Is It Better To Rent Furnished, or Unfurnished?

We don’t manage furnished homes in most cases. Given today’s rents, a long-term strategy appears to be a better move for all but the most committed rental investors in specific locations. 

In our view AirBnB is a lot of work and risk for very similar bottom line profit, in average cases.  However for our purposes AirBnB and vacation type rentals are a different conversation 

We don’t handle leases under 3 months at all (occupancy tax implications), and rarely under 8 months. So for our purposes we are discussing long-term furnished, versus long term unfurnished, or short term which is where you tend to see much higher top line rates (after expenses is another story).  

While there are personal situations where it makes sense to rent furnished, from a strictly financial perspective it’s much better not to. In situations where an owner plans to move back in after only a short period, it would probably be the superior decision, but not clearly. 

In general, furnished units lead to higher turnover, more vacancy, more touch up paint, more cleaning, and more overall risk. Also furniture degrades much faster than real property. 

We discuss the issue much more in depth here