Personal Finance: Financing Your Furniture

PERSONAL FINANCE: SMART BUYING
Financing Your Furniture

Furnishing your dream house need not be a travail. Branded furniture makers are offering a variety of options that promise to do up your pad in style without making a dent in your pocket.

By Shilpa Nayak

Just got married, moving out alone, or moving cities? Then figuring out what kind of furniture to buy is probably your Worry No. 2 (the first, of course, is finding a house). You adore your family carpenter's work (remember the classy bookshelf he built your dad for a pittance?), but unfortunately there isn't enough time to custom make a household worth of furniture. Or you don't have the kind of money to pick up a dozen different pieces of furniture your spouse wants. Have no fear, though. You won't have to spend your first few nights in the new home wrapped up inside a sleeping bag. Pick up the phone and order yourself a furniture package and, here's the good thing about it, pay in instalments. Says Rajan Nambiar, proprietor, Chippendale, a branded furniture manufacturer: ''Furniture as an organised industry has come of age.''

The Proposition

Home package furniture offer several advantages over the unbranded variety. For one, there is consistency in product quality. Also, there is no risk of cost overruns as in the case of custom-made furniture. In major metros like Mumbai, the response to such off-the-shelf deals has been encouraging. Says B. Rajesh, Manager (Sales), Indoors: ''We not only cater to the middle-class suburban families, but also to upper middle-class households that want basic furniture for their weekend homes outside the city.''

Prices vary depending on what a package consists of. For instance, Indoors currently sells a complete 13-piece set for Rs 58,000 (excluding taxes). Gautier, a French brand, sells comparable sets for anywhere between Rs 1 lakh and Rs 1.50 lakh, and a Camel package could set you set you back by Rs 2 lakh.

Bargain corner: Off-the-shelf buying But you don't have to opt for a complete set. You can tailor-make a package to suit your pocket and apartment size. Furniture Concepts of Mumbai lets you buy various combinations of sofa sets or sofa-cum-beds along with centre tables and chairs in the range of Rs 15,000-25,000, while the wall units cost about Rs 35,000. Bangalore based Chippendale's furniture package of six-seater dinning table, double bed, sofa set with a centre table and a dressing table carries a not-so-unaffordable price tag of Rs 70,000.

If you are the social sort who loves having guests over on weekends, you could opt for a multi-functional sofa-cum-bed. It's an ideal solution for Mumbai's cramped apartments, and it doesn't cost the earth. Mumbai's Living Room offers a set comprising a sofa-cum-bed, two sleek chairs, and a bevelled glass centre table for Rs 19,750. An imported bedroom set at Rs 54,850 (including a double bed, wardrobe, and dressing table with a sitting stool) gets you a complimentary 14-inch colour television or a BPL semi-washing machine.

The Surety

Most packaged furniture are machine-cut and only the finishing is done manually. While Furniture Concepts uses borotik wood, Indoors uses beach wood, and medium-density fibrewood (MDF). ''We do not use any laminates, it's just beach wood, MDF and German machine press foil. It's absolutely maintenance free,'' claims Rajesh of Indoors. Chippendale, however, prefers burma teak. Says Nambiar: ''We use burma teak not only because it is in vogue, but also because of its royal look. It has a great finish and lasts a lifetime.''

All the branded home furniture companies generally treat the wood against borer and white ants. Over and above that they offer a one-year warrantee, after which maintenance is available at a nomical cost. Of course, repairs will cost more.

In case you don't have enough money to pay for the complete set at one go, don't worry. Financing options are available from some of the topline brands. Furniture Concepts, for example, offers flexible payment alternative through a tie-up with Kotak Mahindra Finance. The annual rate of interest? A flat rate of interest of 8.99 per cent. Small price to pay for your dream décor.

-Additional reporting by E. Kumar Sharma & Dilip Maitra

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