Rental homes

You're renting a home in SL...which appeals more: furnished or unfurnished?

Personally I would prefer unfurnished. The renter's style may differ from the owners. Also half the fun of a new place is decorating it. As long as the prim allowance is higher for the unfurnished.

Honey, we see about an even split. For the first time renter, unfurnished is popular because they don't have to buy anything else. Also, a lot of new residents don't pay attention to prim counts when they buy furniture, and can quickly exceed their prim allowance.

The more experienced resident (or those who just love decorating) will prefer unfurnished.

We rent our places either way. Same price, but the prim allowance for furnished units is much smaller.

Yeah, I figured I'd throw it out there to see if there was a heavy tendency one way or another. Of course, then there's decision - renting land: House or no house? lol

I love the unfurnished home myself. I get my kicks trying to build a theme of furniture to fit the style of the home.

It's about an even split when this topic comes up.

We (Necros Community) also provide rentals furnished and not (for the same price per prim). We initially provide them furnished and let people know if they want anything removed or swapped out with something else one of us has in our insane inventories, it's easily done.

Curiously, most people keep our furnishings in place and then add their own final touches. Although we had one tenant who asked us to remove an interior wall to open her place up even more -- thank God this is SL and that was so easily done! ha ha

Our rentals are themed and we originally use furniture to match the theme and the rental, so I suspect that's why few people ask for changes from us. But we're always game.

And everyone is different in SL -- which is what keeps things fun!

And I'm getting way too chatty again. *slinks off to see if SL is back up*

If I'm renting a house/apt. DEFINITELY want it unfurnished.

However, now that we own a home, if renting we just want land.

Not only unfurnished but bare of house too. I'd far rather rent an empty parcel of land and build my own home. Also parcel control (eg setting my own media, ban & accss lists etc) is essential.

I'm surprised to hear the 50/50 split thing. I do very few furnished units, because most of my tenants seem all excited about the decorating. It's what makes the place theirs.

It's also too hard for me to manage. I don't have the time or decorating sense to do it myself, so I have a good friend with awesome taste who I pay to do it sometimes. But inevitably, the tenants want to pick and choose the pieces to stay or go. Then if they leave, the original setup is ruined. It's just not worth the time it takes.

The thing about renting bare land is that it's very very difficult to stand out in the rental market if you're only offering server space, and not bringing some kind of creativity or labor of love into the business.

I don't do any furnishing for the same reason. I also offer choice of wall colors and flooring so people can get exactly the styles they want. I even build my rentals as large open spaces, so that people can decide if they want interior walls or not. (Which we install. I do offer free fireplaces, but even then, everyone's design taste is so different, that I can't create enough variations to please everyone.

Approximately 1/3 of my offerings are furnished, mostly entry level units. I find that most people who are willing to spend more are also willing to decorate because they are also willing to spend more on furniture.

For about a year, I didn't offer furnished units but after some prodding I finally made some. I've been offering them at different levels now, since some people appreciate having some nice furniture to begin with and then adding their own.

Widest appeal : a bare empty lot, where the tenant can put whatever they want on it.

Next most popular : a nice house and nice landscaping, unfurnished. Maybe a few special features like a pool or beach/dock access. Experienced residents already have the furnishings they like - especially for the bedrooms...

Furnishings that fit a specific theme are more likely not to be returned than stuff that is readily replaced with common furnishings.

Furnished apartments are usually only rented by newbies who haven't yet found a cheap low-prim cottage and other personal stuff. People largely just looking for a private place to change their clothes and appearance, or to talk to friends.