The buyers of America’s most expensive homes want more than just a house when they close: They want furniture in the rooms, art on the walls and dishes in the kitchen.
In this era of megawealth, where the affluent own multiple residences, many are simply uninterested in going through painstaking design processes for each and every one.
“The wealthier clientele really is looking for turnkey experiences,” interior designer Mark Tremblay of Marc-Michaels Interior Design, said. “They don’t want to wait.”
For this crowd, money is abundant, but there are still only so many hours in the day. The rich now prioritize time over money, Tremblay and other luxury real estate experts say, and filling a mansion with furniture means meeting designers, visiting showrooms and choosing among shades of white.
“Time is the one thing that can’t be bought,” Mike Leipart, cofounder and managing principal of Redeavor Group in Los Angeles, said. “We often see first time homebuyers in luxury very excited about the process, but the experienced homebuyers –– it’s just effort and time.”
Booze in the bar
Today’s high-end buyers aren’t the first to buy the furnishings, but their appetite for turnkey has reverberated through the market.
“It’s new that sellers are more and more likely willing to do it,” Leipart said.
According to Leipart, it’s practicality that makes furnished deals popular. Supply chain issues that started during the pandemic left people waiting months for couches and coffee tables, and working with an interior designer can be a laborious, months-long process on top of that.
Once sellers understand this mindset, they stand to make a premium.
South Florida developer Aldo Stark, for example, has sold two record-breaking spec mansions in Stone Creek Ranch, a gated community near Delray Beach, both fully furnished One went for $36.8 million, and the other for $55 million.
“He would stock the entire bar with top-shelf, premium, rare liquors. You would open up the chef’s kitchen and it would have every single thing their personal chef would need,” Senada Adžem, a top agent with Douglas Elliman who listed both homes, said. “Every single item was in there.”
Agents say houses offered with such extensive furnishings sell for top dollar, especially in markets that are predominantly for second homes.
“We’ve built an entire business segment around it,” Julian Buckner, founder and CEO of Vesta, a luxury interior design, staging and furniture studio based in Los Angeles, said. Buckner partners with developers around the country to stage homes and condos with furniture that can be sold with the home.
His clients include Related Companies, Hines Group, Corcoran Sunshine and Compass. According to Buckner, buyers often tell him, “If you can make it look sort of like my Pinterest board, I’m happy.”
Ski towns, Malibu, Manhattan, and destinations across Florida are particularly popular markets for fully furnished homes, Buckner said.
Tremblay, who is also doing the interior design for an oceanfront spec estate in Manlapan asking $285 million, said he usually uses more neutral colors and creates a “sense of warmth” in these kinds of projects. A typical project costs about $150 per square foot, he said.
He estimates only 5 percent of his projects include silverware, pots and pans, but that’s because buyers often have private chefs or home management teams who make those decisions. He generally has carte blanche to make creative decisions, he said.
“We’re spoiled,” Tremblay said. “Most of our clients are like, ‘Okay, looks great, go ahead.’”
Agents and designers say furnished homes save time and create ease for clients, but they also play to the heart better than empty ones do.
“We’re selling something that, no matter how financial people want to make it, is still at the end of the day an emotional exercise,” Leipart said. “An empty unit does not have the same emotional resonance.”