Furnished or unfurnished for a four bed near a mid-size campus

Question

I'm looking at a plain four bedroom house eight blocks off a mid-size state school and the two comps on the street are doing opposite things. One is furnished, beds and desks in every room, and it rents by the bed for about 40% more per bed than the unfurnished one down the block that rents to a single group on one lease.

The furnished one also gets turned every single August, which means somebody is patching walls and replacing a mattress or two every year. The unfurnished one has the same tenants for three years running because they were juniors when they moved in and never left.

So the case for furnished is more gross rent and you're competing with purpose-built product that already has furniture. The case for unfurnished is lower capital in the door, fewer arguments about what a broken desk is worth, and turns that happen every few years instead of every year.

I genuinely don't know which one I'd rather own. If you've done both I want to hear which one you'd repeat.

tashaford30 · Answer

The number I'd want before voting is what the furniture package actually costs you per bed and how many years it survives. If it's four grain a bed from a warehouse store and it lasts five years, the higher rent probably eats it easily. If you're replacing mattresses annually because the deposit never covers it, the spread narrows fast and you've bought yourself an August of labor.

nicole_adeyemi · Answer

Worth separating two things you've bundled together. Furnished versus unfurnished is one choice. By the bed versus one group lease is a different choice, and you can do either combination. I've seen unfurnished houses leased by the bed with joint and several language and it works fine as long as the parental guarantee is in place. The turn cost follows the lease structure more than the furniture.

tylerbrooks9 · Answer

Parcel's split is the part I'd hold onto. I went unfurnished on a three bed because I wanted the version that doesn't need me in town every August, and the tradeoff was real. My gross is lower than the furnished house two doors down. My phone also doesn't ring in July about a wardrobe door. If the goal is income without a second job, unfurnished on a group lease is the calmer shape.

diane_kowalski · Answer

I lean furnished for one reason nobody's said yet, which is that furnished is what the institutional product on that campus offers. If a 600 bed building goes up a mile from you with beds and desks included, the unfurnished house is competing on price alone. That's fine at a growing school. At a school with flat or falling enrollment you're the first one to discount.

Furnished or unfurnished for a four bed near a mid-size campus

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