Student, Professional And Social HMOs: Which Is Best For Property Investors? [Community Q&A]

In this episode, I’m going to answer a question that’s on everyone’s mind: which HMO strategy is best—students, professionals, or social HMOs? If you’ve saved up your hard-earned money and are ready to invest in HMOs, you probably want to know where you’ll get the best returns, which strategy works best, and how you can scale your investment.

So, where should you put your money for the best results?

Today, we’re going to look at this question, and I’ll give you the best advice I can. But fair warning—the answer might not be as simple as you think! 

Topics covered in this episode:

• 03:42 Defining Student, Professional, and Social HMOs
• 07:02 Pros and Cons of Student HMOs
• 12:39 Pros and Cons of Professional HMOs
• 20:33 Pros and Cons of Social HMOs
• 25:11 Determining the Best HMO Strategy for You

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Transcript

Andy Graham (00:02.67)

Hey, I'm Andy and you're listening to the HMO Podcast. Over 10 years ago, I set myself the challenge of building my own property portfolio. And what began as a short-term investment plan soon became a long-term commitment to change the way young people live together. I've now built several successful businesses. I've raised millions of pounds of investment and I've managed thousands of tenants. Join me and some very special guests to discover the tips, tricks and hacks, the ups and the downs, the best practice and everything else you need to know to start, scale and systemise your very own HMO portfolio now.

Andy Graham (00:40.718)

In today's episode, I'm going to answer the question, students, professional or social HMOs? Which strategy is best? Once and for all, where is the best place to put your money if you are investing in HMOs? This is the question that everybody wants to know the answer to. Of course, if you've saved up your hard earned money, you're ready to plow it into some HMOs, you want to know where you're going to find the best opportunities. Where are you going to find the best returns? How are you going to scale up and which strategy is going to make that the easiest to do? 

Well, in today's episode, we are going to explore this question and I'm going to give you the best possible answer that I can, but prepare yourself because the answer isn't necessarily as straightforward as you might hope it would be. Please sit back, relax and enjoy today's episode of the HMO Podcast.

Hey guys, it's Andy here. We're going to be getting back to the podcast in just a moment, but before we do, I want to tell you very quickly about the HMO roadmap. Now, if you're serious about replacing your income, or perhaps you've already got a HMO portfolio that you want to scale up, then the HMO roadmap really is your one-stop shop. Inside the roadmap, you'll find a full 60 lesson course delivered by me, teaching you how to find more deals, how to fund more deals and raise private finance, how to refurbish great properties, how to fill them with great tenants that stay for longer and how to manage your properties and tenants for the future. 

We've also got guest workshops added every single month, we've got new videos added every single week about all sorts of topics, we've got downloadable resources, cheat sheets and swipe files to help you, we've got case studies from guests and community members who are doing incredible projects that you can learn from, and we've also built an application just for you that allows you to appraise and evaluate your deals, stack them side by side and track the key metrics that are most important to you. To find out more, head to theHMORoadmap.co.uk now and come and join our incredible community of HMO property investors.

Andy Graham (02:45.326)

Okay, welcome back, gang. So today we are going to be answering the big question, students, professionals, or social HMOs, which strategy really is the best? Where can you find the best returns? Where can you find the best growth? Where can you find the best opportunities? Where can you find the most deals? Where can you make the most money? Well, that is what we're to tackle in today's episode. But as you're about to find out, this answer is not totally straightforward. And that's not just because each strategy is different.

There’s one thing that matters more than anything, and that is you. It's ultimately what you want to achieve, what your objectives are, the type of business that you want to grow and you want to build, where you currently are in your business and professional life. All of that is going to determine and shape the answer to this question. So stick with me because we aren't going to walk through some of the pros and cons of each of the models, but what I really want you to understand today is more so the importance of how to interpret those pros and cons against whatever it is that you on a personal level actually want and need to achieve and what you're working with, what your strengths and limitations are. And that is different for each of us. 

So why don't we first start by putting some sort of a definition on what each of these strategies are. Well, student HMOs then. We're typically talking about undergraduates, young people, young adults who've gone to university to study typically between the ages of sort of 18, 19 to early 20s. Now, there's no doubt whatsoever that some people go to university at an older age, that's fine, but generally speaking, we're talking about those people late teens, early 20s. Most of those students have probably lived in purpose-built student accommodation in their first year of study, and then in subsequent years are living in private accommodation, off-street HMOs, the types of HMOs that we're talking about right now.

Three beds, four beds, five beds, six beds, seven beds, eight beds and different specs within that. But generally speaking, that is the type of demographic that we're talking about. Some of them might have jobs, but if they do, they'll just be part-time jobs and they'll almost always have a guarantor. Certainly if you follow my advice on the show, students will always have a guarantor. So that is what I would consider student housing, student HMOs to be. Professional HMOs then. This is a much broader spectrum, I would say. It encompasses people of almost any age from 18

Andy Graham (05:05.164)

right up to sort of 40s, 50s, even 60s, 70s. It could be people on very different salaries, people on the blue collar end of that spectrum, right through to the white collar end of that spectrum. And I think under that professional category, there are subcategories as well. HMOs that are specifically designed and set up for people within some part of that spectrum. So maybe better suited to people of a blue collar working background, people of a more white collar background, people who place value on different things, people who want to be living with people of a similar age or even a similar sex, that sort of stuff. So the professional category though, I would say is quite broad and for the context of today's episode, at least we're talking about a very broad spectrum of tenants. Social HMOs then, again, this is quite a broad spectrum, but the first key point that I think allows us to define this category of tenant is that they are not in receipt of income from paid employment. 

Okay. They are supported or supplemented by the government or by charities or other organisations. And it is a large spectrum. There are people and individuals under this category that might be in receipt of disability benefits, housing benefits. They might be victims of domestic violence. They might be refugees. They might be people who have health and social care requirements. It could be recovering addicts. It could be people who are just coming out of prison and need a temporary accommodation solution while they reintegrate back into society. 

There's lots of different people under this category and that makes it quite interesting for a number of different reasons. So now that we've defined the different tenant demographics, although I'm not quite sure the Oxford dictionary would agree with my definitions, but at least we've got a working definition to go at. Let's talk about the pros and cons of each of the different tenant types, the different strategies. If you're a long-term listener of the show, if you've been following me for a long time, you'll know that my soft spot really is for student HMOs.

There's a lot of reasons why the student strategy is my preference, but done a lot of other things as well, certainly professional HMOs. Now, I'm going to keep this really high level because I could honestly do an episode in great detail on the pros and cons of each of these different strategies. But a lot of that information is actually inside the HMO roadmap. And it's really important to understand what actually constitutes those pros and cons as well. There's not a lot of nuance and a lot of detail behind those pros and cons, but we're going to keep it really high level for now, at least.

Andy Graham (07:32.696)

Student HMOs then, what are some of the pros? Well, first of all, there's a really great demand, particularly in the core cities where we've got good universities. A lot of young people going to universities to study, that gives you really good supply of customers for your business. A great thing in any business. It's like owning an ice cream shop by the seafront when the sun is shining, okay? That's the great thing about a student model. Doesn't mean it's not competitive, it certainly is, but you've got a really focused group of people looking for a product that you can provide and it means you can be really focused on that individual and that type of product. 

It's very cyclical in the student model and it's very predictable because of the cyclical nature. So when I say cyclical, what I mean is that students come to university and their living arrangements and when they choose to move in and move out, is typically dictated by the academic cycle. So when they actually start university in each year, typically university term starts in around September time, runs to about May, June time, depending on the exams. 

And then they have time off, of course, over the summer period. And that makes it a really nice and very predictable model. Students also typically find housing as a group. They'll sign up as a group. They'll have guarantors each. So you get a really sticky contract, a really robust agreement. And I like that. It makes it very predictable. It means that you have fewer issues with unpaid rents and damages and things like that, because you've just got a lot of people that you can lean on in the tenancy agreement that are ultimately jointly responsible and liable for any costs outside of the contract, the tenancy agreement. 

I think if I'm totally honest, I think whilst expectations of students are high and have been increasing quite significantly over the last few years, I do think that the standards and the expectations are still a little bit lower than they are of young professionals and the requirements from a managerial perspective and some of the expectations, they are a little bit easier to manage than tenants within that social demographic as well for slightly different reasons. So don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that the expectations of students are low that you can get away with providing shoddy accommodation or service. You can't, but I think it is a little bit easier. I think there is a little bit more patience and compromise with students when it comes to.

Andy Graham (09:56.244)

landlording. And that is actually quite important, especially at scale. Another pro to this model is that student HMOs are very lendable. The banks like them, private investors like them. It's because it's predictable. It's because it's a robust strategy. It's because it's tried and tested. It's because we've got decades of data underpinning the performance of the student market. And that gives everybody a lot of confidence and it certainly should give you a lot of confidence as well.

That list isn't exhaustive, but let's move on to some of the cons. Well, I think one of the big cons when it comes to student HMOs is the barrier to entry. It's pretty expensive to buy student HMOs because of all of the good stuff I just talked about, because of the robust nature of the rental confidence, because you're buying in pretty key and cool locations, the brick and mortar value, and then the actual commercial value because of all that rental confidence and the rents that you can achieve has over time pushed the values of the properties up, of course, Article Four directions has further limited the supply of those types of properties coming on the market for investors to buy. And that has meant that purchase prices have increased. 

What ultimately that means is that while the returns I think are still really good and very consistent, the actual return on a yield basis, cash on cash yield basis has come down. It's also much more difficult to recycle large chunks of capital out of student HMOs. And that is because you're typically buying at a bit of a premium within the Article 4 direction or near the university. Savvy landlords know that if it's not already a HMO that it can be and they'll bake some of that premium into the selling price. They also know that if it's an existing HMO that they're selling, but maybe there's the loft that could be converted or a garage at the side and you get an extra room.

They know that and they know you're likely to know that and they're going to bake the value of that into the deal as well. So it is tricky to actually get a lot of capital value added to your refurbishments on student HMOs. And that just makes it really tricky to actually recycle big chunks of cash out, which if you're going to be in part reliant on borrowing finance, maybe from private investors to buy a deal, do a refurb and then pay it back, you're going to find it increasingly tricky. Equally.

Andy Graham (12:09.9)

If you've got a certain amount of capital that you want to stretch as far as possible, if you end up with a lot of that cash stuck in a deal because you simply can't add enough value and recycle it out, then how do you buy the subsequent deals? That is a big challenge in the student market. At this point, I'm not saying that any of this is necessarily good or bad. I'm just highlighting some of the strengths and weaknesses, the pros and cons of each deal. Don't take any of this out of context yet because it's really important that we look at the whole balance to determine whether or not something is good or bad, more importantly, whether that actually suits you. 

Let's move on to professional HMOs then and look at some of the pros and cons of the professional HMO model. Again, remember this is just high level and there's a lot more detail I could go into. Go over to the HMO roadmap to find full lessons on all of this stuff. But I suppose just starting with some of the most obvious, I think there is the potential for higher rents in the professional market.

That's really important. I also think there is potential to buy properties at a better value because you can buy outside of the article four direction. And you can also try and pick things up that sellers are not necessarily aware of from a capital creation perspective. So those lofts that haven't been developed yet, those side extensions that have not been done yet or rear extensions or garage conversions, those genuine value add opportunities that you can pick up outside of the Article 4 direction. They're going to be much easier to find and don't confuse that with easy to find, but easier to find than equivalent projects in areas where you're typically going to be looking and focusing on students. 

Now, what that means is that combination of potentially higher rents and the potential to add more value means that on paper, the returns that you can get from professional HMO deals can be better. However, it's not all good. Before I move on to the cons, just a couple more pros. I think that the income is pretty stable from professional HMOs. I think that you've got certainly in the right place. And if you're targeting the right tenant demographic, I think that actually you can still be pretty confident on your occupancy. You have to build more of a void in than you do the student model. The student model is very predictable and you know exactly when your students are going to be moving in and moving out.

Andy Graham (14:30.514)

With professionals that is a little bit different. They are generally speaking a bit more transient. The average tenancy length is about 18 months, but I think that there is still a high degree of predictability if you do this in the right way and you provide the right accommodation. Certainly over the years that I have rented to professionals, my occupancy has been well above 96% with really voids only when people have handed notice in and we just need a little bit of time to actually change a room over or maybe it's fallen awkwardly over the Christmas period, something like that. 

Now you're probably thinking that professional HMOs sound like an absolute no brainer at this point. If you can get better returns on paper and still get good tenant demand, sounds like an obvious choice, right? But here are some of the cons. First and foremost, generally speaking, you're going to have to work a lot harder to keep those properties filled as opposed to the student market.

Whilst there is a good consistent supply of professionals, it's not like the student market where almost like a cattle farm, students are coming to university every single year in huge numbers. It's a little bit different with the professional market and it's harder to actually keep on top of the property. It's harder to actually keep it in that top spec with students. You can get in between academic cycles and do a little bit of work and top things up. 

In the professional market, it is much more of a challenge because you're often going to have a void in one room, but the other rooms will be filled. Well, how do you go in and do a refurbishment or a periodic improvement? Paint the whole house. It's tricky. And over time, trust me, that does take its toll. So gradually what happens is the spec does come down and down and down. It gets increasingly more difficult to hold onto that high occupancy. And also it gets challenging to actually get those high rents, those kind of rents that you're getting on day one when the property is really glossy.

It gets increasingly difficult to do that. It is certainly from my experience, a lot easier to maintain your really high rents in the student market over five, 10, 15 years. So that really is quite important. I think one of the other big challenges is that the lending is just a little bit more expensive on professional HMOs. You are typically going to quite specialist lenders to buy professional HMOs to explain that you're buying a residential property. Then you're going to be doing some refurbishment and then you turn it into a HMO and rent it by the room. And these is what the rents are going to be.

Andy Graham (16:49.838)

There's a lot more for a lender to wrap their head around. Whereas in the student market, they get all that stuff and it makes a lot of sense. So that is just going to cost you a little bit more. And it might mean that you have to put a bit more capital on the table to make it happen because lenders reduce their loan to values and there's going to be additional costs and getting work signed off by, for example, an IMS or whatever it might be. So what you need to factor in is at the front end.

While you might be able to buy the property at a slightly better price, you might actually have to stump up more cash because the loan to value that you are able to access, certainly when you include the funds that you need to do a big refurbishment, that could be a bit more challenging and that can actually make it hard to get in the deal at the front end. There's also absolutely no guarantee at the backend. So one of the real cons to the professional model is that at the backend, depending on where your professional HMO is, there might be a limited amount of data to support the valuation that you need.

So it can be a bit of a gamble. I understand that can feel a little bit scary and rightly so. If the data isn't there, it is difficult for a valuer to justify evaluation. Ideally, you need as much data as possible to support that valuation. Again, that data exists in the student market. So it's easier to determine where you're going to end up at the end on a student deal, but on a professional deal, that is just more challenging. Not everybody's got the stomach for that. Not everybody's got the pockets for that because what if valuation doesn't come in where you want it. What if you're 10, 15, 20 % under and actually you owe money back to a lender or an investor or a combination of the two. How'd you actually get out of that deal? How'd you refinance it at that point? So that is a real challenge and something that you certainly do need to be aware of. 

There's one more cons to this model that I want to highlight today. And that is the fact that if you are buying on the fringes or outskirts of a major city or you're buying in a small or even a larger town, there may be a real limitation in the resource you have to actually manage that property. So if you don't want to manage it yourself and you need to outsource that management, who are you going to give that management to? In the student market, there's an abundance of student property managers, people who really specialise in companies that specialize in lettings to students and managing student properties. But there are very few that specialise.

Andy Graham (19:08.0)

in the professional space. Now there are a few reasons for that. One of the reasons is because it is hard to do and there's actually not that much money to be made in it. I'm saying that from personal experience. If you just think about it for a second, the fact that rooms need to be advertised on platforms like spare room and communications need to be managed in a very different way. Almost 24/7, if you've got rooms on the market, there's a lot more management involved than just managing leads, doing viewings. 

Professionals typically work during the week from nine to five. So actually most of the views need to happen outside of working hours, five, six, seven PM plus weekends. That is a challenge for most agents and most agents don't do it. So you do need to think about who is going to manage your property. If it's not going to be you, or if you're thinking about investing in professionals remotely, maybe you live in London and you're thinking about investing in the Northeast. Who's actually going to do that? Who is going to do the viewings in the weekends at the evenings? It's easy enough to get your head around how you might do that for the first couple of months to fill the property. 

But what about after a year or two years or five years or 10 years? Think about it for a second in 10 years time, do you want to be that person going up to do a viewing at 7pm on a cold, dark, wintry evening? Probably not. That is a really genuine, very important consideration that you need to make. And it is a real con to the professional model. 

Okay, let's move on and talk about the social model then. Let's look at some of the pros to this. Think one of the things that we can probably all agree on is that there is definitely a consistent supply of tenants. There's absolutely no shortage of tenants needing a social type of housing. There's also no shortage of agencies and government support out there for those individuals. So that gives you a really strong tenant base to work from. I think depending on how well it is managed, but broadly speaking,

There's quite a low void rate actually, because these tenants are often placed in properties by third party agencies and often they will make the payments for them. And also these are individuals that really do place a huge amount of value on their accommodation and depending on the type of tenant and what they're doing outside of the house. I think that actually there is a genuine misconception about the fact that they perhaps don't pay their rent or rent doesn't get paid regularly.

Andy Graham (21:27.938)

I think there's also, and I think this is a real pro to the model, a real opportunity to make a positive social impact. I think actually, especially at the moment, if you think about and listen to what the government are trying to do at the minute, what Labour want, they're talking about more housing, more social housing. They're talking about pumping funding into local authorities and developers to produce more social housing. I think that not only is there a really great opportunity to make a positive social impact, but also I think there's a really great opportunity from an investment perspective, if some of this stuff comes to fruition. 

I can't say the same for professional HMOs and I certainly can't say the same for student HMOs. In fact, quite the opposite in the student market. There's a real suppression happening in the student market. The government and local authorities are actively trying to get students out of off-street HMOs, out of HMOs and into purpose-built student accommodation. That is not really that useful to us. It's actually a bit of a challenge for us in the social housing space, I think that the opposite is happening. And that's quite an interesting idea. 

Let's talk about some of the cons of this model. Well, certainly depending on the type of tenant, there may be some additional regulations and standards that you have to meet to enable you to let to these sorts of tenants. I think that there is undoubtedly more of a challenge refinancing these types of assets. And again, because there is such a huge spectrum, depending on that type of tenant really will determine the type of lending that you're able to achieve, both in terms of the rate and the loan to values. 

So whilst on paper, you might be able to pick some of the housing up for these types of tenants at a lower value and on paper and in theory, we get a better yield on that value. You might find it difficult to actually access a good raise or get a lot of capital out of your deals because lenders will see a lot of these types of properties and tenants as higher risk. And what do they do when that's the case? 

Well, they increase the rate of interest and they also increase the loan to value requirements just to create more of a cushion in their favor. So that can be a real challenge for us as investors because whilst it can look good in theory on paper actually, it can be tough to actually crystallise the money that we want to see from the deal, both in terms of capital and cash flow. Something you certainly need to think about. I think the other thing, just to be really honest about this tenant demographic is that

Andy Graham (23:51.918)

It can be much more challenging to manage. Now, there are lots of different ways to manage this tenant demographic. Could use a high street agent. Sometimes third party agencies will themselves manage the property and you just need to manage that agent. But you've got to know who you're talking to. You've got to be able to negotiate deals and contracts with them. Your lender's got to be then able to approve it. You might get guarantees for certain periods of time, but usually, certainly in my experience,

Those guarantees are a little bit wooly. Usually they could kind of break those guarantees at any point, which means the covenants on them are really not that strong for someone or an agency telling you that they can guarantee it for five years. Usually what you will find is that they'll only guarantee it while it works for them. If it doesn't work for them, they'll be able to get out of that contract very, very easily. So there are options, but I guess the con there is that those options are really not straightforward at all. And you could invest a huge amount of time exploring lots of different providers and agencies and tenant demographics to find that actually you chase your tail for quite some time and end up back in the same position with something on paper that actually doesn't look as good as you hoped that it would be. 

So I think high level, I've probably tackled or highlighted at least the key pros and cons. Like I said, you want to find out more about all of those go over to the HMO roadmap because there's lessons going into the real detail of that stuff. But let's now think about and try and answer the question, which strategy is best? I think probably by this point, at various points through today's episode, you've probably thought that sounds great, or that sounds great, or that sounds great. And maybe at each point, it has made you change your mind between students and then professionals and then social HMOs. But the really important thing here is that actually none of that actually matters unless you really know what it is that you're trying to achieve. 

So let me explain. A good deal to me, and I've talked about this on the podcast before could be completely different to what a good deal looks like to you. I like student HMOs because of the pros and I'm happy to tolerate the cons of that model. One of the big cons is that actually on paper, it doesn't allow me to recycle that much capital from my deals anymore. I end up leaving a lot of cash on the table when I buy HMOs. Now for me, at the point I am in life and in business, that's okay because my capital creation strategy happens outside of my HMO model. Okay. I do that with the

Andy Graham (26:08.77)

bigger developments that I do where I take much more risk and I expect to get much more all of my capital out of my deals. My student HMOs actually, I'm quite happy to take the capital that I've earned, taking high risks in other places and invest it in my student HMOs and just leave it there for a good and very confident return in both the short term and long term. That works really well for me, but the returns on paper, honestly not that great. Certainly when you're looking at a return on capital employed, my return on capital employed is probably in the region of about 12 to 20% on my student HMOs. 

And certainly if I was to go and buy something off the shelf today, that would be much closer to the 12% than it would be the 20%. It's very difficult off the shelf now to get anywhere near a 20% return on capital employed, but it works for me. But I know there's a lot of you listening right now that think, God, that sounds terrible. That would not work for me. And I get it. And that's the really important thing to understand here.

It's not right for everybody and there are pros and cons that will suit you that won't suit other people. What you really need to do and understand is what you're trying to achieve. Are you building a lifestyle business or are you trying to build an empire? Do you need to see results in the shorter term? Do you need to see cash return or capital recycled from the deals in the short term or actually are you at a position where you can wait and you can afford to invest for greater confidence at a lower return?

Well, that will really and quite significantly determine the decision that you are able to make. Think about the type of lifestyle that you want to lead. Do you want to be traveling up and down the M1 to do viewings at the evenings and weekends because that's where the best yield is? I don't, but it's okay if you do. It's not right and it's not wrong. It just means that for you, the professional model, if you are prepared to do that, probably would be a better option. That would be the better strategy because you'll be able to buy deals at a better value. You'll be able to get a better return on those deals. You'll probably be able to recycle more capital out of your deals and get a greater cash on cash return. So you'll have more in your pocket at the end of every month. But the compromise is that you will have to do a lot more traveling or you'll have to work a lot harder to manage those properties. You'll have to jump through a few more hoops when it comes to lending. It's not right and it's not wrong.

Andy Graham (28:29.366)

It's just whatever suits you best. And I really would urge you to think well beyond the short term on this. I think it's very easy to make decisions that are based on short term objectives, such as recycling capital or generating cashflow. But actually that can often contradict what you want to achieve longterm. For most of us, let's be honest, the objective is to create more time, to create more freedom and flexibility to allow us to go and do the things that we want. And yes, it's nice to have the money to actually spend with the time that we've got to do things that we really would like to do. 

But I think for most of us, honestly, the priority is probably having that time, freedom and choice and flexibility as opposed to actually having pounds in the bank account. Right? Well, you need to think about that because some of these decisions that you might make in the short term, they'll give you those pounds in the bank account. They'll make you feel good in the short term, but actually long term, if you're managing a large portfolio of let's say social housing tenants, it might be performing really well on paper, making you a lot of money, but it might be taking every ounce of effort and attention and patience that you've got to actually make it work because you're forever juggling tricky tenants and lots of different agencies and providers and having to jump through all sorts of hoops with lenders, making it very difficult to continue scaling your business. 

And when I say scaling, I don't just mean in terms of volume of properties and rooms. I mean, from an operational point of view, bring staff and systems in, bringing operational efficiency into your business. It's really easy to do that in the student model. Just rinse and repeat the model. It's very cyclical. We let the properties at one time in the year, we turn the properties over another time of the year and everything else in between is kind of like putting your feet up and just collecting the rent. Not entirely, but it's as close to that as you can really get. Professional, student and social HMO model are slightly different.

So when you're trying to make this decision as to what is best between students and professional and social HMOs, you really need to be thinking about what it is that you want and need to achieve in the short and the long term. And only then can you actually make a decision on this. What I'm saying is that they're all good. They're all potentially the best model, but it depends on which one is the best for you. Sometimes it's useful to get a bit of clarity on that. So speaking to other people in our community.

Andy Graham (30:48.984)

talking to people about what they've achieved and how they do it, potentially getting a mentor who's got the experience in the strategy that you're thinking about doing and really getting a better understanding of how the model actually works in practice. I think that that's really important because even on a podcast like this, I've given you a few pros and cons to each. You really need to know everything about each of the strategies to make a truly informed decision.

So look, I did say at the beginning of today's episode that the answer to this question, which strategy is best? Students, professionals, social tenants, it isn't straightforward. It's complicated. And as you can see, it's complicated because they are all so very different. The way that they behave, the function, the form, the risks, the pros, the cons, the ins and outs, everything about each one of these strategies is completely different. And that will entirely shape the type of business that you build.

It's important that you do start with the end in mind. I think it's the most important thing when you're investing in property. But if I'm honest, very few people actually start there. Most people start with whatever looks best on paper and they try and fit the lifestyle and the objectives on a personal level that they really want around those numbers. That is not the way to do it. So hopefully I've inspired you to think more deeply about these different strategies and really think about the pros and cons of each one of them against what it is that you want to try and achieve.

I'm sorry, I can't give you a black and white answer as to which strategy is best. I can tell you what my preference is, but that isn't necessarily what is going to be right for you. 

That's it for today's episode guys. Thank you for tuning in. Now don't forget that if you want to level things up, make sure you head over to thehmorodmap.co.uk. We've got one of our biggest sales ever on at the moment and you can take advantage of everything that we have got for offer inside the HMO roadmap, 20% off. You'll never get an offer like this again.

Get your hands on over 70 case studies from the community. Get your hands on all of my downloadable resources and templates that not only just save you hours and hours and hours of time, but will save you literally thousands of pounds having to create them yourself. Investor decks, loan agreement templates, rent to rent agreements, welcome packs. We've got everything you could possibly need. We've got the deal stacker. So if you're looking at deals, you want to do the math, you want to appraise your deals.

Andy Graham (33:04.236)

I've got it all inside the HMO roadmap waiting for you. Stack your deals, compare them side by side, track the key metrics, the most important pieces of data to you. You've also got expert master classes from everybody, including Ellie, our mortgage broker, Andrew and Mary, our architects, planning consultants, interior designers, and a whole lot more. 

60 lessons from me teaching you step-by-step how to start, scale and systemize through the process of finding more deals, funding your deals, raising private finance, fixing and refurbishing.

Finding and filling them with great tenants and then getting into the flow of good property management to actually monetise your HMO investments. 

Trust me, for less than the price of a cup of coffee every single day, this could be the single most important decision that you make in 2025 to help you on the journey of building a really incredible and really successful HMO property business. So go and grab that offer before it disappears. Just head to thehmorodmap.co.uk. I promise you will not regret it.

That's it guys. Thank you once again. And don't forget that I'll be right back here in the very same place next week. So please join me then for another installment of the HMO podcast.