Issue with furnished rental

[Mahmuda L.]

Hi, I have a fully furnished old 5b2b rental property. I am finding it very challenging to rent the whole house given it's furnished. I spend about 20k furnishing this place. Property managers do want the business so they don't say no to this house. But when I sign contract, they start listing, it sits there with barely any showing. I noticed this because I had this house listed twice by two different companies over the last few years. I had to change the business model and rent furnished place to students myself. It became too much to handle so I want to rent to family again. I am not sure what to do with these furnitures. My family is abroad and plan to be here in few years. I was hoping to transfer those furnitures when I can buy a house for my family when they come. It also sounds very expensive to disassemble all these 20+ furnitures. I live out of state so can't do it myself. I have some relatives near the rental but it's too much to disassemble. And frankly where would I put these especially 5 mattresses. I considered storage at relative's place but apparently that became a bit touchy subject. I don't have any storage other than the basement of this rental. But that's accessible by tenant and I don't think it will be secured. I can't lock the basement door because there is main circuit board and in unit washer dryer. So I am simply stuck with these furnitures. I am losing potential rent that I need to pay mortgage given family don't usually want furnished house. And I don't feel comfortable losing all these furnitures. And selling them on marketplace is way too much for me given I am almost thousands of miles away from the house. It's hard to find management company who will remove these furnitures and compensate me for the price. I don't know what to do. Can you please suggest.

[Richard F.]

Aloha,

Have all of the furniture moved to a storage facility, depending on what is available in that market. PODS are simple, they deliver a big box, you have your people pack and load it, they move the POD to a storage facility or ship it to wherever you want it. Realistically evaluate the REAL value of the furnishings, to determine if it even makes sense to store it based on the monthly storage cost. 

Unless you are in a heavy vacation rental location, fully furnished units are an open invitation to transient tenants that have little or nothing of their own. You need a family unit to move in with lots of furniture and knick knacks, filling the house with people and stuff. They are much less likely to move in the next 5 years (or 3, if Military). Additionally, furnishings often require maintenance or repair at turnover. Stains, tears, wear, all happen in real life, but I'm not going to want to move into someone else's tacky furnishings.

Of course, now school is starting in most locales, so it will be harder to find a family interested in moving with kids in school.