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Don't want furniture included?
The seller is insisting that they sell the furniture with the sale of the home. They're wanting an additional $20K for the furniture. I don't want the furniture and don't want to pay the additional $20K. But the seller won't budge. I really want the house. What do it do?
Asked By Robin | Reno, NV | 32 views | Buying | Updated 5 days ago
Answers(2)
Josephine & Raj Sharma
Legacy Homes Realty
Hi, this actually will effect the sale of the home and seller will loose out on buyers. If you don’t want the furniture, tell the seller you’re only willing to move forward with a clean sale on the house itself. Ask your agent to write the offer excluding all furniture. If the seller refuses, what most buyers do in this situation: They reduce the house price by the same $20K or accept the furniture (even if they don’t want it) and resell it after closing.
- 5 days ago
Helpful (2)
Unhelpful (0)
Brian Side
Upside Properties
One additional angle to keep in mind is the financing side of the transaction, because lenders treat this very differently than buyers and sellers often expect.
Furniture is personal property, not real property. Appraisers are valuing the house and the land, not the contents inside it. Because of that, lenders generally will not allow furniture to be included in the value of the home or financed in the mortgage. If a contract shows $20K allocated to furniture, underwriting may require that to be removed or separated from the purchase price. In some cases it can even complicate the appraisal if it appears the price of the home is inflated to cover personal property.
Since you don’t actually want the furniture, the practical solution may simply be to accept it as part of the deal and deal with it after closing. There are many charities, churches, and local nonprofits that will pick up furniture for free, and some buyers end up donating it or selling pieces locally. Your Realtor should be able to point you to organizations that handle pickup.
If you want to be a bit tactical about it, another approach is to get the house under contract first, then allow the lender’s guidelines to drive the conversation. Once the file is in underwriting, lenders often flag personal property in the contract and require it to be removed or adjusted. In that scenario, the lender essentially becomes the neutral party explaining that they cannot finance $20K of furniture, which sometimes gives everyone a clean way to restructure the deal.
At the end of the day, it still comes down to a simple question: is this the hill worth dying on? If the seller refuses to move and the house is truly the right one, the furniture may just become a logistical issue you solve after closing. If not, you hold your line and keep looking.
That decision usually depends less on the furniture and more on how much you want the house.
Furniture is personal property, not real property. Appraisers are valuing the house and the land, not the contents inside it. Because of that, lenders generally will not allow furniture to be included in the value of the home or financed in the mortgage. If a contract shows $20K allocated to furniture, underwriting may require that to be removed or separated from the purchase price. In some cases it can even complicate the appraisal if it appears the price of the home is inflated to cover personal property.
Since you don’t actually want the furniture, the practical solution may simply be to accept it as part of the deal and deal with it after closing. There are many charities, churches, and local nonprofits that will pick up furniture for free, and some buyers end up donating it or selling pieces locally. Your Realtor should be able to point you to organizations that handle pickup.
If you want to be a bit tactical about it, another approach is to get the house under contract first, then allow the lender’s guidelines to drive the conversation. Once the file is in underwriting, lenders often flag personal property in the contract and require it to be removed or adjusted. In that scenario, the lender essentially becomes the neutral party explaining that they cannot finance $20K of furniture, which sometimes gives everyone a clean way to restructure the deal.
At the end of the day, it still comes down to a simple question: is this the hill worth dying on? If the seller refuses to move and the house is truly the right one, the furniture may just become a logistical issue you solve after closing. If not, you hold your line and keep looking.
That decision usually depends less on the furniture and more on how much you want the house.
- 3 days ago
- Helpful (1)
- Unhelpful (0)
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