Think about this from your perspective: would you benefit from buying a furnished house or condo?

Many sellers or lessors believe that leaving the furniture behind means more $$$ for them.

I beg to differ…

Here’s a situation I want you to envision, and try to stay with me here…

You’re standing in line at Booster Juice, and the line is long.

Each glass of blended fruit costs about $6.00.

The person at the very front of the line gets his drink, pays his $6.00, and then proceeds to drink exactly HALF of the juice.

He walks to the back of the line and approaches you, asking if you’d like to pay him $3.00 for half of the drink.

What would you say?

He drops his price to $2.50.  This is well below what he just paid for it – aren’t you interested?

I hope you know where I’m going with this…

I did a listing presentation for a lady at 255 Richmond Street the other night, and she was less than enthused by the price I quoted her.

She owns a 1-bedroom-plus-den condo, without parking, on the 4th floor starring directly at a brick wall belonging to the building next door.  Her condo is worth about $255,000, and she “needs” to get $280,000.  I found myself negotiating with her, which is never a good start, and then she told me that she’s willing to sell all her furniture to get “her price.”

I told her the honest truth: I don’t think anybody will be interested in your furniture.

The two major purchases that most condominium owners make when they buy their first ‘home’ are couch and television.

When I bought my condo a few years back, I immediately treated myself to 42-inch plasma TV, and a $1000 Stephen & Chris couch.

It’s part of the fun!

I spent weeks reading consumer reviews on various televisions and interviewing my electronically-abled buddies in order to make the right choice.  I went with a Maxent television from Costco for $799 (including wall mount and delivery), and I stand by my decision since the same Panasonic is about $2,200.

I went to all the low-end, “bargain-basement” furniture shops to look for the perfect couch, as well as the high-end specialty stores that line King Street East where I live.

Purchasing your first house or condo is among the most exciting purchases you will ever make, and moving in to that property and furnishing it is a laborious but enjoyable task!

You buy an end table from Urban Barn and your kitchen-ware from Ikea.  Maybe your couch comes from Leon’s and your bed from City Mattress, and then you get a few trinkets from Pottery Barn and Homesense.  Anybody been to Giant Carpet lately?  I hear they have really good….um….thread counts…

Sure, we’re all looking for deals and ways to save money, but there is some give-and-take with what is purchased new and what is purchased used or “borrowed” indefinitely from family and friends.

So I told my would-be seller at 255 Richmond Street that I’m not sure selling the furniture would actually help her achieve “her price.”

She begged to differ.

She told me that her couch was worth a thousand dollars, and her television set cost her $900….four years ago.

I told her that maybe not everybody wants a green couch, or a leather couch, or a ruffled couch, or a green leather ruffled couch.  If she paid $1,000 for it, maybe a buyer would throw her a hundred bucks.  Or, maybe they wouldn’t want it at all.

She walked through the condo pointing out pieces of furniture that she could sell, and it reminded me of the old Wheel of Fortune from the 1980’s when contestants selected items from a staged room of a house as Pat Sajak subtracted the cost of each item from their total winnings.

“And I’ll take the chaise-lounger for $275……oh and that picture-frame with the seashells for $55…that would look lovely in my living room, Pat.”

In the end, this lady figured that all of her furniture and furnishings could bring in an extra, $10,000, and I swallowed my pride and told her that maybe she could sell a couple items to a buyer, only if that buyer were interested.

I told her that most people prefer an empty condo; a blank canvas that they can paint with whatever colors or styles they so choose.

So she switched gears, and asked me what the condo would rent for; both furnished and unfurnished.

Leasing a furnished condo is a different story.

On the one hand, there are people out there looking for a condo where they can simply walk-in, and walk-out.

There are people who have yet to accumulate all the necessary items that we live with every day.

But these people are few and far between, and probably 99/100 renters are looking for an unfurnished condo.

I told her that she could get $1450 for the condo unfurnished, and maybe $1500 furnished only IF the buyer was interested….which they probably wouldn’t be.

Again, it comes back to that “excitement” of moving into a new home.  Even if people are leasing, they still think of the space as their “home” and want to paint, style, and furnish the space according to their own tastes and preferences.

Some of my clients have leased condos and purchased new televisions, couches, beds, chairs, kitchen appliances, and the like.

Just because somebody is leasing doesn’t mean that person can’t afford to buy all their own furnishings.

In my personal opinion, it’s much harder to lease a furnished condo than it is to lease a vacant one.

Yet owners still have this idea that their furnished condo is going to bring in more money each month!  And when you suggest that they pack up all their items and put it in storage, they balk at the idea, and say that the person moving in must live with their furnishings and treat them well.

Now we’re opening a whole other can of worms!

Let’s talk about what’s really happening here: owner/landlords want to leave their furnishings behind, because it’s easier on them.  But in this market, shouldn’t we do everything possible to attract renters?  Even if that includes packing up the contents of the house or condo that you plan to lease out?

The bottom line is, people would rather hang out with their own friends than your friends, and they’d most likely rather sit on their new furniture than the crap you left behind.

And if your used furniture really has so much value, then sell it on Craigslist and prove me wrong…