Corporate Rentals

Corporate housing is a furnished home rented for a defined stay, usually a month to a year, to someone who needs somewhere to live rather than a vacation. On Oahu that is most often a clinician on a travel contract, a service member between postings, a family displaced by a renovation or an insurance claim, or a new hire who has not bought yet.

For owners it sits between the two models everyone already knows. It asks more than an unfurnished lease and less than a nightly vacation rental, and it is governed by a different set of rules than either.

What corporate housing means on Oahu

Three words get used for the same arrangement, which is why owners find it confusing. Each describes a different angle:

Longer stay

Describes the length. Thirty consecutive days or more, short of a standard year long lease.

Furnished rental

Describes the condition. The tenant arrives with suitcases, not a moving truck.

Corporate housing

Describes the tenant and who pays. Often an employer, staffing agency, relocation company or insurer rather than the occupant.

One property can be all three at once. What matters legally is the length of the stay, and nothing else.

Who uses it

Oahu produces a steady stream of temporary residents that has little to do with the tourism cycle.

• Healthcare. Travel nurses, locum physicians and allied clinicians on 13 week contracts, concentrated around the urban core hospital district.
• Military and government. Families between postings, arriving before base housing frees up or staying on after a home sells.
• Relocation and project work. New hires, engineering and construction teams, and visiting specialists whose employers want an invoice ready furnished home.
• Insurance and displacement. Households out of their own home during a renovation or after a claim, usually placed and paid for by a third party.

These tenants are generally paid for by an organization, book for a defined period, and expect the home to work on the day they arrive. That is a different service standard from a long term lease, and a different one again from nightly hosting.

What owners need to provide

A corporate tenant is not looking for a styled vacation rental. They are looking for a home they can live and work in from day one.

• Furniture, kitchenware, linens and towels, ready to use
• Utilities, internet and streaming, normally in the owner's name
• A dedicated work surface with decent light and reliable wifi
• In unit or in building laundry
• Parking, or a clear answer about where the car goes
• A written inventory, checked at every turnover

How longer stays are regulated

That is the part owners find reassuring. Here is the part they tend to miss.

Escaping the zoning rules at 30 days does not mean escaping the transient taxes.

Tax and compliance

Hawaii treats a rental as a transient accommodation until the stay reaches 180 consecutive days. Below that line, the state Transient Accommodations Tax and Oahu's county TAT apply on top of General Excise Tax. Our guide to GET filing explains the GET side in detail. For the properties we manage, we register, collect and file all three.

Your building can be stricter than the county. Many Oahu condominium associations set minimum rental terms of six months or a year in their bylaws or house rules, and those override any general permission the ordinance gives. Check the association documents before furnishing anything. It is the cheapest possible moment to find a problem.

What makes a property a good fit

Honestly, not every property does. A furnished corporate rental usually commands a higher monthly rent than the same unit unfurnished, but the comparison is not rent against rent. It is annual net against annual net, and the furnished side carries costs a lease does not:

• Furnishing, then replacing what wears out
• Utilities and internet, normally the owner's
• Vacancy between stays, which is structural rather than occasional
• Transient taxes on any stay under 180 days
• More frequent turnovers, cleaning and inventory checks

It tends to work well for units near the urban core hospitals and the bases, for properties already furnished or cheaply furnishable, and for owners who want flexibility back, such as a future sale, a family return or a renovation window, that a twelve month lease would lock away. It tends to disappoint owners furnishing from scratch purely to chase a higher headline rate.

We will run both models against your actual unit and show you the arithmetic, including the case where a straightforward long term lease wins. We manage long term, corporate and short term portfolios, so we have no reason to push you toward one.

What we do

• Assess the property first. Zoning, association rules, condition, location and realistic demand, before anyone spends money on furniture.
• Set it up. A preparation checklist if you want to do it yourself, or the whole setup: sourcing furnishings, delivery, installation, styling and photography.
• Market it to the staffing agencies, relocation companies and corporate contacts that place these tenants, alongside the public listing channels.
• Run it. Screening, agreements, check in and check out, inventory at every turnover, cleaning, maintenance and owner reporting.
• Handle the tax. GET, state TAT and Oahu county TAT registered, collected and filed.

Our fees are on our pricing page. If you are still comparing managers, our guide to choosing a property management company in Hawaii lists the questions worth asking.

Common questions

We serve owners across Oahu, including Metro Honolulu, Pearl City, Aiea, Waipahu, Waikele, Ewa Beach, Kapolei, Waikiki, Kaimuki, Kahala, Aina Haina, Hawaii Kai, Kailua, Lanikai, Kaneohe, Hauula, Haleiwa, Pupukea and Waialua.