is officially paid for in full,” she says. “I have money coming in every month, which supplements social security and assures us the lifestyle we want to live in retirement. We’ve used a lot of the income to take trips and purchase new rental homes too. The one thing I can say is that CHBO has impacted us in a positive financial way.”
Kathleen adds that CHBO has played a key role in helping her become a successful corporate housing landlord, something she knew nothing about when she first listed her home seven years ago.
“Eric Smith at CHBO gives me such good advice. He told me to turn the office into a fourth bedroom so I could market the property with a forth bedroom and charge more,” says Kathleen. “The educational opportunities offered through CHBO have been very helpful to me. I can offer things like insurance to my tenants thanks to CHBO, and I gain insights from CHBO surveys that show me what other corporate housing landlords are doing.”
For someone who is considering renting out their home as a furnished corporate rental, Kathleen says corporate renters are the best.
“They aren’t there to party; they are there to work. They take care of your home and create less wear and tear on your property… and they also pay their rent on time,” says Kathleen.
Visiting Nashville? Check out Kathleen’s furnished Nashville property listing online.
“We were extremely lucky to stumble on this listing with the short time period we had to find housing. The house and furnishings were very comfortable. The house was located in a very quiet neighborhood, but also convenient to all the necessities we needed. The property was very clean and maintained well. The homeowners were very good to work with. We will definitely make this listing our first choice when our travels take us to the Nashville area again.” – Bruce (Nashville tenant)
