Buy-to-let: Furnishing a rental property as a Landlord

Should you furnish your buy-to-let house? Rental homes that are furnished seem to be highly sought for short term lets, over unfurnished properties.

Before you rush out to buy furniture for your rental property, think about what you need in the buy-to-let house. You want to invest in good quality, long-lasting furniture such as oak wood or oak veneer to ensure that it will last the test of time.

Why you should invest in good quality furniture for your buy-to-let house:

Providing furniture will undoubtedly increase the rent a landlord should achieve on a rental property – some report that it can be almost a quarter sometimes.

You can choose to let your buy-to-let house, part furnished, fully furnished or non-furnished. Many landlords like to let property part-furnished, i.e., including certain domestic appliances and curtains. This seems to appeal to most tenants looking to rent a self-contained unit - flat or house. When furnishing the house, you can buy some basics, such as an oak coffee table, a couple of sofas, TV cabinet for the living room; a bed frame and wardrobe for the bedroom and some dining chairs in the kitchen.

Costs of furnishing a rental property

Are you wanting to furnish your buy-to-let in a luxury fashion? Think of the type of tenants you want to let your house to. If you wish corporate working tenants are living in your swanky house, then you could easily spend £5000 to £10,000 to furnish it to a prestigious standard.

However, you can just as easily kit out a house or a flat to the necessary standard and still make it look classic and elegant, with a budget of £500-£1000. The easiest way to get furniture for your rental property is to look at furniture sets, so a living room furniture set would include a coffee table, bookcase, sideboard, TV unit and nest of tables. Take a look at some of the beautiful hard-wearing wooden furniture here.

Is there demand for furnished rental property?

Furnished accommodation is mainly attractive to short stay tenants, for example professional workers who are required to relocate for work for a short period. In this scenario, they rather pay more rent and not have the bother and expense of having to organise furniture for what could be a relatively short stay.

Landlords should ensure that they will obtain a sufficient premium to make all that extra work and investment worthwhile.

Looking to furniture your buy-to-let property? Browse through some of the affordable and durable oak wood and pine wood furniture collections.

WORDS: Saima Omar