Letting home finished? Anyone done this?

[Itsawomanthing]

Looking for advice from anyone who has let out their home.
We are letting out our 2bed flat in London. We will be taking all our furniture with us. We had successful viewing and a good offer at the asking price and the viewer asked for a bed and a desk. However the viewer has subsequently asked for the property to be basically fully furnished with bed, chest of drawers, desk, dining set, sofa, tv stand etc etc. The agent says it's unusual for flats in our area to be let unfurnished (lots of city workers looking for convenience etc) and if we want to let it unfurnished we will have to accept an offer quite a bit lower.

So we are working out whether to buy furniture to furnish the flat outright, do one of those monthly rental furniture packages, or accept a lower offer for unfurnished.

The tenant would like furniture to look basically the same as ours, so we can't just get a load of second hand rubbish. It can't look too "studenty".

Has anyone else experienced this? Is there a decent way to furnish? The agent says we can set a budget and let the tenant choose but then if he has poor taste we will be stuck with his furniture.

Typo in title sorry - should say furnished. Perhaps @mnhq* can change?

If your target market expects furnished, it's in your interest to offer furnished.

No need to go to town. Expect to replace periodically - tenants prefer fairly new over 'quality but used'.

Just get the basics. Bed with good quality firm mattress, bedside table, wardrobe, chest of drawers, sofa, coffee table.

Your letting agent will advice. They may have a preferred supplier. Mine did, and I bought everything I needed in 10 minutes.

That's a good idea, thank you

I let partially furnished....only issue is that you have to replace items if broken or worn out so usually just include the basic white goods etc.

There is such a demand for rental properties at the moment I would investigate letting unfurnished and see what people offer price wise. It may be no lower than furnished.

If you let out furnished, do you include any decorative items, eg the odd print on the wall, rug or cushion? Or do you literally just furnish with the sparse elements?

We are targeting city workers who seem to expect everything there ready to move into.

I would speak to the letting agent and browse similar properties in the area on RightMove.

The bare minimum for a furnished flat for that market would be:

Washing machine/tumble dryer
Dishwasher
Fridge

Beds
Wardrobes
Bedside tables
Drawers (if none in wardrobe)

Dining set
Sofa
Console or something for TV

Curtains, blinds, lampshades, mirror/cupboard/shelves in the bathroom etc

Normally there would be other items in the sitting room, such as a coffee table or bookcase, so the room looks finished

Things like lamps, cushions, pictures, decorative items, TV, microwave, kettle, toaster, cutlery, crockery, saucepans, hoover, iron, ironing board are common but not essential, especially in high end executive lets.

I think you should leave your stuff there and buy yourselves nice new things for your new place. We made the mistake of emptying our place before realising we were going to have to rent out rather than sell, Tenants got new everything new, we put up with old everything ( wardrobes don’t travel well!) and 4 years later, having finished landlording and having sold the property, there was no tax relief for the many thousands spent. No discount from capital gains calculations. Just money written off. So we’ve brought some of the best pieces to our house and scrapped the rest. That’s two lots of furniture that don’t suit our new house! But to answer your question, yes, they all expect furnished. They ask for EVERYTHING.

I wouldn’t rent furnished. People don’t take care of what’s not theirs. You then have to replace, clean or repair multiple damaged items.

I would personally exhaust unfurnished options before considering furnished.