Housing Market Helps Finish Auburn Store
Doors will close on World of Unfinished Furniture at month's end
The owners of the World of Unfinished Furniture in Auburn say the slumping Central Massachusetts housing market is part of the reason they're going out of business.
"I made money in some, and I lost money in some," he said.
The unfinished furniture business was one of the moneymakers, but during the last three years, business at the World of Unfinished Furniture has declined right along with a housing market in which homeowners put huge percentages of their income into their mortgages only to see the hope of selling those homes diminish or disappear.
"Our little business was the perfect barometer of what was happening out there," Berry said. "We used to have furniture sold all the time. Now, people are coming through and looking, they're hesitant. Even when a bargain is right there in front of them, they're passing up on it."
"By the end of November, we're gone," Berry said. In part, the store is closing because the owners of the building at 65 Southbridge St. are trying to sell it. Berry was offered the building, but said the $2.5 million asking price was much too high.
So, it's off to Gloucester for Berrys. The pair have bought a house there. But they aren't opening another furniture store. In fact, Berry said he saw the coming sale of the building as an opportunity to get out of the furniture business. The store is nearly empty now, and Berry said he was negotiating with a store in New Hampshire that wanted to buy the last of his unsold merchandise. Once Berry moves, "I'll do something," he said. "I don't want to retire."
Business Within A Business
Berry said people are most serious about buying furniture when they move, and Central Massachusetts residents aren't moving. When they do, they're recognizing another trend Berry has been eyeing: "The gap is closing" between the quality of cheap furniture manufactured in China and the quality of the furniture Berry and others sell.
Also, when Berry bought the World of Unfinished Furniture in 1995, "you had to work pretty hard to fail," but since then, "the industry has gotten much smaller; there are fewer manufacturers. In order to compete, you have to be nimble in what you buy, and when you buy it, and where you buy it from, and the space you have and how you use it," Berry said.
When things were really booming for Berry, the housing market was booming as well. People weren't necessarily shopping for unfinished furniture as a way to save money. Before he knew it, Berry had set up "a business within a business" finishing customers' unfinished furniture.
But the housing market, and business at Berry's store "has been in a general decline for the last three years," he said. "It affects everybody." He said higher rent at 65 Southbridge Street under a new landlord could simply empty the building.
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