As a landlord, furnishing your property presents a puzzling dilemma about how best to maximise your return – whether to rent the property furnished or unfurnished. While providing furnishings for tenants may mean they are happy to pay increased rent, it needs to be compared with the time and effort you will need to spend managing the rental property and its furniture.
Renting a property furnished can sometimes increase the rental value by as much as a third, so this presents and important decision for landlords. Furnishing a property can increase the income received on the investment.
Getting a property ready to rent can be an expensive and time-consuming task in itself without having to spend extra time on money choosing, purchasing, transporting and installing furniture. It can take a considerable amount of time and effort, so landlords need to ensure that the higher rent achievable is worthwhile.
Once the furniture has arrived and is installed it then 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.
There is no perfect solution to this problem, it 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 a highly-desirable property then furnishing it poorly is probably more likely to put-off prospective tenants, as the beauty of the property is obscured by the bad furniture. Alternatively, in less attractive properties tenants are likely to pay more for furnished than unfurnished.
Furnished rental property is likely to appeal to short-term tenants, for example those whose job is always moving around. 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 can help you with your landlord furniture needs
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Very true. I recently rented out a flat in Bradford and the rental market is saturated with furnished properties, which means you have to compete, some are even giving away one month free rent!
Sounds about right. Landlords all over the country will find much different rental markets depending on student populations, employment and transport links. While in some areas there may be an abundance of furnishing rental property, in others there will be a shortage. Knowing your local rental market is all important if you want to maximise your income.