Is furniture an asset?
By definition, the answer is yes.
Asset is defined as:
a useful or valuable thing
property owned by a person, regarded as having value and able to meet debts
To take it further, is furniture an appreciating asset or a depreciating asset?
Take cars for example. We know they depreciate in value but yet we still choose to purchase and drive them around. Why? Because they are a necessity! :)
Years ago - as in the 1950s - furniture was being advertised and marketed heavily. The angle was to market furniture as investments.
Legacy pieces that you could pass down for generations to come!
The tagline was good. And it hooked many people into buying beautiful pieces for their home. A necessity as well.
If you spend any time with your elders then you will hear something along the lines of βhoney, no one wants this stuff anymoreβ, βmy kids donβt want itβ, βmy kids donβt have room for all of thisβ.
The truth of todayβs world is furniture is easy to come by.
You can order cheaply made furniture off Target.com, you can buy it off the floor at TJ Maxx, or you could spend the morning browsing a local IKEA.
You could also drive to any local secondhand store or antique mall and buy yourself a beautiful well-made piece for a song.
The law of economics looks at supply and demand to set the relative price of an item. If an item is in high demand but low in supply, then the price will be high to reflect this. The opposite is true as well.
Most furniture is high in supply but relatively low in demand.
The outlier is the factor of trend.
For example, mid-century modern furniture has been trending for years now. Given this, the price of the furniture has been driven up as the supply is rather low for this specific design.
But what about the rest of it. The dining tables and chairs. The china cabinets. The dressers. The armoireβ¦.oh the armoire.
They are your run of the mill everyday pieces that still have value but, compared to their purchase price, have steadily declined.
I believe in buying furniture you love regardless of what you hope to make off of it once you sell. Nevermind all those years that it supported your needs and uses, which counts for something.
All this to say, Raymond and I still recline on a sofa that was purchased from IKEA, but as I look around our home I am forever grateful for the people who bought beautiful pieces, used them and loved them, and then decided to let them go to a new home.
A new home where they will live to see another day. And that is our charge with estate sales. To assist in finding those new homes and the right market price.
Is my Pyrex worth anything?