Last updated July 2026. Written by the MatchBook team, veteran owned and operated, and renters and hosts ourselves.
If you have ever looked for housing that lasts longer than a vacation but shorter than a year, you have probably run into the same frustrating gap. Traditional apartment sites want a twelve month lease. Airbnb feels expensive and built for tourists. Craigslist feels like a gamble. And most sites that call themselves monthly rental platforms turn out to be built for one specific group rather than the wide range of people who actually need housing for a few months at a time.
Whether you are a student who needs a place near campus for a semester, a medical resident getting to know a new city, on a military move and relocating for work, or a family trying a new area before committing to it, you deserve a platform that treats monthly renters as the whole point rather than an afterthought. That is the idea MatchBook was built around, and it is worth explaining what that actually looks like in practice.
What makes monthly rentals so hard to find
The midterm rental market, meaning furnished or unfurnished housing for roughly 30 days to 12 months, has grown quickly over the last few years. Remote work, traveling professionals, and people moving through big life transitions have all pushed demand up. But the places most people search first were never designed for stays this length, and it shows.
Short-term platforms are built around nightly stays, so their fees and their whole booking flow assume a week, not five months. Long-term apartment listings assume a year-long lease and a permanent move. Corporate housing can work, but it is often priced for companies rather than individuals and aimed at a narrow slice of renters. And informal options like Craigslist or local Facebook groups can surface a place, but they leave you to verify the listing, handle payment, and sort out a lease entirely on your own. The result is that the people who need midterm housing spend a lot of energy forcing tools to do something they were not made for.
Who monthly rentals are actually for
One of the biggest misconceptions in this space is that midterm rentals are mostly for travel nurses. Healthcare professionals are a real and important part of the market, but they are far from the whole of it. The people who need housing for a defined stretch of time include remote workers spending a season somewhere new, corporate employees on temporary assignments, graduate students and visiting researchers, military families navigating a PCS or TDY move, and families between homes because of a renovation, a sale that closed early, or an insurance displacement.
What all of these people share is a simple need: comfortable, verified housing for a set period, without a year-long commitment and without paying tourist prices. When a platform is built with that shared need at the center, it can serve all of these renters well at once rather than picking one group and leaving the rest to improvise.
How MatchBook is built for this
MatchBook is a midterm rental platform available in all 50 states, and every part of it is designed around midterm stays rather than adapted from something else. A few things follow from that.
The listings are vetted. Both hosts and listings are checked by MatchBook before they go live, so you are not scrolling through unverified posts and hoping the place is real. When you are about to send someone a deposit and move your life across the country, that verification matters more than almost anything else.
The fees are built for monthly math, not nightly math. Renters pay a service fee of 1.5 to 3 percent at booking, with stays of six months or more getting the lower 1.5 percent rate and shorter stays at 3 percent. For comparison, short-term platforms like Airbnb typically add 14 to 20 percent on top of the listed price, which turns into real money over a multi-month stay. There are no hidden charges layered on top, so what you see is what you pay.
The whole process happens in one place. You can search, filter, apply, get approved, sign your lease, pay rent, message your host, and leave a review after your stay, all on the platform. There is no juggling email, a separate screening service, a payment app, and a document signer across four different tools.
Payments are handled securely on-platform, rather than by sending money to someone you have never met through a peer-to-peer app. That protects your money and gives you recourse if something goes wrong.
There is also a feature worth calling out for anyone applying to several places at once. MatchBook Renter Verification (MRV) is an optional one-time background check for $25 that produces a report with your credit score range, eviction history, and criminal history. It stays valid for three months and can be attached to any application, so instead of paying a separate application fee at every property, you pay once, see your own report before anyone else does, and can sort out any issues before you apply.
Finally, you can filter for what actually matters to your situation, whether that is a furnished studio for two months, an unfurnished house for eight, pet-friendly listings, or a place with parking. Reviews from past renters are there too, so you can read about a property and a host before you commit and leave your own honest account afterward.
What this looks like in real life
A medical resident moving to an unfamiliar city can search neighborhoods near the hospital, filter for furnished options, apply to several places with one verified renter report instead of paying application fees at each, sign the lease online, and manage everything from one account.
A corporate employee on a six month assignment can compare listings with transparent monthly pricing, book with secure payment processing, and hand the whole thing off cleanly when the assignment ends.
Someone testing out a new city before making it permanent can book a few months, see how the area feels, and extend or move without having signed away a year of their life.
The common thread is that the platform absorbs the complexity so you can focus on the work, the studies, or the transition that brought you there in the first place.
Frequently asked questions
Is MatchBook only for certain kinds of renters?
No. Unlike platforms centered on travel nurses or corporate housing, MatchBook is built for anyone who needs a monthly rental, for any reason, in all 50 states.
How much are the booking fees?
Renters pay 1.5 to 3 percent of the rental cost at booking. Stays of six months or more get the lower 1.5 percent rate. That is well below the 14 to 20 percent that short-term platforms typically add on.
Is hosting really free?
Yes. Hosting on MatchBook is completely free, with no listing fees, no commission, and no limit on how many properties you can list. Hosts can even use the platform's tools for renters they found elsewhere.
What is MatchBook Renter Verification?
It is an optional $25 background check that reports your credit score range, eviction history, and criminal history. It stays valid for three months and attaches to any application, so you pay once instead of a fee at every property.
Are the listings verified?
Yes. Both hosts and listings are reviewed by MatchBook before they go live, so you are not sorting through unverified posts on your own.
Do I sign a lease and pay through the platform?
Yes. You e-sign your lease and handle payments securely on the platform. There is no printing, mailing, or sending money through a peer-to-peer app to someone you have not met.
Housing that fits the way people actually move
Life does not always fit into a vacation-length stay or a year-long lease. People need flexible housing for all kinds of real reasons, and they deserve a platform that takes that need seriously rather than treating it as a niche. Whether you are a medical resident, a corporate professional, a student, a remote worker, a military family, or someone simply between homes, midterm housing should be verified, fairly priced, and manageable in one place.
If you are ready to find your next place, you can search monthly rentals across the United States on MatchBook. And if you are a host, listing your property is free and takes only a few minutes.