How To Find Housing While Travel Nursing
January 9, 2023
One of the most difficult aspects of travel nursing, if not the most, is finding housing. For us, it of course adds to the challenge that we are travelling as a family with our two cats as well, and have only been staying in one place for three to four months at a time. No matter your situation, it can be a daunting and stressful process. That said, there are a lot of resources out there to help travelling nurses to find housing, you just have to know where to look! In this post, I’ll cover our tips on how to find housing while travel nursing focusing on what to look for and where to look.
what to look for
To start, this really depends on your situation: what your budget is, if you’re single, if you have pets, if you just need a room vs. a whole house/apartment, etc. That said, these are some of our best tips on what to look for.
We would recommend that you set your budget lower than it technically needs to be. From our experience, two things have led us to think that this is important. First, Dan’s pay was cut multiple times one contract. Second, his current contract only guarantees his 24 hours, not the full 36.
Because of Dan’s current situation, we built our whole budget assuming he would only get 24 hours a week. Thankfully, so far he’s never been called off of a shift and it looks like he’ll even be able to pick up overtime if he wants, but we’d rather be safe than sorry.
Along a similar idea to my last point, we’d recommend that you try to get a month-to-month lease. Another fun aspect of travel nursing is that your contract can be cancelled at any time with little or no notice and no severance or anything like that. In the off chance that this happens to you, it could be really beneficial to not be locked into the rest of your lease. If you have a month-by-month lease, you probably still need to give at least a months notice if you’re leaving, but at least you won’t be out multiple months worth of rent if you need to leave.
where to look
Now, the big kahuna, where to look for housing while travel nursing.
First off, check with your agency.
Check with your agency to see if they offer any kind of assistance finding housing. Some agencies will let you choose between taking their housing or the housing stipend. Typically, it’s FAR more financially advantageous to take the stipend and find housing for yourself. That said, your agency may have connections or advice on where to find your own housing while still receiving the housing stiped.
Second, Furnished Finder is a travel nurse’s best friend.
It takes a little bit to set up your profile, but once that’s done you can send out a housing request where the site will do a lot of the work for you. They contact listings that fit your criteria and hopefully those listings/agents get back to you with more information about their property. You can also use their search engine to look for yourself, which I would 100% recommend doing.
The housing request option can bring in helpful contacts and recommendations, but they also send your information to TONS of unavailable listings or property managers whose rental doesn’t match what you’re looking for at all. The website isn’t the most functional I’ve seen, especially logging in is a little bit weird, but this will likely be your #1 resource for finding housing. This is how we found our condo in Phoenix, Arizona and how we got connected to the owner’s of the townhouse we rented in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.
Third, contact the hospital you’ll be working at to get access to their “classifieds.”
These are housing/property listings that are in the area and may not be listed anywhere else so it could your one chance to check them out. Oftentimes, not enough information will be listed, but you can contact the property manager/landlord to find out if it’s available and everything else you need to know. This method is how we found our apartment in Kittery, Maine.
It can be difficult to get a contact at the hospital you’ll be working at when you’ve just signed your contract, but push your recruiter to help with this and ideally get you in contact with the unit manager you’ll be working under. Otherwise, you could just try calling the hospital and asking around until you find someone who can send it to you.
Finally, utilize your contacts!
If you happen to know anyone who lives or has lived in the town or city you’re heading to, reach out to them! Utilize any local contacts you, your friends, or your family have and see if anyone knows someone looking to rent a furnished place. You could even post on your social media to check with your extended friend/acquaintance group, or post on different travel nursing groups on Facebook or other platforms.
As I mentioned before, we got connected to the owners of the townhouse we rented in Myrtle Beach originally through Furnished Finder, but in a bit of a roundabout way. Through sending out a housing request, we ended up speaking to someone who had friends who were considering renting their house for the first time while they were away on a long trip. It ended up working out and that is still the nicest place we’ve ever rented by far! You never know who knows who so utilizing Facebook groups/social media, and your friends and family could end up landing you a great apartment!
We hope this helps if you’re considering travel nursing or currently on the hunt for housing for your next contract. I have another post coming soon on how to avoid getting scammed when finding housing as a travel nurse. Keep an eye out for that later this week!
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