Renting furniture to home stagers like real estate agents, developers, and interior designers is a lucrative business model. It is a high-demand industry with the opportunity for collaboration, long-term rentals, and expansion into further services and markets. In addition, it gives you a chance to be creative, curate your collection, and sell furniture on the backend.
Home staging is an essential aspect of the real estate industry, as it helps real estate agents and developers to showcase properties. This gives potential buyers a feel for what the home could look like with furniture and helps create a warm and welcoming environment. It can be hard to envision living in an empty home, but staging removes this obstacle and makes purchasing decisions easier.
You need to know many things to start renting furniture to home stagers. From understanding the home staging market to learning how to network, effectively market your business, maintain client relationships, and negotiate deals with suppliers. But first, let’s discuss some advantages of starting a furniture rental business for home stagers.
Contents
- Advantages of renting furniture to home stagers
- Essential elements for successful furniture rental
- Marketing your furniture rental business
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Advantages of renting furniture to home stagers
Starting a furniture rental business for home stagers offers several advantages that make it a lucrative business model. There are many ways you can create recurring revenue streams, differentiate yourself from competitors, collaborate with real estate professionals, and expand your services to increase the revenue generated from your furniture rentals.
1. High demand for rental furniture
There is always a high demand for rental furniture in home staging, which is constantly growing. Renting out furniture when selling a property improves the home’s appeal while being cost-effective and convenient. It becomes much easier to sell a property when potential buyers envision themselves living there, and furniture is the key to achieving this outcome.
“Home staging has become a real industry. I often look at an empty property listing, going, ‘What are they thinking? They’re leaving so much money on the table.’ Because when a buyer walks into a staged home and really falls in love and their heart starts pounding, they’re going to make a much better offer.” - Meridith Baer, Meridith Baer Home.
Knowing this and thinking about how many new homes are being built and developed worldwide. The need for furniture to stage all these homes is high because people want to sell their properties as quickly as possible and for the highest offer. Many companies will buy furniture to stage homes, but this is becoming less and less affordable, and they are starting to rent furniture more and more.
2. Potential for recurring revenue
Many home staging projects require furniture rental for several months, depending on their scope. Developers will often create a show home as a marketing tool for the homes they are building. Sometimes homes take a few months to sell, and they need the furniture for an extended period. This creates the opportunity for long-term and recurring rentals.
If you can establish a good relationship with local real estate professionals, you can also encourage repeat business. People love to work with reliable people who deliver on their promises at a price they deem affordable. So, if you provide furniture for one home, you can provide it for hundreds of others if you impress the people you work with, creating recurring revenue.
3. Stand out from your competitors
The scope of the furniture rental market makes it easy to stand out from competitors. You can specialize in different styles and niches to differentiate your business from others. By offering high-quality curated furniture collections, you can stand out from those who only offer basic pieces that, while they may do the job, don’t generate much inspiration for buyers.
You can choose from a massive range of furniture pieces to home stagers in various styles. For example, you may decide to specialize in minimalist furniture, or you could specialize in wild and unique designs. The possibilities are endless, and the range of furniture and services you can offer makes it easy to stand out from your competition and generate more leads.
4. Opportunities for collaboration
There are many moving parts when it comes to selling a home, which means there are many opportunities for you to collaborate with others. Developers hire real estate agents to sell their homes, and they need to rent furniture to stage them for potential buyers. You may collaborate with them directly or with an interior designer they’ve hired to furnish the homes.
Being open to collaboration allows you to work with a much wider range of people and companies than if you target top-level real estate professionals. It’s also important to note that you don’t need to just focus on those looking to stage homes. You can expand your market to include offices, event organizers, and more if you offer the kind of furniture those businesses are looking to rent.
5. Possibilities for growth and expansion
Leading on from the previous tip, there is a huge growth potential when you start offering furniture rentals for home staging. As mentioned above, many businesses and people are looking to rent furniture, whether they’re real estate professionals, event planners, offices, trade shows, pop-up stores, or regular people who need to rent furniture temporarily.
In addition, there isn’t a limit to the types of furniture you can offer. Of course, there are standard things like sofas, tables, chairs, TV stands, etc., but you can also offer fake plants, unique artwork, lighting, and much more. This gives you almost infinite possibilities for growing your services and making your offering more complete, covering all bases.
Essential elements for successful furniture rental
Starting a furniture rental business for home stagers requires careful planning and attention to detail. You need to know the market, what companies want to rent, source quality furniture, network effectively, have excellent customer service, and run streamlined operations. These elements are essential to running a successful furniture rental business for home stagers and more.
1. Understanding the home staging market
You must have a thorough understanding of the home staging market, including the types of properties being staged and the preferences of potential buyers. This will help you to create an appropriate business plan and prevent you from wasting time going down the wrong path. It is also crucial when marketing your business and networking with professionals.
As with any new business, preparation is essential for success, especially in complicated markets such as home staging. Take some time to learn the ins and outs of the market, speak with industry professionals, and read up on current trends. This will help give you an edge and ensure you are investing in the right furniture and prospects from the launch of your business.
2. Quality furniture inventory
The heart of any rental business is the products; if you’re renting to home stagers, your product is furniture. It’s essential to invest in high-quality pieces that will appeal to your target audience. The people staging expensive homes will have different requirements from those staging affordable homes, so you must consider them when purchasing inventory.
You should also seek deals and speak to furniture manufacturers to get the best prices possible. At first, you may want to pick up some used furniture that you can either clean up or restore before getting into more expensive items. One of the biggest mistakes in rental businesses is miscalculating the demand and spending more than you can afford on inventory.
3. Effective marketing and networking
Marketing and networking are essential if you want to find success in furniture rentals for home stagers. You must be visible where your potential customers will be and build relationships with real estate professionals and interior designers. Knowing how to utilize social media and other digital platforms to reach your target audience is also essential.
You can establish your brand and meet with professionals by being present where your potential customers hang out. This is invaluable in an industry like real estate, where everybody knows everyone. You should seek to form relationships with key players in your local market to maximize your visibility and speed up brand awareness through word-of-mouth.
4. Excellent customer service and satisfaction
Excellent customer service and satisfaction are vital to success in furniture rentals for home stagers. The people you will work with within this industry will have high expectations for products, delivery, and experience. It is essential to get these right if you want to get repeat business from a customer and encourage positive word-of-mouth referrals.
There are many ways to achieve this, and they start with training your staff to meet these expectations. You must ensure that your furniture is appropriately cleaned and maintained between rentals. In addition, you can offer extra services and curate packages to make rental decisions easier. For example, you can create a “living room” package with all the essential items at a discounted rate than renting them separately.
5. Streamline operations and logistics
You must have efficient operations and logistics in place within your furniture rental business. This will help to ensure timely delivery and setup of rental furniture, as well as smooth and efficient returns. You can do this with rental software like Booqable, which allows you to manage all your inventory, orders, customers, and payments in one place.
To improve the efficiency of your operations and logistics, you can implement barcodes within your inventory. This will allow you and your staff to scan items in and out of your warehouse and ensure the correct items are delivered to customers. A knock-on effect is reduced human error and increased accountability, as you can prevent mistakes and see who is responsible.
Start with building your rental website
Every new rental business starts with a website to get their first bookings.
Marketing your furniture rental business
Marketing your furniture rental business for home stagers will be crucial to your success, so you need to know to do it effectively. You can choose to focus your marketing efforts in many areas, including building a website, utilizing social media, networking with real estate professionals, offering promotions and discounts, and creating a referral program.
1. Building a website
The number one thing every rental business needs to market itself is an established online presence. Your website will be the center of this and can help you showcase your furniture inventory online and reach a wider audience. You can show off your work with previous customers and share your story with potential customers to sell your services to them.
You should also consider offering online booking on your website to make it easier for customers to browse and reserve furniture. This can be done with an integration for WordPress or Squarespace or with a complete rental website builder like the one offered by Booqable. You can choose to accept payments at the checkout or encourage customers to submit a request for a quote.
2. Utilizing social media
As you undoubtedly know, social media is a powerful tool; no business can market itself without using it. It will pay to research where your target audience most likely hangs out. Older audiences will be found on LinkedIn and Facebook, while younger audiences will be on Twitter and Instagram. You can, of course, choose to have a presence on all these networks.
It is also important not to dismiss short video platforms like TikTok as businesses have been able to leverage it into success. Some video ideas include showcasing new products, doing a walk-around of a setup you have done, sharing interior design tips and tricks, and showing off weird and wonderful products.
3. Networking with real estate professionals
Most of your customers will come from your network, so building strong relationships with real estate professionals will be essential to generating new leads. It can lead to regular referrals and collaboration opportunities to help you shape and grow your portfolio. Plus, everyone knows everyone in the real estate industry, so having some people on the inside is ideal.
When networking with real estate agents and interior designers, it’s essential to be professional, knowledgeable, and focused. Offer to host a workshop or seminar that provides valuable information on home staging and the benefits of using furniture rental services. Building relationships with these professionals can help you establish your business as a trusted provider.
4. Offering promotions and discounts
Offering promotions and discounts is a powerful marketing tool that can help you attract new customers and grow your furniture rental business for home staging. Promotions and discounts can incentivize real estate agents, interior designers, and potential customers to use your services and spread the word about your business.
Consider offering a discount on the first rental for new customers or a referral program that incentivizes your existing customers to refer others to your business. You can also offer special promotions for real estate agents and interior designers to incentivize them to use your services and promote your business to their clients.
5. Creating a referral program
A referral program is a valuable tool for growing your furniture rental business for home staging. You can reach new markets by incentivizing your customers to refer others to your business. A well-designed referral program can provide a steady stream of new leads, helping you grow your customer base and increase your revenue over time.
To create an effective referral program, offering meaningful and relevant incentives to your customers is essential. Consider offering discounts on future rentals, a credit towards their next rental, or a gift card for a local restaurant or retailer. Ensure that the incentives are easy to understand and straightforward, so your customers can quickly see the value.
Make a house a home
Starting a furniture rental business for home staging offers many opportunities for growth and success. By offering a wide range of high-quality furniture and providing exceptional customer service, you can differentiate your business from the competition and establish yourself as a trusted provider of rental furniture.
Networking with real estate agents and interior designers and offering promotions and discounts can help you expand your customer base and reach new markets. Additionally, a referral program can incentivize your customers to refer others to your business, providing you with a steady stream of new leads.
