Furniture has a salvage value
Office furniture is the only commercial asset most companies dispose of at zero recovery. The car gets traded in. The laptop gets refurbished and resold. The server gets returned to the lessor. The chair goes to the dumpster.
That math is wrong. A 5-year-old commercial task chair from Humanscale, Steelcase, or SitOnIt has a secondary market value of $120 to $280, against an original cost of $600 to $1,400. A workstation panel system retains 15 to 30 percent of original value at 7 years. Conference tables, casegoods, and lounge seating fall in similar ranges, depending on condition and finish.
The number is not theoretical. It is what we have actually recovered for clients in 2025 through the RESEAT program.
What we recovered last year
Across 41 RESEAT-enrolled projects in 2025, the recovery breakdown ran as follows.
Resale, internal employees. $84,000 across 12 projects. Average recovery 18 percent of original value.
Resale, secondary market. $192,000 across 19 projects. Average recovery 22 percent of original value.
Donation to nonprofits with documented receipts. $118,000 in tax-deductible asset value across 22 projects.
Materials recycling. 47 tons of steel, plastic, and laminate diverted from landfill. Recycling revenue minor, but disposal cost avoided ran roughly $48,000.
Total combined recovery and avoided cost across the year: roughly $442,000 against an original asset basis of about $2.4 million. Effective recovery rate 18 percent.
The largest single project recovered $58,000 from a 110-person Boston move where the client originally planned to send everything to the dumpster.
Why most companies leave this on the table
Three reasons recovery does not happen on most projects.
The dealer relationship ends at install. Most furniture dealers sell, ship, and walk away. There is no contract for Day 2. When the client decides to move or refresh, there is no inventory, no condition assessment, and no resale channel set up.
Secondary market access is not casual. Selling a 60-seat workstation set to a credible buyer requires inventory documentation, photography, logistics, and a buyer network. Most facilities teams do not have any of this in-house.
Donation requires receipts. Most charities cannot absorb a 50-piece office furniture donation. The ones that can require formal asset transfer paperwork that documents the donation value for tax purposes. Without a partner who handles this, the easy path is the dumpster.
RESEAT solves all three. Every piece of furniture COI installs goes into the client's RESEAT portal at install. Photos, condition, finish, model number. When the client decides to move, refresh, or downsize, the portal already has the inventory.
How to enroll without changing your workflow
Three ways to start.
If you are buying new furniture through COI, enrollment is automatic. Every piece goes into your portal at install. No additional work.
If you have existing furniture from a prior dealer, we will inventory it. Site visit, photo documentation, model identification across whatever brands are in the space. Typical turnaround 2 to 3 weeks. The cost runs roughly $8 to $15 per asset depending on volume.
If you are planning a move or refresh in the next 12 months, the inventory pays for itself on the first transaction. We have not seen a project where the recovery did not exceed the inventory cost.
The RESEAT portal is built and maintained at no monthly cost for COI clients. We will demo it on a 15-minute call.
