Deborah an interior designer who is in the process of adding home staging to her services (an excellent strategy to recession proof an interior design business) writes:
I am about to embark on a home staging project that requires rental furniture. If it turns out that buying furniture would be more cost-effective, would you recommend that?
There would be the selling aspect at the end which could be a challenge, but overall I think the client would save money over a 12-month period with purchased rather than rental. What is your advice?
Home stagers, I’d love to hear your advice and points of view on this home staging business dilemma. Please add your thoughts and I’ll summarize the best and add my ideas in a future post.
Debra Gould, The Staging Diva®
President, Six Elements Inc. Home Staging
Intrepid entrepreneur, Debra Gould, developed the Staging Diva Training Program to create opportunities for others to grow their own profitable home staging businesses. There are currently over 4,000 Staging Diva students across the United States, Canada, Australia and 18 other countries around the world. She is the author of 5 guides and is frequently profiled in the media.
If they will be keeping the furniture for 12 months, it is always better to purchase rather than rent. Also, sometimes the buyer of the home may fall in love so much with the furniture, that they end up buying it with the house. You can put up a sign in a nice silver frame that says “Furniture and accessories are available for purchase. Contact ME”. You could also negotiate now with the seller that if the furniture is sold with the house you receive x% of the proceeds since the reason the buyer bought the furniture is that you did such a fabulous job of staging the house. It’s your work that made the furniture attractive to them. Also I would negotiate now with the seller that you want x% of the sales price of the furniture for your efforts in selling it at the end, if the buyer doesn’t buy it.
Donna, you’ve suggested an excellent way to make additional income from this. Appreciate it!
Hmmm, the age old question! I’ve wrestled with that one myself. But for me, it was more efficacious to rent it all and have the guys deliver it, set it up and be done.
However, if you are talking about a long-term rental, it may be better to buy it for the client and they can take it to thier new place. (Will it work in the the new place?) If you plan to buy furniture to rent out to many different vacant home stagings, here are the problems I see:
How much can you buy?
How much can you store?
Will you have to rent a storage unit, and at what cost?
Who will move the furniture for you?
Do you have a truck to haul it?
How much will you have to pay day labor, friends, family or employees to move it for you?
Then, there’s the issue of upkeep. You’ll have to keep it updated, in good repair, and store it when it comes in.
I’ve done some rental and it IS a nice little side income! I chose to purchase accessories as I went along. I then rented the big stuff from a rental company; and rented my stuff along with it. But, I’ve run into storage issues as well as the problem of hauling it around. But – it is some nice extra cash, especially if it goes 3, 4, 5 months or more!
This is a good question, but just be sure you cover YOUR costs if you choose to maintain an inventory and rent it out. I see too many stagers here in Denver that purchase some furnishings, and then undercut the rest of us by making unreasonable deals just to keep it rented out. Think it through carefully!
Debbie Fiskum, Perfect Home Staging & Design, Denver
Excellent points Debbie. It’s so key to keep our business hat on when making these decisions and plans.
I have yet to rent furniture, I’ve worked with several furniture rental companies on estimates, but it seems more cost effective to buy. Plus, your client can recoup about 40-50% back on what they’ve spent IF they choose to sell it. I’ve used JC Penney when purchasing and they have something called the white glove service for $129 they deliver everything, unpack it, put it together, place it where you want it and leave with all the boxes/trash. It does not get any easier. Note: you must purchase things from the “store” merchandise, not their “website” merchandise…different inventory. If they need help selling…just another way to make a few more bucks!
Donna & Debbie, You have both made excellent points. I have also struggled with this + analyzed it several times. While, I am learning to wear that businessperson’s hat, I realize that beyond the finances, I am just not that interested in the behind the scenes storage, moving, insurance, upkeep, etc associated with buying inventory. Maybe one day I will be more interested but for now, I’ll enjoy one of the perks of ownership, crafting my company in a way that fills a need + works for me too.