Diary of a HMO Survival Guide Reader

I have just finished reading Matthews HMO survival guide (www.hmosurvivalguide.com).

I am going to keep a diary of my progress in working towards the 90 day goal of having one up and running. 

Introduction

My name is Jamie and I am based in the South East. I currently have a portfolio of BTL properties but not any HMO’s. I am looking to add a couple of HMO’s as soon as possible to the portfolio, hence me getting reading Matthews guide. 

90 Day plan

I am going to stick to the 90 day plan as much as is possible. I can see the only point where this is going to take a bit longer is in the finding of the property as I am looking to purchase the property BMV. The actual survival guide gives all the high level things you need to do to go out and make the guide a reality. The Action plan at the back of the guide is an exceptionally good motivation tool and step by step process to keep you on track. 

Diary

I have found the area I wish to invest in for HMO’s, this was an easy choice for me as I have a contact in that area who is going to do all my administration and running of the HMO for me. However as per the guide I needed to make sure that the area would support these type of houses. One advert on the internet did this with 9 replies in 2 days. I was then feeling very confident about the chosen area, so much so that I intend to try and buy two properties if I can find them. 

My current marketing is not setup for this area so finding a BMV is proving a bit more difficult than I had first imagined. EA’s are not really entertaining the ideas of the offers I am putting forward and I have not had any successful ones back yet. Last week I switched strategy and spent the whole day driving round the new build sites in the area. My thoughts were that there would be a glut of properties that developers would love to shift even if the discount was quite large. How wrong I was! 

Most of the developers have pulled back and are selling what is left before they build more, and they are selling! This means they only had a few houses on their books and again were not taking the offers seriously as they knew they would sell. I offered on about 10 – 12 houses. All were a no. I have since followed up and their sales have been going well to the public which means they do not need to sell at any kind of discount. 

This is where I am up to at the moment and am rethinking my strategy for finding the correct style house for the right price. 

I will post another update very shortly letting you know how I am getting on finding the 1^st property.

For more information on how you can get started with HMO’s, go to www.hmosurvivalguide.com