Updating post from Reddit.
Have you found there's a difference between renting with furnished and unfurnished?
New tenants prefer furnished properties since they have nothing, but experienced renters favour unfurnished options because they already own items and are fed up with cheap landlord fixtures breaking.
Landlords prefer unfurnished units as they incur less ongoing maintenance costs. Some landlords, such as councils and local authorities, go so far as to rip out perfectly good carpets, leaving the units bare to avoid ongoing liabilities.
More scope for headaches. More wear and tear. More scope for damage from bad tenants (malicious or otherwise).
How much more rent?
Precisely. With demand on par either way, it's hardly worth 50 or so a month more.
Personally I'd stress the whole time if I had someone elses furniture, at least with mine if I break it thats on me
No brainer to me. Far more work involved in maintaining a property that’s furnished, in terms of inventory checking and replacing worn out furniture when needed. The difference in rent between furnished and unfurnished is very small, and not worth it.
Arguably, tenants may stay longer if they have to move all their furniture in and out each time they move.
Unfurnished, there are no problems with them braking things and complaining that you need to buy them new.
Unfurnished. Absolute bare minimum - heating system and a cooker. I'd even prefer not to provide a fridge/freezer and definitely not a washing machine. Tenants in my experience don't look after things that aren't theirs.
washing machine and blinds are the only addition i got.
Both have plenty of demand. Only difference is charging more for furnished.
I have rented out both, it depends on your target market.
The first one is located near a hospital and attracts primarily hospital staff, particularly doctors in training and (international) nurses. Doctors in training often rotate long distances every 12-24 months or so and it does not always make sense for them to move with all of their belonging if they don't have a family, instead they look for a furnished place to share with a colleague. Similarly, international or newly qualified nurses usually don't have family with them and they don't want the cost and headache of having to purchase everything.
The second one is a family home in a residential area. Most UK based families have their own stuff and want unfurnished. You might encounter some newer to UK families looking for furnished but in my experience they often are not willing to pay extra for it (furnishing and maintaining furnishing is expensive) and in our case they family only wanted a six month lease which was a no for me. I also had been in a situation (as a LL and tenant) where tenants wanted to get rid of the minimal furnishing that was in the property so it was a choice of binning them or paying for storage so partially furnishing is not worth it either in many cases.
Personally I do provide major appliances including washing machine rather than risk tenants messing around with attempted self installation or damage property moving in bulky appliances like fridges.
Unfurnished least If something breaks won’t be loads fees will be all my own.