A furnished unit built on a rumor of corporate demand can sit for months

The eleven weeks doesn't surprise me, and the cause looks more like lead time than demand. On the management side, corporate placements almost never arrive the week a unit is ready. Relocation firms and larger employers run vendor lists, and getting onto one takes paperwork and time, an insurance certificate, a W-9, sometimes a site visit, then a wait for someone to actually need a placement. It is common for a unit to get approved in the spring and not see its first assignment until fall. So the sequence described, vacancy first, then furniture, then hunting for a client, is the expensive order. The operators who handle this well keep the unit earning something plain while the vendor work happens, then convert on a turn once a pipeline exists. One other point. $2,750 with utilities and internet included on a two-bedroom is not unreasonable, but corporate buyers compare against what a provider quotes them, and providers include housekeeping intervals and a 24-hour phone number. Without offering that, the unit ends up competing on price against operators offering more.

I nearly did this with a house I hold next to some acreage, and the thing that stopped me was boring. I couldn't name the company that would call. I could name the industry, I could name the highway, I couldn't name a person with a purchase order.

Your $275 a month over unfurnished on $13,800 is a five-year payback ignoring wear, and furniture doesn't last five years with turnover. But you learned it for under three grand of real loss, which is cheap. I'd keep the furniture in storage rather than sell it at a loss and try again when you actually have the relationship, not before.