What are the advantages of renting furniture during your stay in Indonesia?

Moving to a new country can create many stresses: finding a comfortable home for your family, looking for schools for your children, and familiarizing yourself with your new work environment.

To lessen the difficulties of trying to locate suitable furniture in a new country that is foreign to you (language/furniture styles/workmanship issues/etc.), renting furniture has become a popular option for many expatriates in Indonesia. Furniture rental offers a relatively stress-free solution, while still ensuring that you are still able to create the home-like environment you want to create for your family's new home in Indonesia.

Disadvantages of Shipping Furniture from Home

While you may be considering shipping your own furniture from your home country, there are some factors that you should consider. The first factor is the often long and complicated shipping and customs clearance process. Indonesian labor law dictates that a foreigner working in Indonesia must apply for his work permit in person from Indonesia, not from their home country. The work permit is one of the documents required for customs clearance of your furniture shipment at the Indonesian port.

With Indonesia’s complex import regulations and expensive customs duty, the entire process could take about 1-3 months before you can get your household goods shipment released from customs to furnish your new house with the furniture you brought from home. Depending on the timing of your shipment, the furniture may sit in your home country awaiting the okay to ship or sit in storage at the port in Jakarta awaiting clearance, while incurring expensive storage fees. Your company may, or may not, reimburse these storage fees.

If you've miscalculated the wait period ... and have your shipment sitting in customs for a long time, the notoriously expensive Indonesian custom duties may cost more than buying brand new furniture. Subjecting your furniture from home to weeks of ocean freight and prolonged exposure to humid Indonesian climate may also damage your precious pieces.

Finding Furniture in a Strange Land

While Indonesia offers many choices of both locally crafted and imported furniture, good quality furniture often does not come cheap. If you don't speak the local language or know your way around town, it may be extremely frustrating and time consuming to locate all the pieces you'll need to furnish your home. Unscrupulous dealers may take advantage of your lack of knowledge of local prices, charging highly inflated sums for items.

You may "settle" for pieces you can afford, given your limited furnishings allowance, which may not have the quality that you'd like to use in your home.

Shipping purchased furniture home

Your furniture purchases in Indonesia may create the same shipping problems mentioned above when you are about to leave, trying to get all that new furniture home. While a treasured antique or two may be worth shipping home, you may not want to ship home furniture you've purchased for use during your stay, when you have a house full of furniture already waiting for you at home.

Tax Benefits of Rented Furniture

Another factor you should consider is the tax benefits that furniture rental offers. Since furniture rental is an expense rather than an asset (which is the case for purchased furniture), it is tax deductible, allowing you significant tax savings.

Choosing a Furniture Rental Company

There are a number of furniture rental companies in Indonesia, offering different options in furniture style and budget. Since your home, and the environment you create for your family to live in, is very personal, here are some tips on how to pick the best furniture rental company.

Comprehensive service: Convenience is a main reason why one should consider furniture rental, so a good rental company should offer a total solution for all your home furniture and home furnishing needs, saving you time and effort of having to deal with a number of rental companies. Look for a rental company offers rental services for other household needs such as electronics, home appliances, housewares, or home accessories.

Value: Good quality furniture should be as beautiful and comfortable as it is durable, which only good workmanship and usage of finest materials can promise. Be sure to check on the quality of the furniture your rental company offers. A good company should have a showroom to display its rental furniture. That way you can get a good feel for the quality of each piece. If you don't like the upholstery on a piece that is offered, ask the rental company if they'd be willing to reupholster it for you.

Variety: A home should be an extension of your personality, and a good rental company should offer a good choice of furniture styles so that you can find one to suit your taste, lifestyle, and living space.

Service: One gauge of a good furniture rental company is its service warranty program. If the company offers comprehensive maintenance service and warranty, it shows the company is confident of the quality of their furniture. Also, be sure to purchase a damage protection insurance policy to protect yourself from damages other than normal wear and tear.

Return Policy: To ensure that your furniture will fit into the spaces in your new home, request your furniture rental company to visit your home and take measurements. Ask about the company's return policy, in case you get the pieces to your new home and are unhappy with the size/fit or how they look in your new home.

Additional services: Do not hesitate to request information from the furniture rental company about additional services such as lease to buy options, free maintenance, or free interior design service.

You'll know a truly professional rental company, because they will show you that they will go all the way to ensure their customers are well taken care of.

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