Leasing furniture – the new trend!

In December, I was interviewed for an article that appeared last week on the CNBC website.   The subject was “leasing furniture.”    Unfortunately, the article discusses a “couch” rather than a sofa and you know how much I dislike that word.  Most of what we discussed did not go to print as they were promoting specific brands, but I thought the interview questions were very interesting and wanted to share them with you.  

Q1: Are you seeing a meaningful rise in interest in leasing home furnishings instead of buying them? If so, what are the key factors driving this? To what extent are age (millennials), lifestyle (mobility), and income figuring in these decisions?

A1: In my business, there has but not as much from the high-end luxury buyers, but more with the millennials and the next generation. They’re all very unsettled from what’s happening to our world in the last number of years. They are not only into leasing furniture, but they’re not so interested in purchasing property either. And they tend to want to be more in mixed-use environments and developments, where they can live, work and play, without needing a car. These are trends I’m seeing all over the map – that I’m reading about and hearing about in my own work. 

One of my very wealthy clients’ grandsons moved out to California, but even when they were here – he graduated from Princeton – and he and his girlfriend rented an apt and leased furniture because they said, “We don’t know what we want to do. We don’t want to be married to anything and we want to be sustainable.  If you lease your furniture and it goes back, it gets reused. This generation is very much into that “Reuse, repurpose” mentality to save the planet for them and their kids. I’m finding that a lot of people are looking at leasing with a bent on sustainability. 

I’m seeing other trends from high-end clients that are very shocking but not leasing furniture. They used to be interested in heritage furniture, which is responsibly sourced, high- quality, craftsmanship from more bespoke brands. And now they want to change things more often – “We don’t want to spend a lot of money on furniture.”  It’s mind-blowing. I’ve been doing this for 30 years and this was not the case until five or six years ago when Wayfair exploded and more of these very low-priced but “trending-design” outlets came out who are hiring well-known designers to design their low-priced offerings.  I really DISLIKE it because the quality is not there, and they don’t care because they’d rather change style and furnishings sooner than later and not feel bad about all the money they spent.

Q: What income range are you talking about?

A: In terms of project size or their net worth? They’ll do huge renovations, where they’ll spend money on the renovation of the house or the apartments but they’re not interested in spending IN the furnishings budget as much. These are people who make multi-millions per year.  So, it’s an extraordinary shift from the paradigm that was. I think that China and all the other imports have a great deal to do with it

We used to be moving toward what I call a more responsible society. To be responsible for our planet, for our choices, including sustainability.  And now what I’m seeing is more of a disposable society. I see a lot of this in the way that people would like to purchase. It’s very disturbing. I don’t work with these types of clients, but a lot of clients that I’ve worked with in the past come back and now they subscribe to this new paradigm.  Many times, I’m not aware of this until we’re in the first client meeting.

I’ve had to edit my Letter of Agreement and my initial conversations with clients to discuss this new paradigm, and it’s very important to me that we be responsible and that we preserve our planet. 

Q:  Where can you go to lease furniture?

A:  If you’re looking at leasing furniture, there are options. In Miami, on Biscayne Blvd, we had a big CORT showroom for furniture leasing, and now it’s gone. I think a lot of leasing companies have opted to warehouse and use stagers versus having big showrooms  where you go and select furniture, because they tend to have millennials and newer generational buyers who prefer to do everything online.

Showrooms are less prevalent and websites and the use of stagers and staging companies have become more prevalent. Also, digital rendering has made it much easier for a client to visualize what could be without actually going shopping for furniture; seeing, feeling, and touching the merchandise.  For me personally, I don’t think there’s any substitute for actually being in-person and feeling and sitting in and test-driving furnishings, but there are clients that are not interested in that. And when that happens, I actually have disclaimers that they sign because I’m not going to take responsibility if something’s not comfortable. With quality control at an all-time low, I’m simply not willing to purchase furnishings that are made with low-quality materiality and I make sure that my clients understand this because I don’t want my name behind a specification that’s not up to my standards as a quality piece of furniture.

Q: Are there demographics where you are seeing people committed to investing in higher quality furniture?

A: There are clients that still see the value [in high-quality furniture], I think baby boomer clients especially.   Although, I have clients I’ve stayed close with for 25 years . These are clients that bought $100K rugs. And when I last saw them, they had moved from California to Florida. When informed that she purchased furniture from ROOMS TO GO, which is the lowest of low-quality, and that she didn’t care because she might only have five or six years left to live since she is 82.   I said, “But you may have 20 years left and now you’re living with poor quality furniture. Why would you want to do that?” It’s interesting how buying patterns have shifted.

Q2: To what extent has Covid accelerated or impeded this trend?

A2: That I can’t speak to with certainty. I think Covid is a part of it because a lot of people are scared. Everything is very transitional right now. Covid has so affected supply chains with regard to purchasing furniture. I’m waiting 25 to 26 weeks for furniture purchased from trusted vendors. So, someone who has that need for immediate gratification – maybe they’re being relocated or whatever the case may be -- they might find leasing furniture attractive because it feeds this need for immediate gratification.

I have a client right now who bought a weekend house. She’s been my client since 2004 and I’ve done multiple renovations for her apt on CPW. Now they have this house in the mountains. She wanted to get in and use it for the summer, so she rented furniture and then contacted me.  She made a good decision and is able to enjoy her home while she waits for the quality furnishings that we’ve ordered. She didn’t consult me on the rentals and they’re quite pedestrian, but at least she knew and had the wherewithal not to buy low quality goods.  She knew she needed her designer to come in because we’ve worked together for so long.  The rental furniture was temporary. What she purchased was of extraordinarily nice quality, with sofas priced from $15K or $20K.

Q: I’ve heard that some people are choosing to rent or buy less furniture – like a few well-appointed pieces. Are you seeing that?

A: I see some younger people wanting that. And older people who had a lot of tchotchkes starting to look for a more clean, minimalist aesthetic. I think that’s on trend right now but it’s not an overriding factor.

Q: Is that mostly among younger customers?

A: No. I have a client that I just finished a two-floor reno with – and she used to have so many objets d’art, decorative objects -- and when we did the renovation, she said, “I want clean, I want more simplistic. I want clean lines, AND less stuff.” So when we redesigned the house, we were very careful to put together a curated collection of décor in addition to the furnishings.

Another example is the young couple that bought my last house .  I was horrified when I saw the beautiful fireplace that I had designed with the mantel filled with tchotchkes. And they’re young – in their early thirties.  There’s no rhyme or reason to this.

If you would like to see what did make it to print, click HERE to read the full article.

And, if you are interested in working from home in style, click HERE to see what trends are happening in home office furniture leasing!