Imagine walking into your next home. Maybe you’ve just arrived after two layovers and a long Uber ride from the airport. More likely these days, you have a car full of belongings and you’ve been driving for hours (or days) to get where you’re going. Or maybe you just took a taxi across town. No matter how you’ve arrived, there are two ways this can play out from here.
You enter an empty home and start the long task of setting it up—think furniture, utilities, kitchen essentials—or you enter a furnished home with artwork on the walls, dishes in the cupboard, and a WiFi connection at the ready. But it doesn’t stop with just your arrival. Renting a furnished apartment comes with other benefits you might not have considered. At Zeus Living, we’re huge fans of a furnished home (big surprise) and wanted to document our fandom. Read on if you’re on the fence about renting a furnished home or unfurnished apartment.
Your home is ready to go the moment you arrive
It’s worth repeating because this is a big benefit of renting a furnished apartment. All you have to do is unpack your bags, and you’ve moved in. You can walk in the door and be working, watching TV, or heading out on your first neighborhood adventure within minutes. There’s no setup and no delay.
When you rent an unfurnished apartment, there’s a lot to do, and it’s not uncommon to spend months getting settled into a new home. Even after a few months in a new place, you might still be on the hunt for the perfect area rug or bedside lamp.
These aren’t your grandparent’s furnished homes
Furnished homes come with a reputation. And it might not be a good one. Bad decor. Outdated, corporate furniture. Little to no personality. But renting furnished homes has come a long way. Now, you can find homes that are designed—by real designers-—with comfort in mind. From the rug in the living room to the sheets on the bed, everything has been carefully considered and set up in a way that makes sense. Not only are today’s furnished homes beautiful, but they’re also comfortable.
Renting a furnished home is commitment-free
With a furnished apartment, all you need to bring is yourself, and your bag. This makes it easy to move in, move out, and change things up if you need to. No more 12-month commitments. Imagine not having anything more than your suitcase to weigh you down.
If you’re one of the many professionals now working remotely, you can work from almost anywhere. The flexibility of furnished homes is made for this: stay as long as you’d like, and go somewhere new when it suits you.
Feel like a local even when you’re not
If you’re staying somewhere temporarily, you still want to feel at home. Hotels can feel impersonal, often located in neighborhoods popular with tourists. Furnished apartments, especially our homes at Zeus Living, are in a variety of neighborhoods, and not just the ones that tourists frequent. So when you stay in a furnished apartment, you can start to get a sense of what living there permanently is like, and even meet some neighbors.
Related: try before you buy
Whether you’re actually planning to a buy a home in the neighborhood you’re staying in or not, renting a furnished apartment is a convenient way to try out a new city or neighborhood before you make an investment there (whether that’s buying property or signing a conventional 12-month lease). Get to know the grocery stores. The dive bars. The parks. Your corner store. You’ll have lots more intel about parking, street noise, and different pockets of a particular neighborhood after staying there for a while.
Essentials included
Again, this one’s a time saver. You arrive, and you’re ready: there’s a trash bag in the trash can, soap on the counter, a vacuum cleaner in the hall closet, and a wine opener in the drawer. These little things don’t seem like much when you consider them one by one, but they add up. Having the little things that you’ll need will save you the hassle and cost of getting them when you need them.
Utilities are ready to go when you are
Furnished homes come with utilities already set up. You don’t have to spend hours creating accounts, or weeks waiting for a representative to come by to connect you. At Zeus Living homes, you’ll have high-speed WiFi and smart TVs ready and waiting for you.
No trips to IKEA
A furnished home means no buying or moving furniture. Not only is this a huge time saving, but cost savings as well. Furniture is an asset that never appreciates (well, unless we’re talking an original Eames lounge chair) so once you’ve spent the money on it, you’ll never recoup that investment. Furniture aside, add on sheets, towels, hangers, laundry hamper, bath mats, throw blankets, accent pillows, lamps, knives, wine glasses…it adds up.
As flexible as you need
You decide the day you move in, and the day you move out. It doesn’t have to be at the beginning or end of the month, and you can make changes as your plans change. This kind of flexibility can come with hotel stays, but it’s never an option in traditional home rentals, where the year-long lease is ubiquitous. It’s almost impossible to make long-term plans during a pandemic. With an uncertain economic landscape, as well as day-to-day changes to COVID precautions, many people are leery of committing to a long-term lease or buying a home.
When you’re ready to move out, pack your bag and go. You need to give notice, of course, but your move-out process will really be that simple. You can leave the apartment with the bag you brought, and be done moving out. No hauling a mattress out of a third floor walkup or scrubbing baseboards to be sure you get your deposit back. Lock the door on your way out and you’re done.
Furnished homes are great for work travel
For people working in construction, travel nursing, and other industries that demand consistent travel, comfort and convenience in their long-term home-away-from-homes comes at a premium. Many of them have seen their fair share of sub-par corporate housing. At Zeus Living, our original designs and homey vibes appeal to workers who want to feel those comforts of home when they’re traveling for work.
If you’re still looking for reasons to consider a furnished home for your next place, take a look at some of our homes. We offer a range of choices, from sleek apartments in high rises to single-family homes with yards and everything in between, there’s something that’s sure to fit the bill for you. Don’t miss our 3D tours, the best way to tour your next home and make sure it’s perfect for you.
