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Comment by nathan_f77 | Hacker News Reader

When I moved to San Francisco a couple of years ago, I was really surprised by how difficult it was to find a fully furnished apartment. I really did not enjoy those trips to IKEA and putting everything together. In contrast, it seems that most apartments in Chiang Mai are fully furnished. We've moved 3 times so far, and it's always just one car ride with a small collection of personal stuff. It's really nice to never have to worry about furniture.

I don't think I would use this service if I was moving to NYC, I'd just look for a furnished apartment.

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I grew up on Air Force bases. There, base housing is provided furnished.

On one, the base commander's wife outfitted all the housing with her style of furniture. She was sure she was doing everyone a favor. Naturally, everyone else's wife hated it.

Providing furnished apartments is likely a no-win situation, which is likely why they are hard to find.

Some AF bases had a better system where there was a warehouse with a variety of furniture, and the residents would pick what they wanted. Of course, higher ranking officers got first pick :-)

I've found the same thing.

It seems awfully silly that all summer long, one young person is moving an ikea dresser out of an apartment while another person is moving an ikea dresser into the same apartment.

Obviously there's a "tragedy of the commons" issue when you rent instead of buy, but it seems like there should be a better way to do this. You'd think people hate moving enough to be ok with less selection of furniture, potentially slightly more scratched up stuff, or buying a mattress pad to get over the weirdness of a previously used mattress.

Yep, it's difficult to find fully furnished apartments in a number of cities, especially at a reasonable price. Oftentimes landlords will put significant premiums on apartments they have fully furnished and keep that margin for themselves. If you rent from someone like us, you don't have to pay that premium, and get the added benefit of picking what items you'd like.

We're also partnering with property managers and real estate cos in NYC to help them furnish their units. It seems to be resonating well with them to not have to pay thousands of dollars up front for furniture, and instead can make monthly once their rent checks come in. Helps them with cashflow.

Similar experience moving to bay area from the UK, where furnished apartments are _far_ more common. I remember expressing surprise at a temporary budget for furniture rental in the moving expenses work covered. Given I didn't want to continue paying Cort a ton of money forever for tables and chairs I chose to buy all my own not particularly great furniture straight off the bat.

I always get horrible flashbacks to my own experiences seeing another "fresh off the boat" foreign engineer trying to outfit his entire life in one trip to the East Palo Alto Ikea, using up an entire roll of receipt paper to cover the hundreds of items they had to buy for their new unfurnished home.

Craigslist often has most of what you'll need every weekend, often in the same neighborhood.

I'm heading to Chiang Mai from Manila.

How is it? Everyone says it's a dream

Fast internet, cheap food and nice markets.

Is English only, no Thai really a limiting factor in surviving?

I really like Chiang Mai. I haven't been to Manila, but from what I've read, it sounds like Chiang Mai is a nicer place to live. It's very cheap and has very fast internet. I think it's also very safe, especially late at night. (Apart from the roads, which are very dangerous compared to other countries.)

English is not a problem at all. You can get by with English at many (if not most) restaurants, shops, apartments, lawyers, accountants, hospitals, dentists, etc. etc.

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