Alcove recommends keeping bedrooms unfurnished to simplify maintenance and turnover, but landlords have the option to remove, make removable, or keep existing bedroom furniture.
If your bedrooms are currently furnished, either for vacation rentals or personal use, you have three options:
- Remove the furniture (Recommended)
- Keep the bedroom furniture, but make it removable upon request.
- Keep the furniture
1. Remove the furniture (Recommended)
We strongly recommend keeping bedrooms unfurnished. Alcove is a long-term leasing platform catering to housemates who typically stay for 12-15 months and bring their own bedroom furniture.
Providing bedroom furniture means potentially accepting responsibility for maintaining and removing the furniture upon tenant request. This can create additional work and costs for landlords. When tenants move out, landlords may need to clean, repair, or replace damaged furniture before the next tenant moves in. Keeping bedrooms unfurnished helps avoid these tasks and costs, making the turnover process quicker and more efficient.
2. Keep the bedroom furniture, but make it removable upon request.
During the listing creation process, you can specify that bedrooms come furnished but that you are willing to remove the furniture if requested by the tenant.
Alcove listing creation flow
3. Keep the furniture
You can choose to keep the bedroom furniture. However, please note that as a landlord, you will be responsible for maintaining and removing the furniture if requested by the tenant. This can lead to additional work and costs, particularly when tenants move out and furniture needs to be cleaned, repaired, or replaced.
Additionally, we have not found data supporting the idea that furnished bedrooms increase rent. By observing multiple identical units, some with furnished bedrooms and some without, the data did not suggest that furnished bedrooms increased rent with statistical significance.