Not a day goes by that either I get an email or 3 phone calls of out of town Manchester property investors who are concerned about over paying for a HMO property and consider running the project remote control. I think it is great to learn and run your own projects. I believe one should start small and try to make mistakes on the small. More so, I am a firm believe in working in an area near your home if possible….However I do not live in Manchester and yet built up a great team that we all benefit from each others strengths. I could not run and refurbish HMOs without this team.
I had a very bad experience trying to remotely run a Professional HMO in Liverpool…Promised the world…gave me recommendations..yet was too busy for me when it came down to it. Complete disappointment and loss of time and money. His loss as we have done more than 35 HMOs over the last couple years in Manchester. It all boils down surrounding yourself with the right people.
I spoke to one investor yesterday who has been running his own professional HMO near Salford for 6 months. When I asked why so long, he told me that the plumber promised to come and never showed…same story with the electrician….etc. He did not want to use a building service as he thought the quote was too high. All I thought…why are you calling me? What do you want from me? What he wanted in so many words were suggestions of various tradesmen in order to continue his professional HMO project. I told him that was not going to solve his issues in my opinion….More so I explained and rightfully so, I do not know of any and our builders are busy working on our multiple projects. I was thinking the cost of funds for this gent…more so the complete waste of time and loss of income , yet he wanted to save money and not overpay.
Seems so many new property investors have been promised the world yet reality is much different. I had a gent with no experience and thought he could get a 80% loan on a professional HMO. I explained I am not a mortgage broker and that the people who have purchased from us all had to have experience as a HMO landlord and most got lower LTV. He further told me he went to a course how to do a HMO and most importantly finance one.
From what I have seen in the real world…If you live in a specific area look to do a HMO in your immediate area. We aware of article 4…learn the realities of refurbishment. Learn that tradesman have a disease called builderitis….Promise to be completed in several weeks and virtually always takes longer…Learn the true costs….learn how the banks value the properties….Reality of doing is alot different than property courses…
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