I got a suggestion:
How about make it possible to buy apartments WITH furniturs? Like when you enter an random room in a town, they got furnitur. The apartments as of now, is not worth diddly, and since we can't BUY tables and chairs...

The idea is to have a room with doors, like 12 doors, which leads to each predefined type of appartment. Then you can go into each apartment (like a mission) and review which one you like for your own, and then use the 'Buy' terminal in the apartment. Then when you enter your own apartment, it has changed to the new layout.
Of course its shouldn't let the buy go though if there is people or items left inside the apartment.

Since the apartments is predefined in layout, it will not take up much data in the database. Its just the same as the apartments like now, just with the diffence that there is other layouts (WITH FURNITURS), so people can actually have a felling of having an apartment and not just an oversized 10-room backpack to walk in.