The pros and cons of letting a property furnished.
Category Principal's Message
The first thing to understand is that there are no strict rules guiding whether a landlord should furnish a property. It's completely up to you whether you offer it with nothing but bare walls and floorboards, or every possible kind of furniture, appliance, tools, kitchenware, bathroom scales and magic lanterns.
Nevertheless, the decision to let a property furnished or unfurnished will make a difference to your chances of finding a tenant and the kind of tenant you will attract.
The positive things about furnishing a property include:
- It saves tenants money, since they don't need to buy furniture
- You may let the property more quickly than an unfurnished property, because (generally) there are more tenants looking for furnished lettings
- When the tenancy ends, you will still own the furniture and can use it yourself, or offer it to future tenants
- You can deduct a percentage of the cost of the goods from your tax liability
Some lettings agents think that they can achieve slightly higher rents from furnished property than unfurnished - somewhere between 5 and 10 per cent - but most argue that flexibility is key. The best thing is to offer whatever arrangement meets the needs of your customers.
Prime Property has been dealing with a few corporates Unilever South Africa, Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd, Toyota South Africa, CCI, just to name a few. We would like to thank all our owners who let out their units fully furnished and would encourage others to do so.
Author: Prime Location
