Not OP, but I’ve been doing this and found that contacting people on AirBNB and making an offer often (after a bit of haggling and false starts) will land a great place for not much more than a regular unfurnished rental. I think a lot of people get into AirBNB dreaming of big $$ but then realize how much work it is to coordinate dozens of different guests each month to maximize $$ and then ultimately like the idea of one renter for a few months to give some relief.

Also, the market of people specifically trying to rent furnished long term rentals is very small and they tend to aim to “executives” that are in town for a period of time before buying their own place. They charge accordingly. It is a big red flag for me to see someone or a company marketing their furnished rental as “executive suites” or similar

I rented a room in my house on Airbnb for about two years. Each time a guest leaves we need to clean, switch bedsheets, restock amenities; creating overhead. If done efficiently it cost us 30 minutes of time which was still worth it, but of course we glad to get the occasional renter who wanted to stay for a week or month.

Yes one bedroom would be quick but a lot of people having to clean multiple bedrooms, living rooms, kitchen (!!), etc it can be laborious.

The availability of furnished rental depends on local market.

For example in France students need lodging during their studies. So France cities with universities have a strong unfurnished rental market. Of course that's mostly small surfaces.

Note also that in France taxes are different for owners when renting unfurnished.

We don't move quite that often - we're usually on two-year cycles, so we just sign standard 1+1 leases. As one of the sibling comments said, the local market heavily influences the housing stock and we've always been in big expat-heavy cities where renting furnished places is pretty common.

It's also a thing to negotiate furnishing with the landlord, e.g. I'll pay an extra $100/mo in rent if you agree to do an Ikea run and you can keep it at the end of the lease.

If I need to be somewhere for <1y but >1m, I'll try to deal directly with AirBnB hosts but sometimes you just have to eat the borderline usurious serviced apartment fees.

When I've needed a furnished apartment, I've done it separately -- rented an apartment, then rented furniture separately. They'll come in and set up the furniture and come and pick it up when you move out.

Last time I rented furniture, it cost around $250/month to furnish a one bedroom apartment. They supplied all of the furniture, we supplied dishes and cookware.

For a longer term lease, it may be cheaper to buy cheap furniture from Ikea, but it's a lot more hassle, it's so much easier to let the rental company come in and set up, then take it all away when you leave.