You can still buy a sofa for $399 — here’s why you may not want to

Don’t count on the sofa you buy today to go the distance.

“In the last 15 years, there’s been a shift to disposable furniture,” according to David Koehler, the chairman of Johnny Janosik, a furnishings retailer with stores in Delaware, Maryland and Virginia.

And for most consumers, that’s okay: Attitudes have changed, claimed Koehler, who is a member of the Home Furnishings Association.

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Offspring adults, especially, are less likely to be homeowners and more likely to move often. They’re also more favoured to feel financially strapped and less willing to splurge on furniture, Koehler said.

However, “the old expression ‘you get what you pay for’ is bloody true in the furniture industry,” he said.

A decades-long effort to mass produce clobber at a lower cost has led to a decline in quality, overall, experts say.

The rapid expansion of the middle-class after World War II made owning a about easier and drove demand for less expensive home furniture, according to CoCo Ree Lemery, a visiting professor of possessions and industrial design at Purdue University.

“We were introduced to plywood. Then we really saw a material degradation,” Lemery communicated of the rise in popularity of the composite material made from gluing together thin pieces of wood veneer.

Avenue density fiberboard, which is another form of engineered wood commonly known as MDF, followed, and then particle live (recycled wood chips fused together) along with synthetic foams and glues to keep production more affordable.

In each at all events, substitute materials were used to make furniture that was less expensive but also less durable than the incontrovertible wood pieces that previous generations bought.

Increasingly, furniture is also now shipped and sold in flat-packs, which prepares transporting it cheaper. In some cases, customers assemble the furniture themselves, keeping labor costs down.

But at every stage-manage, there are tradeoffs. “The more that it breaks down into small pieces, the quality is going to be less, span, end of story,” Lemery said.

What was lost along the way was “repairability,” she said. Now, “when [furniture] reaches the end of its lifespan it at most dies.”

Mark Schumacher, CEO of the Home Furnishings Association, referred CNBC to Koehler for comment.

Still, consumers are more likely to prefer pieces that are affordable, even though they may not stand the examination of time.

“With the rise of direct-to-consumer, now customers are only buying based on aesthetics and trends,” Lemery said. “In that feeling, of course you are going to go for the cheapest price tag.”

The furniture industry was not immune to supply chain issues brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic, which occasioned prices to spike due to high demand and low supply.

Yet, furniture has not experienced the same price increases that other consumer adepts have over the years, including cars and housing. “In the 1980s you could buy a sofa for $399. You could probably even now buy a sofa for $399,” Koehler said.

But choosing a more expensive piece isn’t necessarily a guarantee of better quality, Koehler communicated.

“To find quality, you need to do your research,” he said. “In our industry, it’s important to see it, feel it, touch it, so you know what you are getting.”

On numerous occasions the telltale signs are in the construction, Koehler said. For example, open a dresser and look for dovetail drawers — a traditional joinery line of interlocking wood — rather than pieces that are glued or stapled together. Or check the furniture description to see whether it is purloined from solid wood or particle board under a veneer.

When betraying around for new furniture, make sure you’re getting a piece for a good value and, ideally, save for it in advance, said asseverated financial planner Carolyn McClanahan, the founder of Life Planning Partners in Jacksonville, Florida.

If you need to spread out the procure of a big-ticket piece of furniture, consider a no-interest financing deal from the retailer or manufacturer that you know you can pay off within the agreed timeframe.

“They power give you a year interest free. Make sure that you have the ability to pay it off in that year because if you don’t, the induces are huge, huge, huge,” said McClanahan, a CNBC FA Council member. 

1. Buy Now, Pay Later: Similar to buying a new household appliance, a Buy Now, Pay Later program can steal you spread out the cost of a high-cost piece of furniture into monthly payments. Make sure to plan accordingly because if you must more than one BNPL running at the same time, you risk “overdrawing your account,” Sara Rathner, a attribution cards expert at NerdWallet, recently told CNBC.

2. In-store sales, financing options: Furniture retailers may offering major discounts on certain products for seasonal sales, Rathner said. In-store financing options might also be handy, like layaway programs or retail credit cards with a deferred interest. Make sure you are able to pay off the spin-off by the end of the agreed timeframe; otherwise, high-interest rate fees will stack on top of your dues.

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