Insurance placement at 4,300 with a seven day out, or a traveler at 3,150 for 13 weeks

Does the agreement say anything about backfill? Some placement companies will move another displaced household in if they terminate early, because they have a queue and they'd rather keep the inventory relationship. If it's silent, that silence is your answer about whose problem the empty February is. I'd ask them in writing whether they backfill and get the reply in email, not on a call.

Read the damage section next to clause 11. A displaced family with kids and a dog living in your furnished 4 bed for two months is a different wear profile than one traveler with a suitcase, and if occupants can be substituted you may not know who caused what. Who is the tenant of record on that agreement, the company or the household? That changes who you pursue and how, and eviction procedure for a company-held lease versus an occupant differs by state. Worth an attorney's eye on those two clauses specifically.

You can turn this into arithmetic even without their honest average. Break it into cases.

Case A, they run the full stay you're expecting, say five months. That's 21,500, plus you'd need a gap after, call it three weeks at 4,300 lost, so call it 21,500 over roughly 5.7 months, about 3,770 a month effective.

Case B, claim settles at day 45. You collect about 6,450, then you're hunting in February with no traveler in hand. If it takes six weeks to fill, your effective rate over that same 3.5 month window is around 1,840 a month.

The traveler is 3,150 for 13 weeks flat, plus whatever gap follows, call it two weeks, so roughly 2,750 effective.

So the placement wins if long stays are the norm and loses badly on short ones. The number you need is the share of their placements that end inside 60 days. If they won't give it to you, price the deal as if that share is high, because they know it and you don't. I'd also weight the net 30 payment term, since you're funding a month of carry for a counterparty whose financials you haven't seen. Ask for the last two years of placement length distribution in your county and treat the marketing deck as a no.

I hold things for a long time and my bias is obvious, but the 4 bed with substituted occupants is the version where you're replacing the sofa in year two. One tenant a year, known end date, is worth giving up gross for. @quill's case B is the one I'd assume.

A 4/2 with a family in it for two months takes door dings, wall scuffs at stroller height, and a garbage disposal fed things it shouldn't be. None of that is catastrophic and all of it is a weekend. If you do sign, do a written mid-term walkthrough right at the substitution clause, and specify in the agreement that you get access with 24 hours notice for inspection. If they won't add that, you've learned something about how the last owner's house looked when they left it.