Warehouse Furniture Rentals

Are you interested in solely focusing your design business around homes for sale? Are you a real estate agent who wants a certification in home staging to add to your portfolio? Then your going to be on the side of the business that is going to move a lot faster than working with a client one-on-one for personal space. When it comes time to staging properties for sale, you're going to have a limited time frame to come in, do the work, and function around the schedule of the contract. Since the clients won't be keeping the furniture, they aren't going to expect/want to pay the full retail cost of purchasing furniture. It's going to be up to you to provide the furniture in these scenarios. Of course, the client will still be paying for the expenses of the furniture, it'll just be a different process from purchasing custom pieces. This aspect of your job consists of furniture rental. You can "rent" your own furniture that you own for your business to your clients, or you can team up with local warehouses that offer furniture rental, and partner with them to supply the products you need for each house.

Furniture rental could be a home's best asset. A vacant house without furniture appears cold, barren, and has echoes. Potential buyers find it difficult to visualize how and where their furniture would fit the space. Believe it or not, although rooms may look larger when empty, they are more appealing when styled and furnished for maximum use. In fact, studies have shown that properties that are staged with furniture sell faster and for more than those that are vacant. 

It's best to start searching via Google for local warehouses prior to kick starting your business. You want to know all of the rental warehouses available in your market, what requirements they have to build a business relationship with them, and what the general pricing is for their furnishings/decor - per room. You'll also want to review their contracts and policies to have a better understanding of how deliveries and pick-ups work. Some charge on a monthly basis, but some can accommodate daily or weekly rentals. Knowing their policies will allow you to implement similar policies within your contracts, so they go hand in hand. Some warehouses also offer discount programs. Particularly student discounts if you are in school.

Renting furniture has some clear advantages. You don't need to have a huge investment up front and you don't need to store the furniture or transport it to the home. That convenience allows you to focus your time where its best spent – staging the home. But rental furniture can be limiting, and a lot of home staging professionals find rental furniture to be unattractive. It tends to be neutral, often blandly contemporary, and it can be hard to find a perfect piece for the striking look you envision. Another disadvantage is that most rental companies require a three-month minimum. Most listings, depending on the market, may sell well before 3 months. In the long run, you'll pay more for each piece of furniture than you would buying it.

If you choose to rent instead of owning your own furniture/decor collection, you’ll find that rentals are only a necessary part of your role if you work with mostly vacant listings or new builds. If a home is for sale but already occupied, you may be able to get around by using a lot of what the current homeowner already has - unless most of the furnishings are in rough shape. Of course, rentals aren’t an option if you are staging for a client who owns the home and plans to live there and wants a new touch to their space. In this scenario, you’ll buy specific pieces for the house, within your client’s budget.