Office Furniture Liquidators

Image Courtesy: http://www.the-experts.co.uk/article-218031-what-can-i-expect-from-furniture-liquidators.html

BY JOAN VERDON
STAFF WRITER
A slumping housing market put Domain Inc. out of the furniture business. Now it has to fight for customers in another crowded area:
the going-out-of-business field.

The same housing slowdown that claimed Domain has made life tougher for companies such as Hudson Capital Partners LLC, which is handling the liquidation of the seven Domain stores in New Jersey. "You are seeing a huge amount of furniture liquidations," said Jim Schaye, president and chief executive officer of Hudson Capital.

Liquidators, Schaye said, now have to be cautious in bidding on liquidation opportunities because of the multitude of furniture clearance sales. "You have to be very careful in evaluating what the recoveries are going to be, because they're going to be different than they were six months ago," he said. Domain, the latest furniture retailer to fall victim to the housing slump, will be holding a going-out-of-business sale at its Paramus showroom, and six other New Jersey locations for the next six to eight weeks.

The Domain bankruptcy and liquidation follows the bankruptcy filings and liquidations of The Bombay Co., Levitz and Sofa Express. Another large chain, Wickes Furniture, with 43 stores in the Midwest and
West, filed for bankruptcy this month. "That's a huge amount of liquidations in just CHRIS PEDOTA / THE RECORD The Paramus store is one of seven Domain locations in the state going out of business, hurt by low sales due to the housing crunch.

FAST FACTS
* During the first three quarters of 2007, furniture imports declined by 4.6 percent.
* A 4.6 percent drop in furniture deliveries is the equivalent of 72,000 20-foot-long shipping container boxes.
* The Bombay Co., formerly the ninth-largest importer of furniture, and Levitz, which was the 10thlargest, both filed for bankruptcy in 2007.

However, real estate experts believe the still-vibrant North Jersey market can absorb the increase. Schaye said he expects Domain's sale will attract customers because "it was a really nice store" with a good brand name. "When you put a going-out-of-business sign in front of a very nice store, customers react.''

He said the sale will continue until everything is sold. "There will be nothing left at the end of the sale," he said. "There is a price for everything." Bankruptcy documents valued the inventory for the 27 Domain stores nationwide at $20 million. Hudson Capital and liquidation firm Great American jointly pledged to give Domain 64 percent of the proceeds of the going-out-of-business sales. Schaye said the glut of furniture going-out-of-business sales is an obvious result of the housing slowdown. Furniture, he said, "is one of those purchases that people will tend to put off. The last thing you need to do is to redo your house or to spend money on furniture."

Michael Andrews, chief economist for PIERS, a research company that tracks port imports, said furniture imports declined 4.6 percent in the first three quarters of 2007. The closing of Bombay and Levitz stores most likely will contribute to declines this year as well, because they were the ninth- and 10th-largest U.S. importers of furniture, respectively.

"A lot of furniture is bought when homes change hands," Andrews said. He thinks it will be some time before the housing market bottoms out. "First it's got to stabilize, or stop falling," he said. "It's going to be a while before housing gets back on its feet."
E-mail: verdon@northjersey.com
Source: PIERS Global Intelligence
Article Courtesy: http://www.piers.com/news_docs/16.pdf
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