Investing in Real Estate:Landlord Furniture - Furniture for Landlords

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As a landlord, furniture presents a puzzling question about how best to maximise profits; whether to rent the property furnished or unfurnished. While providing furniture for tenants may mean they are willing to pay higher rent, it needs to be weighed up against the time and effort the landlord will need to spend managing the rental property.

In some cases furnishing a property can increase the rental value by up to a third, so it is an important decision for landlords to make as it involves trying to increase the potential income of the investment.

Furnishing property, however, can be an expensive and time-consuming task, with time assigned to choosing it, purchasing it, transporting it from one place to another, assembling it and arranging it. This can take a landlord a considerable amount of time and effort, negating the extra rent which is likely to be received as a result.

Once the furniture has arrived and is installed the furniture needs then to be added to the inventory, ensuring that tenants have to recompense the landlord for damaged or stolen items which belong to the property. Wear and tear is acceptable, and often this can happen quickly with poor quality furniture, meaning things need to be replaced more often.

There is no one-size-fits-all solution to this problem; it simply depends on the landlord’s resources (both in terms of time and finance) as well as the property and the rental marketplace. If you are renting out an attractive property then furnishing it badly is probably more likely to put-off prospective tenants, as the beauty of the property is obscured by the bad furniture. Alternatively, in les attractive properties arguably people will pay more for furnished than unfurnished.

Furnished rental property is likely to appeal more to short term tenants, for example those whose employment is regularly relocated. These tenants are happy to pay higher rent because they probably own little furniture of their own, but are likely to provide landlords with a more short-term tenant than those who are looking for unfurnished properties to fill with their own belongings.

While renting a property furnished may receive higher rent, it may simply be more difficult to find a tenant for, for example if the rental market is saturated with furnished rental property.

Items which may be expected of a furnished property include bed, sofa, washing machine, fridge freezer and oven cooker. Storage is often included like wardrobes and chest of drawers and table and chairs. Very short-term tenants may benefit from items like cutlery, pots and pans, and other cooking equipment.

Buy to Let Furnishings, Rental Property Furniture Specialist who offer a complete range of furnishing solutions for rented or buy to let investment property.

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