FURNISHING A RENTED PROPERTY - ADVICE FROM LETTINGFOCUS.COM.
Property investment expert Lawrenson looks at furnishing let property. .
Buy to let expert David Lawrenson of www.LettingFocus.com says, "You shop, we drop" is a great tag line isn’t it?
But much as I like the convenience of someone trawling the supermarket aisles for me, queuing at the checkout, packing my shopping and delivering it to my door, I have to admit that I’ve been sorely disappointed at times with the quality of some food items delivered. There’s nothing quite like seeing what you are buying before you delve into your wallet.
It’s much the same when it comes to furnishing your buy to let property, although the consequences of purchasing a poor quality item of furniture can have far greater reaching implications in terms of both cost and time.
A a landlord you’ve already invested a sizeable chunk of money on purchasing the property. You’ve reached completion and you want to secure a tenant as soon as possible to avoid rental voids.
But as always there are more costs to consider before your property is ready for viewing tenants, and particularly so if you are renting in an area where the demand is for furnished properties.
TO FURNISH OR NOT TO FURNISH?
But first make sure there really is demand for furnished places. After all, if you don’t furnish, the costs of insuring will be less - there is no need to insure something you don’t have!
The only way to find out is to test the market first using adverts. Do people in your local market want furnished property or not?
If you provide fewer furnishings, you can get the inventory done much faster and cheaper and with less stuff to break or damage there will be less to haggle over at the end of the tenancy.
But if you are letting more up-market type of lets, there could be some demand for furnished accommodation, especially true in the short term serviced apartment category where you will be competing with hotel rooms.
HOW MUCH TO SPEND ON FURNISHING?
When it comes to furnishing your property you basically have two choices; you can furnish it yourself or you can get someone else to do it for you. There are of course advantages and disadvantages to both.
The beauty of the DIY approach is that you can express your own creativity, choosing colour schemes, items of furniture and decorative adornments to reveal the interior designer within.
You can decide exactly how much money you spend and can furnish to a budget. If you’ve taken the time to choose your furniture in stores you will know for certain the quality of the items you have selected.
Furnishing a property yourself can save money without a doubt, but can result in a compromise on the quality of the furniture items and will most certainly require a huge investment of your own time. Here’s a basic check list that you need to adhere to:
Firstly, take great care to measure the property yourself making sure that you take note of the locations of radiators, plugs, telephone sockets and aerial leads. These locations can determine the layout of your furniture within a room and are often not indicated on the brochure plans that you have access to.
WILL FURNITURE FIT?
A further consideration is access to the property; make sure you measure all entrances, hallways and stairways or lifts to ensure that you can actually get the furniture at least as far as your front door!
So what about the alternative?
Buy to let furnishing specialists predominantly sell their wares as furniture packages, with ranges from basic to premium and prices from £900 to £9000. A furniture package includes all the items deemed essential for buy to let furnished rental markets and includes sofa combinations, coffee tables, dining tables and chairs, beds and mattresses, wardrobes and chests. As the old adage goes, you get what you pay for.
There are without doubt a number of cowboys in the market and one sure way to sort the wheat from the chaff is to make sure you get the opportunity to see the furniture you are paying for. If a supplier is proud of the quality of their range they will make it accessible to you.
ABOUT DAVID LAWRENSON AND LETTINGFOCUS
At LettingFocus.com our main work is our consultancy role in which we help organisations and public bodies with their products and services for the private rented sector.
If you are from an organisation go to our home page: LETTING FOCUS HOME PAGE.
As well as our work for organisations, we also offer a limited amount of unbiased consultancy advice for landlords.
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Copyright 2011 David Lawrenson. This article must not be copied or re-used without the author and copyright owner’s prior permission.
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