For the private landlord which would you choose for renting homes?
As a private landlord you have to make a choice in whether you want to let your property unfurnished or furnished. If you provide furnishings you can currently benefit from a 10% "wear and tear" allowance against rental income. But balanced against this, will the tax saving be sufficient to pay for replacement furniture? Perhaps more importantly you should consider what tenants would prefer Unfurnished or Furnished property to rent? Simple2rent.co.uk has found some research which may help to answer this question.
Firstly we found that in 2005 an overall 75% of privately rented homes are let unfurnished, this might suggest it is a good idea not to furnish your property in order to maximise the market potential. Well this might be true, but then you also need to consider factors such as location and the type or number of tenants occupying your rental property. For example, the private rental sector can be split into the following categories:
Single people = 32%
Couples, no children = 25%
Couples, with children = 15%
Single parent, with children = 11%
Other multi-person households = 17%
From this we can deduce that the biggest rental market is for single occupancy properties, but what about that question of unfurnished or furnished? Well this breaks down as follows:
Single people = 77% rent unfurnished
Couples, no children = 78% rent unfurnished
Couples, with children = 87% rent unfurnished
Single parent, with children = 87% rent unfurnished
Other multi-person households = 50% rent unfurnished
Now, from this data we can start to see some variations in possible preference for furnished or unfurnished accommodation. "Possible" because what we do not know for sure is how much this is driven by tenant demand and how much by private landlord supply. But, to continue the theme, if you are renting in the multi-person market then there is little difference in demand whether you choose to furnish the accommodation or not. However if you are targeting those with children (40% of rental properties) then a very large percentage of these (87%) are renting unfurnished accommodation.
