The marketplace acts in three specific places.
Verification. Every listing has passed the five-point review before it is searchable. We described the full review in what verified actually means. The marketplace's job before the inquiry is sent is to ensure the listing is what it claims to be.
Inquiry surface. The marketplace hosts the message thread between landlord and tenant. The inbox lives on the platform. Notifications go through the platform. The tenant and the landlord can communicate inside the marketplace until they decide to move the conversation off-platform for the lease and the payment.
Tenant identity signals. Optional verified profile fields (email, phone, government-issued ID upload) give the landlord a stronger trust signal on the tenant side. The marketplace does not require the tenant to verify all of these. The landlord can see what is verified and use it as input to the placement decision.
The marketplace stays out of three specific places.
The lease. The lease is signed directly between landlord and tenant. Furnished Unfurnished does not provide a lease template, does not collect lease signatures on the platform, and does not store the executed lease document. The lease is a contract between two parties, on terms they negotiate, with a duration and price they set. The marketplace is not a counterparty.
The payment. Rent payments flow directly from tenant to landlord. The marketplace does not collect rent, does not hold deposits, does not escrow funds, and does not take a percentage of the placement. Subscription pricing is on the landlord side: $9.99 per property per month, or $79.99 per year. There are no booking fees on the placement. The tenant pays no platform fee.
The screening. The landlord can run any tenant-screening process they normally use (credit check, employment verification, reference check, prior-landlord verification). The marketplace does not run the screening or hold the screening report. The verified-profile signals on the platform are inputs the landlord uses alongside their own screening, not replacements for it.
The typical timeline from inquiry to lease
Most placements close within three to seven calendar days of the first inquiry. The phases run in sequence.
Day 1: Inquiry sent. The tenant fills out the inquiry form on the listing and sends. The landlord receives the notification.
Day 1 or Day 2: First response. The landlord replies through the marketplace inbox confirming availability, addressing any clarifying questions, and proposing next steps.
Day 2 to Day 4: Clarification. The tenant and landlord exchange a small number of messages. Common items: confirming the lease-length flexibility, the parking situation, the pet policy specifics, the utilities included, the specific furnished items, the receipt format the tenant or their employer or insurer or contracting officer will need.
Day 3 to Day 5: Move to lease. The landlord proposes a lease document, usually one the landlord uses as their standard mid-term lease (or one provided by their property manager or legal counsel). The tenant reviews. Either party may propose specific changes (an extension clause, an early-exit clause, a specific furnishings rider). The lease is signed off-platform, often through an e-signature service or in person.
Day 4 to Day 7: Payment setup and key handoff. First month's rent and any deposit are set up directly between landlord and tenant. Move-in date, key or lockbox handoff, and any utilities transfer are coordinated directly. The placement is now closed and the marketplace's role is complete.
The variance in this timeline mostly comes from clarification volume. A clean inquiry on a property with no special constraints, sent by a tenant whose context the landlord recognizes, can close in three days. A placement involving a multi-party paper trail (insurance reimbursement, federal per-diem documentation, corporate mobility coordination) can take five to seven days because the receipt format and the payment routing have to fit the institutional system on the back end.
What changes when an institutional partner is involved
Many placements run through an institutional partner rather than directly between an individual tenant and an individual landlord. Insurance ALE coordinators, corporate relocation management companies, government housing coordinators, and travel-nurse staffing agencies all route placements as part of their operating workflow.
The marketplace surface looks the same. The verification layer is the same. The inquiry, the response, the clarification, the lease, and the payment all flow the same way. What changes is that the tenant in the placement may be the institutional partner, with the displaced family or the transferee or the traveling clinician as the actual occupant. The lease may be between landlord and a contractor entity, with the occupant named in the lease addendum. The receipt may be issued to the institutional party for reimbursement processing.
Streamlined Stay Solutions, our sister institutional operator, has run thousands of these institutional placements through this exact kind of direct-lease workflow. More than 4,000 families have been served by the operator team behind FUF. The institutional experience is the reason the marketplace is built around direct landlord-tenant lease and direct payment. It is the workflow shape institutional partners ask for, because it is the workflow shape that produces the receipt format and the documentation traceability the institutional back office needs.
Why the marketplace stops where it stops
A reasonable question reading this is why the marketplace does not run the lease and the payment. The answer is twofold.
The marketplace's value is the verification layer, the inventory density in the 30-day-to-12-month window, and the inquiry surface that connects professional tenants to landlords who serve that window. Adding a lease product or a payment escrow would change the marketplace's regulatory shape, would inject a counterparty into a transaction that has historically worked better as a direct lease, and would put the marketplace in a position to take a percentage of the placement, which would change the unit economics.
A flat $9.99 per property per month subscription on the landlord side, with no booking fees on placements, is the price model that aligns the marketplace's incentives with the landlord's. The marketplace is paid to host and verify the listing. The marketplace is not paid more if the placement runs longer or shorter, costs more or less, or closes on day three or day seven. The marketplace does not benefit from inserting itself into the lease or the payment. It benefits from the listing being accurate and the inquiry surface being trustworthy.
If you have a mid-term rental and want it on a verified marketplace where the inquiry-to-lease workflow runs landlord-to-tenant directly, list your property at furnishedunfurnished.com/landlord/new.
Geraldine A.