Furnishing Student Rental with IKEA Furniture

[Chris Welch]

It's a prerequisite in my area (Binghamton, NY) to furnish student rentals. I'm competing with two different groups: New apartment buildings with top rents and new commercial furniture and older properties with 40%-50% of the rent and yard sale furniture.

I decided to split the balance and furnish my houses with matching IKEA furniture, at least for the first few years until I can afford the good, indestructible commercial stuff. IKEA stuff shows great when it's new, is all matching which students like, and I can order replacement parts online.

I purchased: Sofas, Coffee Tables, Beds, Desks and Dressers.

Does anyone have experience with this? I'm trying to put together a capital replacement budget and wanted to get a sense for how many years I can get out of the stuff I bought. I'm estimating 4 years to be conservative.

Thanks!