It doesn’t take a professional realtor with years of experience to know that the list of things that can affect the value of your home is nearly endless. For sure there are the big obvious ones – location, roof condition, insulation, etc. – but most of us, if we have any experience buying or selling homes, know that there are a million smaller things that can send the value soaring or plummeting. Yet there is one value-affecting factor that might come as something of a surprise – furniture.
It’s odd to think that furniture can increase or decrease the value of your home. For one thing, you take a great deal of it away with you when you move out, and the new owners will bring their own when they move in. Nevertheless, furniture can indeed affect the value of a home. CityHome Collective, a Utah real estate brokerage specializing in luxury homes, advises the reason for this is all about first impressions on the buyer. The good thing about this, if you’re selling your home, is that you can strategically use your furniture to increase the value of your home.
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What Kind of Furniture?
However, if you plan on using furniture strategically to increase your home’s value, you should be aware that not all furniture is so easy to move in and out of the home. Tables, chairs, sofas, and wardrobes are one thing, but other types of furniture – or more accurately home furnishings – are much more installed into the home and will probably be left behind when you move out.
Selling Furniture
If the furniture in your home is fashionable and “ties the room together”, as interior decorators are so fond of saying, then a good move is to try and sell it to potential buyers. This is a method in which furniture can increase your home’s value in two distinct ways. On the one hand, it can boost that all-important “first impression”, which will allow you – or more likely, the estate agent – to add a little to the asking price of your home. Then, in addition to this, you can offer to sell the furniture to the buyer on top of what they pay for the property itself. Of course, this only works if they actually like the furniture.
How Furniture Affects the Value of Your Home
But setting aside the possibility of selling furniture, how does it actually affect the value of your home? There are several factors that come into play here, including:
The Furniture’s Condition
Naturally, the condition of your furniture makes all the difference in the world – and just in the way, you would expect. If you want to hike that value, make sure you have a polishing, dusting, and washing routine in place long before any viewings.
Does it Fit the Rest of the Décor?
One sure-fire way to make a bad first impression on a buyer is if the furniture in your rooms totally clashes with the general interior design. Maybe consider removing anything old-fashioned or ugly before any viewings.
Is There Too Much/Little of It
Rooms that are overly sparse or cluttered give a very poor first impression and can decrease the value of a home. This is naturally an avoidable problem, so think strategically about how you arrange the furniture before you sell the home.
In one sense, furniture is as much a part of the home as anything else. It is not necessarily part of the property though. Perhaps this is the most important thing to keep in mind when the time comes to sell your home.