First impressions count for everything. It is vital your property looks its best for prospective tenants. Making sure your property looks great before viewings will help find you a new tenant fast. A recent survey found that 38% of tenants felt the quality of fixtures and fittings in a property was the most important feature to them when choosing a property to rent. The same survey also found that furnishing was overall the second most important factor to tenants behind location.
The question is how do you know if a property is correctly furnished if you don’t have much experience with property interiors? Primarily, you’ll need to consider exactly who’ll be living in your property:
• Properties marketed to families in the countryside or leafy suburbs, are often left unfurnished as these markets often have their own furniture and the tenancy period lasts longer.
• Properties aimed at students nearly always need furniture in order for them to rent out quickly. Think basic, and durable: the furniture you choose will need to be able to stand up to the student lifestyle!
• Professionals may bring their own furniture, or may require a furnished property. Offering the option of furnished or unfurnished should maximise your chances of finding the right tenant quickly. If you’re offering furnishings, then choose good quality furniture in a contemporary style.
• Luxury and high-end properties should be furnished appropriately. Period properties should have furniture that matches the style of the house.
A correctly furnished property can generate up to 15-20% more rent than its unfurnished or poorly furnished counterpart. Most landlords look at writing the cost of the furniture off over 12 months, from the positive cash flow generated by the property.
To make your life as a landlord easier, why not try a specialist furniture package provider. Buy-to-let furnishing providers often have a stigma attached to them for being expensive. In reality, they are often far cheaper than if you were to buy the individual items of furniture from a retail store. Once you build in the cost of the time saved, collecting, delivering, assembling, installing and staging the furniture you should have made significant savings.
The best furniture providers for the property industry will have both expert property and interior design knowledge and can help make any property look its best.
Furnishing a property correctly can offer a landlord huge benefits and by using a buy-to-let furnishing specialist, a landlord can save time, avoid costly void periods and maximise the return on investment by securing a great tenant. Check out our chums at Loft Interiors, who have expanded from the North-West into a national buy-to-let furniture specialist. If you take a look at the Loft website you’ll get a much better idea how furniture packages work, and the costs involved.
