Travel Nurses: The Powerhouse Renter Class of Baltimore

I’m writing this in December of 2022, and some things have changed from a year ago. Higher interest rates have put downward pressure on cash flow and made it critical to achieve a rent premium over the long-term rate. Short-term rentals have gone viral in many areas of the country but Baltimore law requires the property to be owner-occupied for stays less than 90 days. Another option is to rent on a midterm basis, and while the rest of the country defines midterm as 30-90 days, Baltimore likes to be different. Midterm stays must be at least 90 days to remain within the law and less than 180 days for optimal profitability.

These policies have greatly reduced the number of short-term rentals in the city but there are still landlords making a killing by furnishing and renting units on a midterm basis. Their secret is in the tenant class they market to.

So who wants to live in Baltimore for 90-180 days?

Baltimore is host to a constellation of hospitals, the two cornerstones being the University of Maryland Medical Center and Johns Hopkins Hospital. These hospitals require an army of healthcare workers and due to their large educational and training programs, they heavily utilize travel nurses from around the country. The typical travel nurse contract is 90 to 180 days making a midterm rental the perfect solution to meet this demand.

Furnished Finder, a popular travel nurse housing site published that on average over 100,000 housing requests were made for the Baltimore area in the past year and over 600,000 page views of individual listings. In a city of only half a million residents, this is a staggering number. In fact, Baltimore is the #1 travel nurse destination in Maryland and #23 out of 19,654 cities nationwide.

Source: Furnished Finder

We’ve identified our renters but the question remains: where do these nurses want to live? Conventional thinking would tell us that they want to live in close proximity to the hospitals, but this is not the case. Hospitals were created to keep people alive, so it only makes sense that they are built in neighborhoods that need the most help. Baltimore is no different. Johns Hopkins is perched at the northwest corner of Patterson Park, a landmark in central Baltimore. Looking at a map, it doesn't look to be geographically far from the gentrification zone of Canton, Brewers Hill, and Fells Point, but from a safety perspective, it's certainly not walkable.

Travel nurses often work long hours and are coming and going when it's dark out and require a location that has access to safe transportation or a parking spot. According to the 2020 National Nursing Workforce Survey, the average age for travel nurses nationally is 35, of which only 30% are married.

Here is a direct quote from Aya Healthcare’s website:

“Travel nursing is part of an overall lifestyle choice that has a strong appeal to a younger demographic that is single and able to be more mobile. Traditionally, they are not tied down with a mortgage or have school-aged children. This younger generation of workers as a whole seek more flexibility for work-life balance.”

This is a young and active renter class that wants to be in the areas of the city that have bars, shopping and entertainment. While there are many hospitals in Baltimore, let's focus for now on the two that dominate the downtown core: Johns Hopkins and University of Maryland. This map shows a summary of the neighborhoods most appealing to travel nurses in 2022.