Why it Makes Sense to Rent Office Furniture, Part II

Written by: Ron Lanzo, AFR Account Executive in NY

It’s been over six months now since I last wrote regarding the many reasons why renting office furniture makes so much sense. As you may recall, I mentioned just how many different types of commodity items are available on a rental basis. The list was substantial and included heavy equipment, cars, power tools, and even fencing! Of course we all know that you can rent a tuxedo or evening gown, but did you know you can rent very high end designer hand bags? There’s a website called Rent the Runway, that offers all the big name designers who make BIG bags to rent—you can rent a $1,250 Herve Leger bag for only $150. A Badgley Mischka, which retails for $440, rents for just $50. Not surprisingly, the article that mentions this states, “Leave the money in your bank account and rent instead!”

And in a recent issue of The Wall Street Journal, a Joanna Newsom's music column mentions that a wide variety of musical instruments are available on a rental basis, including some very fancy harps.  A songwriter, Ms. Newsom writes music on a beat up harp that her parents bought her when she was 12, but she rents “fancier” versions when she goes to the recording studio! And now most major airlines are considering short term (in flight) rentals of  iPhones and Apple’s new iPad!

With college costs constantly on the rise, both parents and students are looking for ways to hold down cost. Buying used books has always been a good option, but sometimes used copies are no longer current. Along comes Cengage Learning, a Stamford based publisher of academic books, that is now offering students the option of renting any of their 1,200 popular titles.

From an ad in the IFMA quarterly magazine, FMJ, TEMP AIR Rental Services are promoting a portable “on site” HVAC system that provides complete cooling, heating, dehumidifying, and air filtration—yes available on a “rental basis"!

The bottom line is that renting offers so many options, including the chance to get more for less, without having to spend more by acquiring a soon to be obsolete item.

We recently did a large rental for an upstate New York client whose office building was damaged in a fire. There wasn’t anything that was salvageable, and the client did the best they could do by finding desk space in their factory, just to get operational. Shortly after making this very short-term decision, they started exploring their options. They would eventually start construction on a new office building, but even optimistic timelines would mean a construction period of at least one year. When you added architectural drawings, engineering, local planning, and zoning permits, eighteen months was probably going to be a realistic move-in date for the new building.

The company and its management team turned to rental as an option, and we won the award to provide them with 22 private offices and a sufficient number of partitions to afford them privacy in their interim office space. Along with desks, they rented chairs, bookcases, lateral files, and enough seating to get the entire office operational within two weeks.

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