The 5 Most Difficult Things About Investing In HMOs (That Almost Made Me Quit)

In this episode, I shared the five most difficult aspects of investing in HMOs—and property in general. These are the challenges that have nearly made me quit on more than one occasion.

If you’ve been investing long enough, you’ve likely faced some of these issues. By being open and honest about them, we can better prepare ourselves and realise we’re not alone in experiencing them. Knowing that others face the same struggles can give us the motivation to keep going. This episode is important because the issues we’re discussing are serious.

Topics covered in this episode: 

• 03:01 The Five Difficulties in HMO Investing
• 05:54 Planning Challenges
• 12:08 Financial Risks 
• 17:54 People Management 
• 22:01 Finding Deals in a Competitive Market
• 25:46 The Importance of Resilience 

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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.

Andy Graham (00:40.662)

In today's episode, we are going to discuss the five most difficult things about investing in HMOs. The five most difficult things about investing in property perhaps. And these are the things that have almost made me quit this game on more than one occasion. Now, if you've been investing in property long enough, I am sure that you will have already been experiencing some of what we're about to talk about in today's episode. But by discussing it, by getting open and honest and real about it, you and everybody listening, can better handle this stuff when it does happen. 

We can try and avoid this stuff and at least just knowing that it's not us or only us experiencing this, it's other people as well. It's probably everybody as well that can just give us that boost of confidence, that boost of motivation, that little bit of enthusiasm that we need to just keep going. But today's episode is a serious episode because this stuff is serious stuff. So if you want to know what I think are the five most difficult things about investing in HMOs and about investing in property and what you can do about it, make sure you stick around. Please sit back, relax and enjoy today's episode of the HMO Podcast.

Andy Graham (01:51.596)

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 (03:01.765)

Welcome back gang. So today we are going to be discussing the five most difficult things about investing in HMOs and property. This is the stuff that has almost made me quit on several occasions. And I can bet that if you've been investing in property for any time at all, even thinking about it, you've already experienced loads of this stuff yourself. So you are going to be able to relate to what we're about to talk about. Now look, investing in HMOs can be incredibly rewarding. If you get it right, there's definitely a lot of huge upside to doing this, but it can be brutally difficult at times. And I think it's important to acknowledge that the gap between a lot of our expectations and our actual experiences is often very big and it can be quite scary. 

Now this episode isn't for sugarcoating at all. It's actually going to be a really grounded reflection on my experience and what I think are the five most difficult things to deal with and cope with that have almost, like I said, made me walk away on several occasions. And I think by discussing this openly, it's going to help keep it real for you guys. It's going to help you better prepare. Unfortunately, there's nothing I can do or you can do to remove the challenges that we're about to talk about in today's episode. They're constants and dealing with them requires constant effort and energy and focus, but at least having a better understanding of it. And at least knowing that it's not just you experiencing this stuff. I think it’s really, really important. And I remember when I was younger and I didn't have the network that I had around me then.

I really struggled with a lot of this stuff. And that was why it ultimately on so many occasions pushed me almost to the point of saying, that's it. I want to give up and kind of throw the towel in. And I don't want that to be you. So today's episode is here so that we can have that really honest and authentic conversation about the very real challenges in this game. So what are we going to talk about today? 

Well, like I said, there are five different things. We're going to talk about planning. We're going to talk about financial risks. We're going to talk about people. We're going to talk about finding deals and we're going to talk about the challenge of just simply sticking with it. Okay. 

I want to start with planning though. Planning is quite a hot topic at the minute. It's sort of front and center of labour's housing policy. And we all know that there are big, big, big problems with planning, right? The planning system just needs complete overhaul, doesn't it? But as HMO investors, the problem is significantly more difficult, unfortunately. Now, if you've been investing in HMOs for a while and you've

Andy Graham (05:28.051)

put any planning applications in at all, you'll probably have a pretty good understanding of what some of that can be, those challenges. If you haven't done this yet, you're probably going to learn and you're probably unfortunately going to have to learn the hard way. But today, let me just try and give you a bit of a heads up to at least manage your expectations. I suppose the obvious challenges with planning are delays. They often just take as long as they like. 

Yes, they're our statutory timeframes in which they're supposed to come back to us with decisions, but they often don't. And often they just request an extension of time. And if we don't approve that extension of time, often just reject the application, deny it. Where as HMO investors, people looking to convert houses for the use of multiple occupation, there are often many rejections from planning officers, from consultees, from neighbours, from committee members. And it's a really, really slow grind trying to work through planning applications. 

Just quite simply, the time that it can absorb of yours as an investor trying to push a planning application through to a successful decision, I cannot underestimate just how much work and time and energy and headspace can be invested in that. And I think it's really important to know that because planning is not a walk in the park.

Just because you've seen another planning application approved somewhere else, because you know somebody else, it doesn't mean much at all. You have to be really, really, really well prepared and understand that planning applications and planning offices, they can actually be quite different, even in the same local authority and in the same locations. You can often get very, very different results and your experience can be totally different. So you just need to be mindful of that. And honestly, whatever you think it will be, however bad do you think it'll be,

Unfortunately, it'll probably be worse. If you've done it, you'll probably be nodding along and get exactly what I mean. If you haven't yet, trust me, it'll probably be more challenging and take longer and cost more than you think. Planning is just one of those things that unfortunately tends to end up like that. Now, one of the other big challenges with planning is the anti-HMO sentiment, right? People generally don't like the idea of HMOs. Often it's misconstrued. Often it's a bit of an anti-student

Andy Graham (07:51.666)

mentality and actually it's not just neighbors. Often it is a political sentiment. I've seen that in many places, especially in some cities, in some locations, but there is a stereotype, isn't there? HMOs and tenants in HMOs, they cause noise and they're messy. And the reality is just very, very different. But unfortunately, no matter what you and I say and how loud we shout it and how many podcast episodes we record and share and how many great things you guys out there in our community do.

We're not going to change the opinions of most of the people who think like that, but we need to be aware that it exists. So many decisions honestly boil down to local politics and not planning law. That is the honest truth. There is meant to be a framework which if you follow, you will ultimately get a decision based on that framework, a yes or a no. And if you know exactly what the policy is and you can fit your property into that, it should be a pretty straightforward yes. But often it's not. 

And often that policy and fitting into that policy can be, I would say, gray. It can be made increasingly difficult by some local authorities in the way that they interpret that and like to put their own spin on policy to fit their own agenda is it can be a real challenge at times. So just be aware that the anti-HMO sentiment, especially in areas where there's an article 4 direction, and you're going from perhaps C3 to C4 or even C3 to Sui Generis, it can be really difficult because of those local objections, those opinions, and often it boils down to political decision and not actual planning law. 

Unfortunately, what that means is the decision is often not logically concluded on okay, so just be aware of that. A good planning consultant and working with people with experience of planning applications, like the one that you might want to do in the location that you're doing it, is always a really, really, really good idea. And then you've got to hope and pray that you get a good planning officer on board. And then you've got to hope and pray it doesn't go to committee meeting. And then you've got to hope and pray that if you do go to committee, that there's at least a few people that can see the importance of following the policy and not the politics. And if you get all that right, you'll get your application approved. But you can see why it can be a challenge to get it through. The finance costs of planning applications because of the

Andy Graham (10:15.44)

direct impact on timelines is quite significant. Just the schedules and the general confidence that you can pass on to stakeholders, like for example, investors, is really, really difficult to manage because planning is so often just out of your control, even though there are, like we said, policies and they should follow. Because it's really, really difficult to actually put planning applications in without a great deal of confidence, it can be really difficult to buy or get that confidence from investors and other stakeholders. So just be mindful of that. When you're trying to get people on board with projects that require planning permission, it is a big jump. It's a very different prospect to buying something or investing in something that already has planning. So just be mindful of that. That's a big challenge for you. And the timelines can make that process take a long, long, long, long time.

So what does this all mean for us as HMO Investors and what can we do about it? Well, my honest and best advice would be to understand that you can follow the rules and still get nowhere. So having a contingency is an absolute must. When you're thinking about applying for planning permission on a property, think about what will happen if you don't get it or what will happen if you don't get the planning that you want. Maybe they will give you something, but not quite what you want.

Maybe they'll give you six rooms and not seven. Maybe it's six, not five. Maybe they'll let you have a HMO, but maybe they want to squeeze your footprint and then you're perhaps left with some slightly compromised rooms. These risks are really, really important to understand. So you need to work through them with your architect and your planning consultant. Then you need to discuss contingencies. Now, ideally you wouldn't buy something unless it already had the planning permission. That can obviously be a challenge because that means you've often got to negotiate with a seller that you're going to go to planning, go through all of this process while I just hang around and wait for that decision. 

Sometimes, and you'll find someone that'll do it, that's great. And if you can, that is brilliant because that significantly de-risks things for you and it keeps your costs down because you don't own the property. So you're not sitting on purchase costs and interest. However, if you can't, you've got to think about what it would mean if you don't get that planning permission. So that is incredibly important. You must have a plan B. If you buy a property,

Andy Graham (12:37.938)

and it's expensive and you want to get planning permission and you don't get it, what will you do with that property then? Can you just resell it back onto the residential market and recoup all of your costs? Maybe not if you've not done any other work to it. You won't be able to sell it to an investor. You won't even be able to sell it to another investor who had the same idea as you. So you need to be really, really careful and eyes wide open with this stuff. But that's the lesson I want to share with you. You can follow the rules and still get nowhere. 

So having a contingency is an absolute must when it comes to planning and ideally don't complete anything until you've actually got your planning permission. I think this takes us nicely into financial risks. Now, as a property investor, you have to get very comfortable with financial risks. It is just a part and parcel of this game, right? There are so many things that we have to take financial risk on. Now, to begin with, if you're just starting to build your business, the pressure of putting in your own capital to get projects and your business off the ground and maybe all of everything that you've got and then potentially locking it up for years because that's what property tends to do. It sucks up your capital and there's not often a guaranteed return and often doing the next deal before you come out of the last deal. And so often your money is just sucked back into your business. And that can be really, really difficult. So on a personal level, there's a lot of pressure, a lot of financial pressure, and that can translate to financial risk. 

It's money that you don't have in your own bank account to spend on day-to-day basis because you're putting it into your business. Now, I'm certainly not saying that you shouldn't do that. I'm just saying that you guys need to be really aware that if you're just starting a property business, there's a very good chance that that is how you will feel. Buying property in the UK is really capital intensive and it'll suck up all of your capital. If you want to grow quickly, everything that you make and all your cash flow and income coming from it will probably just get sucked back in. 

A lot of people want to start building a portfolio to leave their job. And as soon as they do that, as soon as they kind of build it up to a certain level and then they leave their job, all of sudden they're back in the same position. And it's really difficult to keep moving forwards. You've got to find solutions to keep adding value, to keep recycling capital. Budget overruns, often refurb is taking longer than they should do or things just costing more material and labour costs. Those delays can really mount up and a contingency that you might have on a project can vanish.

Andy Graham (15:02.69)

incredibly quickly, like almost overnight. And if you don't have the experience of doing projects and managing tradesmen and refurbishments and costs and budgets and quotes and tenders and schedules, it can be really easy to go well over budget and well over your timeline. And that can be really, really expensive. So that's just a big financial risk. That's ultimately how that translates.

Post-referred valuations, it's a huge risk. Surveyors can just come and down value what it is that you've just created. Lenders could pull back at the last minute, they've changed their mind. They're not happy with something about the property or you or the market in general. Perhaps comparables don't reflect the spec that you've created. What about interest rates changing, squeezing your cashflow, making the exit and the term finance more difficult? All of this stuff is really, really real and can really significantly impact what you're able to do with a project. And all of that translates as financial risk. 

Holding costs while you're sitting on planning, while you're sitting waiting to get a contractor started, while you're sitting waiting to get tenants in, all of those periods of time will cost you money. And that starts to bite. That's the sort of stuff we often don't put in the spreadsheet, if I'm honest, and it can be really, really expensive. Months can go by if we add it all up and aggregate it.

And it can be really, really expensive. It all translates to financial risk. So what am I saying here? We know that there's financial risk in investing in property. Of course we do, but there's quite a lot. And the way that it can surface can be quite variable. We often just think about the PGs that we've got to give and how much money is out on the line. But actually there's way more to it than that. There's a lot more financial risk. So my advice would be...

To understand that financial risks and pressures aren't just theoretical. They can be quite relentless. They can be very personal. Even though you've got a business and you're doing it all perhaps through an SPV, at the end of the day, almost all of the risk, financial risk that you take as that business owner will be personal. You will have to guarantee everything. And ultimately, if your business went wrong and south, it's going to hurt you on a very personal level. And financial risks

Andy Graham (17:24.05)

They're not really bothered about how good the deal looks on paper. It's about how good it actually performs at the end of the day. So all of your assumptions in that financial model, they're great. It's really important. We must have them. But that stress testing, which I've talked about so many times on the show before, and I've covered in detail inside the roadmap in my master classes, that is really, really important to understand because that is exactly why we have contingencies. 

If you push yourself too far, one or two projects slip at the same time. That can be absolutely catastrophic. And I know lots of people that that has happened to. It's not theoretical. This stuff does happen. So you have to be really, really, really cautious and really on top of this stuff. The third big challenge I want to talk to you about today is people. There are lots of people that we have to deal with. And I think that it is of all of the challenges, probably the single biggest challenge, if I'm quite honest.

It's the one that I've certainly struggled with the most and it's the one that I think has surprised me the most over the years. So what sort of people are we talking about? Well, okay, contractors. And what can happen with contractors? Okay, well, contractors can go quiet on you. Contractors can cut corners. Contractors can push the costs up. Contractors can just do a really bad job. Contractors can just waste your time. On so many occasions, I have had to run around by contractors. It's really, really, really difficult.

You've got to do a huge amount of work upfront to make sure you get this piece right, but there's still no absolute guarantee. Working with contractors and tradesmen is definitely a challenge and managing those is going to be a challenge. So just make sure that when you're working with contractors and tradesmen, that they do get your time and attention and focus. The idea of letting a builder be your project manager as well is absolutely crazy. Okay. You cannot do that. That's like giving the person in in control of all of the bills and invoices, control of the project, they're not incentivised to do it in the right way. So you really do need to think about making sure you have everything under wraps, that you are actually managing your contractor and tradesmen. Don't leave them to their own devices. Make sure everything's wrapped up in a contract, nice and watertight. Okay. It's really, really important. There are a lot of risks and liabilities. building control. People getting injured, issues, liabilities and warranties.

Andy Graham (19:48.11)

All of that stuff is really, important. So you must stay on top of it all. What are the people, well, business partners. There can be challenges from people that you think are going to be people that you work with for years and years that turn out to be different and do different things and maybe surprise you in ways that you never thought they would do. That can absolutely happen.

And if you're to go into business with people like that, you must make sure that you get the paperwork right. You spend a lot of time, do the due diligence, make sure that your paperwork, your shareholders' agreement and your articles of association, they're all sorted. It's really important that you don't just naively wander into business partnerships with people that you don't know particularly well. It's a marriage. It's a financial marriage and it's very difficult to get out of them. It's easier to get in than it is out. So just make sure if you go into business with somebody, you stay in business or it's got the scope to be a really wonderful and fruitful partnership. 

Unfortunately, a lot of people rush into partnerships because they want to achieve something quite quickly, but don't necessarily end up going into business with the right person. So that's really, really important. Who else? What other people can be really challenging in this game? Well, how about tenants? Tenants who don't pay rent, tenants who are antisocial. There can be all sorts of management issues that affects your income and reputation as a business owner and as a landlord. And it can take up so much of your time, even if you've got an agent in place. Agents, neighbours, councils, all of these people can block your progress. They can mislead you. They can drain your energy and time and certainly your bank balance. And what does all of this mean? 

Well, there's a very real, I think, emotional toll of managing expectations and resolving conflicts and having to constantly stay on top of people. This is something that you will not be able to put on the spreadsheet and it's a very real part of building a property business. Building a property business is ultimately a people business. There are a lot of moving parts and it relies on a lot of people to keep those moving parts working well. So just make sure you don't underestimate how much time and effort and energy you'll have to put into managing that stuff. If you get it right, it can be

Andy Graham (22:01.637)

Great. So what is my lesson? Well, systems and numbers, they're the easy bit here, but people are unpredictable and they will test you the most. So make sure that you're prepared and make sure you don't underestimate just how much of a challenge it can be if the people that you're surrounded by and the people that you're working with make your life difficult. 

Moving on then, number four. Finding deals can be so hard, can't it, right? Especially in a market like we've had for the last few years, which has been a pretty expensive market, a market with quite a limited amount of stock on the market. There seems to be, in fact, I think an endless stream of really poor stock, overvalued opportunities, completely irrelevant listings online. How difficult can it be dealing with agents who just simply don't understand investment criteria or deliberately overhype deals?

How many agents tell you or have told you that the HMO is compliant and then go on to tell you that it's got a HMO license. They fundamentally do not understand the difference between license and planning permission. How easy is it to look at things and feel like nothing's stacked right? How many deals have you looked at that just doesn't work on paper? And how easy is that temptation to just lower your standards just to get a deal done right? The value of consistency here is really, really important.

Filtering deals quickly, being sharp on your numbers and making sure that you are ready and prepared when the right thing does come along. That is so important. And that is why, by the way, I think that having your finance ready before the deal. So perhaps that means private finance, having that ring fenced or at least having had that conversation, have an investor who's ready to go as soon as you've got that deal agreed is so important because you need to move really, really quickly. But it's very difficult trying to go and find a deal and then rushing around to find the investor and the money. That's often when deals fall over. 

My lesson here is that finding deals really is a volume game. Nobody likes to hear that, okay? Nobody wants to put all of that effort in to get so little out, but it really is. And you win by having a really high standard and a discipline to walk away from every single deal over and over again, if that's what you need to do. A good person once told me,

Andy Graham (24:20.263)

that if you want a good deal, you have to be prepared to walk away. Just think about that for a minute. It's really, really hard to walk away from deals, especially when the pickings are slim and especially when you've put a lot of time and work and effort into something. Sometimes the emotion in us just wants to get the deal done, but don't let the emotion drive the decision. Okay. Make sure that the numbers absolutely work and be disciplined. If you get this wrong, nothing will work if you get this wrong and then you have issues with some of the other stuff that we're talking about in today's episode. That's when your house of cards can really fall in on you. 

Finally then, the big one is the ability to stick with it all. Because these challenges can be so difficult at times, often they can seem unsurmountable. I mean, just think about the scenario where perhaps you've spent loads of money and time on a deal. Maybe it's run over a little bit. Maybe you've spent a little bit more than you expected. Maybe you've struggled a little bit with getting it tenanted, but you've just about got it all done and it's looking great. And then some value comes along and he shaves 50,000 off the value of your property. And all of a sudden you can't refinance and pay everybody back. You can't refinance to pay your investors back. How would you feel? That is a huge challenge. Well, of course you would probably have to go to another lender or another valuer and try, or maybe appeal. But what if you got the same result? 

What if the fundamentals of the deal have just changed. You've got too much money locked in. This is just one example, but that can be a really, really, really difficult challenge to deal with. But you've got to deal with it. You've got to find a solution. You need to be able to think on your toes, but you also should have thought about this possibility before doing the deal. There should be a contingency in. So that's just one of many examples. Imagine a partnership where you fall out with somebody, you own assets with them, you can't agree.

What happens if you both want to go different ways or do different things with the business and you don't have the appropriate paperwork in place? What if that happens just as you're about to refinance something and you can't make a decision and your interest costs are going to go up because you're going to fall onto a standard variable rate, which is four times more expensive than the fixed rate mortgage you've been in. What if you have a tenant in a house who is so difficult that he pushes all of the other tenants out of the house, they simply don't want to live with him and you struggle to remove him and you can't get the rent paid by not just that tenant, but by

Andy Graham (26:45.103)

everybody else because they're leaving. These are really, really difficult scenarios to manage. And don't get me wrong, these happen very rarely. And if you plan and if you manage well, you can absolutely mitigate the chances and the risk of this stuff happening. But you should absolutely stop and think about what you would do in that scenario. Continuities are really, really important, but sticking with it when it's difficult, that is the really difficult thing. 

The cumulative effect on stress and waiting and delays and the feeling that you're always fixing something that for most of us can be enough to say, I don't want to do this anymore. This isn't worth it. The periods of slow progress, questioning whether it's worth it because you're not getting the results, because you're not getting money back in your pocket, because you're ploughing everything into something that you can't see the returns on yet. It can also feel quite isolating being the one carrying all of this risk and responsibility.

Perhaps when others have stepped away, that can be so difficult at times. Simply managing the challenge of staying focused and juggling life and business and family and property, it can be really, really, really difficult. I'm sure a lot of people listening today can absolutely relate to all of this. Building resilience and not relying simply on motivation and remembering that consistency beats that excitement, that enthusiasm every single day. That is what will get you to the finish line. I, on so many occasions have been so deflated with results, with problems, with challenges, with the direction of travel. And it is my consistency that has always got me there, that has always won the day in the end. My dad used to say that I was not necessarily ever the quickest at getting to the answer or getting to the right answer, but he would say I would always get there in the end. I simply will not give up.

I think it's that approach to property and business that I could acclaim pretty much all of the successful things that I've done to just sticking with it when other people would have walked away. Just getting over that hurdle, just getting to the top of that climb to get a better visibility on things. It's so, so important to be able to do that. So that discipline and that consistency, that is where the results are. And if you are finding it difficult and stuff is getting on top of you.

Andy Graham (29:09.857)

And these challenges do seem unsurmountable and maybe it's stacking up. Try and stick with it. Work your way through, have the contingencies in place, fall back on them. Have the difficult conversations if that's what you need to do. Tackle it all head on, but don't whatever you do, bury your head in the sand and try and stick with it. Be disciplined, be consistent every single day. Get up, do the right thing. Just find that 1%. And it is that 1 % day after day, week after week, month after month and year after year that'll get you to where you want to go. 

So my lesson here is that you don't have to be the most talented. You don't even have to do the best deals in the world. You just have to be the one who doesn't stop. Hopefully today's episode has given you a bit of a shake if you needed it. I mean, it's easy to get complacent when things are going well. It's easy to do business, but actually good business is about what you do when things aren't going well.

And a lot of what we have to experience as property investors and specifically HMO investors unfortunately falls into that latter category stuff that tends not to go well. I have to feel like as a business owner, I'm at the bottom of a funnel and that's where all of the crap comes to. And we're just dealing with all of that stuff all the time. And then occasionally something great happens. And then before we know it, something terrible has happened. 

Hopefully today's episode has been another honest and authentic episode, just helping you keep it real. I hope it hasn't put you off. That was not the intention of today's episode whatsoever. In fact, quite the opposite. I want to give you the confidence that despite these challenges and now you know perhaps a little bit more about them, you can absolutely get through them and you absolutely know what to do. You just need to make sure that you execute all of that advice that I give you today. So there we go. Planning, risks, financial risks, people risks, the challenges of finding deals and simply being able to stick with it. 

They have been what I have found to be the most challenging things investing in HMOs and investing in property over the almost 20 years that I have done it. You are definitely going to experience some, if not all of this at some point. When you do, just remember today's episode and remember the advice that I've given you. These challenges won't go away despite what you and I talk about here and what we do. They will still exist. They are constant. Like I said earlier,

Andy Graham (31:32.295)

But you will get stronger and you will get smarter. I remember how I would be affected by a difficult ten when I was just getting started, but you do grow a thick skin. You do learn to handle things better. And that goes for everything that we've talked about in today's episode. So have the confidence that that will come over time. That is about it for today's episode guys. Thank you so much for tuning in. I hope you've enjoyed it. I hope you found it useful. 

And of course, everything that we've talked about and all of the detail to help you plan those contingencies and do better deals and manage your properties and your business better. It's all waiting for you inside the HMO roadmap. Head to thehmoroadmap.co.uk. Get your hands on about 80 of our community case studies. Look what people have been doing and how they've achieved really incredible results. Get your hand on all of my downloadable templates and resources. It's all there. It'll save you thousands of pounds and countless hours trying to figure it all out yourself. Use the deal stacker. All the analysis that you need to do on your deals is there and it'll take you minutes and you can stack them all side by side. It could not be any easier. And we've got master classes from every single expert you can imagine from planning consultants to interior designers and a whole lot more. Trust me, if you're taking this stuff seriously for the cost of less than the price of a cup of coffee every single day, The HMO roadmap is an absolute no brainer. I wish it existed when I was just getting started. 

Of course, if you want to come and find some more support and guidance and advice, head on over to the HMO community. That is our free group on Facebook. If you are a regular listener of the show and haven't joined our community yet, you have to come and check it out. It's an incredible place with some really wonderful people doing incredible things and some fantastic conversations happening every single day. It's a really important part of my network and it should be for you as well.

That's it for today's episode guys. Thank you again for tuning in 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.