A corporate relocation housing contract is priced as a flat monthly rate for a guaranteed block of nights. You quote one number per month, name exactly what it includes — furniture, utilities, internet, mid-stay cleaning, parking — and then negotiate the three terms that decide whether the money actually arrives: payment timing, early-termination notice, and who signs.
Get those three wrong and a 90-night booking at a good rate still loses to a transient weekend calendar.
I have taken relocation placements in arbitrage units and watched operators walk into the same two mistakes.
They price the month off their nightly average, and they sign whatever paper the relocation manager emails over. The first costs margin. The second costs collection time you will never bill for.
This is the contract and the arithmetic I use.
What a corporate relocation account is actually buying
Corporate housing means fully furnished lodging, typically for stays of 30 days or more, rented to individuals or companies as an alternative to a hotel or an extended-stay property (Corporate housing, Wikipedia). It is a real segment, not a side effect of slow weeks: the Corporate Housing Providers Association put industry revenue at $10 billion in 2019, up from $2.93 billion in 2015, and average stay length at 84 nights as of 2015 (Corporate housing, Wikipedia).
That 84-night average is the number to hold in your head. The buyer is not shopping for a weekend. They are solving a problem with a start date, an end date they only half believe in, and an internal budget line.
What they want from you, in order: the unit is ready on the promised date, one invoice their accounts-payable system accepts, and a human who answers when the relocating employee has a problem at 7 a.m. Price is fourth. Operators who lead with price concessions give away margin the buyer was not asking for.
The one-year line matters more than your nightly rate
One rule shapes almost every relocation assignment, and most operators have never read it.
Travel expenses tied to a temporary work assignment away from home are deductible; travel expenses tied to an indefinite assignment are not, and any work assignment in excess of one year is considered indefinite. If the employee realistically expects to work at the location for more than one year, the expenses are not deductible whether or not they actually stay that long — and if the expectation changes mid-assignment, deductibility ends when the expectation changes (IRS Topic no. 511). The underlying statute says it plainly: a taxpayer "shall not be treated as being temporarily away from home during any period of employment if such period exceeds 1 year" (26 U.S.C. § 162, Cornell LII).
Two consequences for your contract.
First, expect assignments written as three, six, or nine months with extension options, rather than open-ended tenancies. That's tax structure.
Second, ask at the quoting stage how long the assignment is expected to run and whether extensions are likely. An account that expects to extend past twelve months is a different animal — the corporate tenant may switch the employee to a permanent local lease, and your "extendable" 90 nights end at 90 nights with no renewal. Tax treatment is the tenant's business, not yours, and I am not giving tax advice here. But the calendar it produces is very much your business.
Pricing the month: nightly equivalent, then the floor
Do not start from your nightly rate. Start from what the month has to clear, then check the nightly equivalent as a sanity test.
Line item | Transient month (est.) | Relocation month (est.) |
|---|
Nights sold | 20 of 30 | 30 of 30 |
Average rate | $185 | $135 |
Gross revenue | $3,700 | $4,050 |
Cleaning turnovers | 7 × $95 = $665 | 1 × $180 = $180 |
Platform fee (3%) | $111 | $0 (direct) |
Supplies + laundry | $210 | $70 |
Net before fixed costs | $2,714 | $3,800 |
Figures in this article, in both tables and prose examples, are illustrative examples, not market research or quotes. Run your own unit's numbers before you quote anything.
A relocation rate roughly 25 to 30 percent below your transient average can still net more, because full occupancy and one turnover do the work. That is the whole trade: you sell certainty and buy back operating cost.
Two guardrails before you send the number.
Set a floor, in writing, before the call. Mine is the rate at which the unit still covers rent or mortgage, utilities, furniture reserve, and a management allowance with roughly a 15 percent cushion. Below the floor you decline. A relocation buyer who senses a moving floor will keep pushing.
Benchmark against the published lodging allowance for the county. The federal government publishes maximum per diem allowances for lodging, meals, and incidental costs for official travel by location (GSA per diem rates). Many corporate travel policies are written with reference to those figures, and a monthly rate whose nightly equivalent sits comfortably under the local lodging allowance is easy for a manager to approve internally. That is a sales advantage.
The terms that decide whether you get paid
A relocation booking is a receivable. Platform bookings pay you because the platform collects up front. Corporate accounts pay because the paperwork was right.
Term | Weak version | What I require |
|---|
Payer | Employee reimbursed later | Company or relocation firm on the contract |
Deposit | None, "corporate account" | First month plus a damage deposit before keys |
Payment timing | Net 45 on receipt of invoice | Month 1 prepaid; later months due on the 1st |
Purchase order | Verbal approval | PO or signed agreement number on every invoice |
Early termination | "30 days' notice" undefined | 30 days' written notice, minimum 30 nights billed |
Extension | Verbal | Written by day 20 of the month, rate re-set |
Damage | Platform coverage assumed | Named deposit, itemized within 14 days of departure |
Utilities | "Included" | Included up to a stated monthly cap, overage billed |
Three of those rows earn their keep repeatedly.
The payer. If the individual employee signs and gets reimbursed, you have consumer collections risk and no purchasing department to call. Get the company or the relocation management firm on the paper.
Minimum nights billed on termination. Assignments end early — the project finishes, the employee buys a house, the transfer is cancelled. A notice clause with no minimum bills you nothing for a unit you held off the transient calendar. Thirty nights is the number I ask for; fifteen is where these often land.
The utility cap. "Utilities included" plus a family running heat at 74 degrees through January is a margin problem you agreed to in writing. State a monthly cap per utility and bill the overage. No tenant has ever walked away over that clause.
Utilities, cleaning, and mid-stay service
A relocation stay runs on a different service pattern than a long guest stay, at a different cost.
Cleaning moves from turnover-driven to schedule-driven. I quote either a mid-stay clean every two weeks with linen swap, or a monthly deep clean, and I write which one is included. If the tenant wants weekly service, that is a billable line item.
Consumables change too. You are not restocking coffee pods for 84 nights. Stock a starter set, state that in the agreement, and let the tenant buy their own thereafter. Operators who keep restocking a corporate stay like a three-night booking quietly hand back a chunk of the rate.
Maintenance response is where the account is won or lost. A relocating employee is living in your unit, not vacationing in it. A broken dishwasher is a daily problem, and the relocation manager hears about it. Have a named vendor list and a same-day acknowledgement standard before you take the first placement.
One more item people forget: insurance and lease permission. A 90-night furnished tenancy is not always the same risk category as transient stays, and your master lease or policy may treat it differently. Confirm both before you sign. Our note on how insurance placements differ from travel-nurse demand covers the adjacent version of this problem, and the mid-term rental playbook for travel nurses covers the tenant-sourcing side.
Landing a relocation account: a five-step process
This is the sequence I use, with the time each step takes.
Step 1 — Qualify the request, 15 minutes
Ask five questions before quoting: start date, expected length, extension likelihood, who signs and pays, and how many people and pets. If the answer to "who pays" is the employee, price it as a retail stay.
Step 2 — Price from the floor, 30 minutes
Build the month from your own cost lines, apply the floor, then check the nightly equivalent against the local lodging allowance. Quote one all-in monthly number plus named exclusions.
Step 3 — Send terms with the quote, same day
Attach your one-page term sheet — payer, deposit, payment timing, minimum billed nights, utility cap, service schedule. Sending terms with the price prevents the second negotiation where all your margin lives.
Step 4 — Confirm the paperwork, before keys
No keys without a signed agreement, a PO or agreement number, month-one funds cleared, and the deposit held. This step is where operators get sentimental and later write off a month.
Step 5 — Set the extension clock, day 20 of each month
Ask in writing for extend-or-vacate confirmation by day 20 so you can list the unit if it is coming free. Silence is a vacancy you did not plan for.
What one loose clause costs
Run the arithmetic once and the clauses stop feeling like lawyer theatre.
Scenario | Loose contract | Tight contract |
|---|
Tenant leaves on day 38 of 90 | 0 nights billed after departure | 30 nights billed at $135 = $4,050 |
January heating overage | Operator absorbs ~$180 | Billed above the stated cap |
Invoice rejected, no PO | 3 to 6 weeks to re-bill | Paid on the 1st |
Damaged sofa arm | Argued after checkout | Deposit itemized within 14 days |
One early departure on a loose paper, in the example above, is roughly a month of net on the unit. The term sheet takes an hour to write once and then applies to every placement you take for years.
Write the agreement so it is enforceable
Keep it short and specific. A one-page term sheet attached to a simple furnished-rental agreement beats a long document nobody reads.
Name the parties, including the paying entity. State the rate, the billing dates, and the exact inclusions and exclusions. State the utility caps as numbers. State the notice period and the minimum nights billed. State the service schedule. State how the deposit is held and the deadline for itemizing deductions. Reference the agreement number on every invoice you send.
Then keep a copy of the signed paper, the PO and the payment record in one place per placement. When a relocation firm changes contacts mid-stay — they do — that folder is your entire negotiating position.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is corporate relocation housing the same as a mid-term rental?
Largely, yes. Corporate housing describes furnished lodging usually taken for 30 nights or more, and the relocation version is that product sold to a company rather than to an individual tenant.
Why do relocation assignments so often run under twelve months?
Because a work assignment expected to exceed one year is treated as indefinite for travel-expense purposes rather than temporary, so employers commonly structure assignments and extensions inside that window.
Should I discount for a 90-night booking?
Only down to your written floor. Full occupancy and a single turnover already improve your net, so the rate can sit below your transient average without dropping under the floor.
Who should sign the agreement?
The company or the relocation management firm that pays. An employee signing personally leaves you collecting from a consumer who has already moved away.
What happens if the assignment ends early?
Whatever your notice clause says. Without a minimum-billed-nights term, an early departure costs you the remaining month plus the transient bookings you turned away.
Where to take this next
Write your floor rate and your one-page term sheet this week, before the next inquiry arrives. Those two artifacts convert relocation demand from a favor you grant into a product you sell.
If you want a second set of eyes on your unit economics and lease terms before you take a corporate placement, book a complimentary one-on-one diagnostic call and bring your current rate sheet.
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