Find to Fill: A 16-Point Checklist for Delivering HMO Projects Like a Pro

In today’s episode, I’m breaking down my 16-step Find to Fill process - the exact system I use to take an HMO project from identifying the right property through to launching it and filling rooms fast.

If HMOs were as simple as buy, refurb, advertise, and move tenants in, far fewer investors would be dealing with delays, budget overruns, planning issues, and long voids. In reality, most problems don’t come from the market - they come from missed or poorly sequenced steps earlier in the process.

This episode is about clarity and control. I explain the full Find to Fill sequence, the steps investors most often overlook, and why getting the order right is what separates smooth, profitable projects from stressful, expensive ones.

🎯 What You’ll Learn

• The 16-step framework I use to manage HMO projects end to end
• How to reduce risk, control costs, and speed projects up
• What needs to happen before you go to market so rooms fill quickly

If you’re building, scaling, or systemising an HMO portfolio, this episode will help you run your projects with far more confidence and predictability.

And if you want my direct input on your current or next project, you can book a complimentary strategy call with me here.

💻 Resources & Mentions

• The HMO Roadmap: Feeling overwhelmed? Access 400+ tools, templates, and lessons to help you start, scale, and systemise your HMO business - all in one place. Join here.
• Facebook Community: Got questions or need support? Come and connect with 10,000+ investors inside The HMO Community here.
• Social: Follow me on Instagram for daily HMO tips, advice, and behind-the-scenes updates here.

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 (00:40.59)

In today's episode, I am going to break down my 16 step find to fill process. If finding a property and refurbishing it and advertising the rooms and moving tenants in was as easy as that sounds, then there would be far fewer HMO investors dealing with delays and redesigns and finance issues and rooms that take months to fill. In my experience, those sorts of problems don't happen as a result of market conditions. They tend to happen because somebody has missed some of the steps earliernin the process. Well today I'm going to break down exactly what those steps are so that you don't make those mistakes but more importantly so that you can manage your HMO projects like an absolute pro. Let's get into it.

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 (02:32.098)

Welcome back gang. So in today's episode, I am going to be breaking down what I call my find to fill process. Now this is an essential part of the HMO investment process, but it's not the entire process. I'm going to assume for the purposes of today's episode that you've already got your strategy nailed down. You know what it is that you're investing in. You've got your investment criteria set. You know where you're investing, the type of tenant and all of that jazz. 

Today's episode is going to take you from that point of identifying property that you want to buy through delivery and then getting it ready to fill it with tenants. Now on the surface, this is a really straightforward process. The idea of buying something, doing the refurb, getting your tenants in. It's pretty simple, right? But in reality, a lot of people do overlook some of the nuance, some of the steps within that process that'll help your program and your project move at a good pace. It'll help keep your costs down. It'll help it from being stressful and everything else. All of the things that go wrong with projects can almost certainly be avoided if you follow this process step by step. 

Now caveat, not every single project needs every single step. You'll find out it'll become clearer. But understanding that you need to consider whether these steps do need to be done, whether you do need to pay each one of these steps attention for a particular project is really, really important. If you overlook it, if you don't know that it's a step that you should even think about, then you are almost certainly going to make some mistakes and those mistakes will be really expensive. It'll cost you loads of time. It'll be really, really stressful and it's all the sort of stuff that you just want to avoid from the outset. 

So this is an important episode. If you get it right, it'll absolutely save you loads of time and loads of money. And of course, listening to the podcast is absolutely free. So make sure you grab yourself a pen and a pad because you'll probably want to make sure you get some notes down today. And this may also be an episode that you want to come back to if you're not currently delivering a project. So make sure you're subscribed to the podcast and make sure you save this episode for later. 

Now, I think the best way to do it today is just to kind of hit this one at a time. I'm not going to outline every step from the beginning. I think it'll just overwhelm you and confuse you. So I'm just going to go through them one at a time. Now, I'm not going to labor each one of these points. I could probably record an episode on each one of these points, but I'm not going to. I just want to help you understand the process and what you should be thinking about.

Andy Graham (04:59.02)

And if you've got any questions about anything I discussed in today's episode, then just head over to the HMO community. That's our free group on Facebook. It really is a great place to just ask questions and throw ideas around and get some additional advice and support for free. 

Okay. So let's get into this. The very first step that you need to be thinking about, assuming you've got your strategy nailed down, you know, where you're buying and why you're buying and your investment criteria and all of that stuff. The very first thing that you should have done is have a conversation with your broker. You need to get your finance arrangements in alignment. Now that doesn't mean you need your mortgage, but it does mean you need to know broadly speaking what it is you are likely to be able to get from a lender. So if that's a high street lender or a mes lender or something like that specialist lender, you need a specialist HMO mortgage broker. Now, if you're a regular listener to the show or a member of the Roadmap or anybody I've worked with closely, then you will know I wholeheartedly recommend Ellie.

Ellie Broadhurst, she is our partner broker at the HMO roadmap. You can head to theHMOroadmap.co.uk and there's a tab for services and under that drop down, you'll find a section for specialist mortgage finance and you can drop an enquiry with Ellie. If you're ready to go shopping, to go hunting for a project, you've got your strategy and all of that nailed down and you are ready to go and execute, then please make sure you had that conversation with Ellie from the outset. She helps so many of our members and wider community members with the process of buying their HMOs and refinancing them. And she knows all of the lenders inside out and it's a very bespoke service. It's really important that you work with the right broker because a good broker will take time to understand your circumstances and your objectives and help put you in front of the very best lender that will suit what it is that you are trying to do. 

There are different lenders in the market and I don't want to get into it today, but if you go down the wrong rabbit hole, you could be stuck there for a long, long time and it can be very expensive and take you ages until you figure out who you really should be lending with. So the very first step in the process is about getting your finance aligned. So have a chat with your mortgage broker, make sure that you know what it is that you're aiming for, who it's likely to be with. And that way you can potentially even get a decision in principle. You can have that.

Andy Graham (07:14.562)

so that when you move forward and you start making offers, you've got a bit of paper to wave in everybody's face to say, hey, look, I'm good to go. I am proceedable. I'm not wasting your time. Okay, that's the first step. 

Step two then, you need to be doing your property searching and multiple viewings. And I want to really underline the multiple viewings. If you are just every now and then looking at what's online and booking the odd viewing here and there, you're almost certainly going to fail him.

You need to be getting into properties. You need to be looking at different properties. You don't really know what it looks like until you get in that house. What does it look like? What does it feel like? What does it smell like? You've got to look at the detail. Only then can you really ascertain whether or not it could potentially be the right deal for you. And if you're not doing enough viewings, you're almost certainly not going to get offers agreed. 

You should expect that you're going to view a number of properties and you're going to get a no on most of them if you do offer. The idea is the objective is you should be putting competitive offers in, not top offers, competitive offers and sometimes, well, no, sorry, at all times, if you want to secure yourself a good day, and I want you to remember this, if you want to secure a good deal, you have to be prepared to walk away. Well, what does that mean? It means that you pay what you think it's worth and nothing more. You can't be emotional about it. You put your offer in ultimately your best offer and you leave it with them. And if it's no good, you move on. Okay. But if you're not doing multiple viewings, you can't put those offers in. If you're only doing one or two viewings, you're almost certainly going to find that you struggle to get a deal accepted. Okay. Doing multiple viewings will significantly enhance your ability to get something eventually agreed. Plus there's lots of additional benefits like the ability to nurture your relationship with agents and get a better idea of what's going on on the ground, where it is that you want to invest. Okay. So that is step two, multiple viewings. 

Okay. Now let's just assume for a second that one of those viewings is great and you're really interested in it, but you don't quite know what you should be offering. Well, how do you figure out what you should be offering? Okay. This is one of the steps right now that I'm about to tell you that a lot of people skip over. Step three.

Andy Graham (09:38.412)

You should be getting, unless you're an absolute pro, you've got loads of experience behind you or you can do this yourself, you should be getting some sketches, some layouts or potentially some feasibility studies done on a particular project. Now, I can see a lot of people listening to today's episode are probably wincing at this age thinking, God, am I going to have to pay somebody some money to do some drawings or some sketches on something that I've not even gotten an offer accepted on? 

Well, if you want to know exactly what it's worth and make sure that you don't lose a good deal because you potentially undervalue it or you overpay on something because you potentially overvalue it because you think you can get more out of the deal than you can. If you don't want to make either of those mistakes then you really do need some sketches, some really simple layouts, a really simple feasibility study. Ideally an architect or equivalent would do this for you. Really easy, nothing fancy, just really simple, practical layouts to show you exactly what you could do with that property.

Now like I said, if you're an absolute pro, you can do this kind of stuff yourself, then that is absolutely fine. But in all honesty, most people, including myself, can't. So it's a good idea to get it done and that will help you make a very well informed decision about making an offer. Okay. Now that is step three. The next step similarly related is about the planning risk and assessing that planning risk. 

Now every project is a little bit different. This might be a step that you can skip if you're looking at a project in a location that hasn't got an Article 4 direction or if you're not doing anything to the property that would require planning permission. If it is in an Article 4 direction and if it does need or rather I should say it does need some form of planning maybe you're going to Sue Generis maybe you need some sort of extension that's not on the PD. Well in either of those scenarios, you should absolutely as step four get some professional advice. This is one of the steps that a lot of people skip and they try and deal with it after they bought the property. And if there is a potential hazard when it comes to planning that is not the that is not the right time to find out you want to know now you can price the risk in now. So how do we do this. Well quite simply get yourself a planning consultant to help you understand the planning.

Andy Graham (11:57.518)

risk. It won't necessarily eliminate the risk for you. It won't necessarily change what you offer. It might do. But a good planning consultant can have a look at the proposed scheme, the local policy, what you're planning to do with it and give you some very outline advice that doesn't need to cost an arm and a leg. It doesn't need to take ages. If you've got a good contact, someone that you can go back to again and again again, this can actually be something that takes a very short space of time. 

And as per the previous step, It'll help you make a very well informed decision about what it is that you're potentially going to buy. This is such a crucial step. And again, I'm going to reiterate it. So many people skip this step. They don't know that it's a step that they should be putting into place and they come to deal with planning after they bought the property. And of course, if there is a massive hazard, then that's when they find out and you're already committed to the deal. You can't price that risk in at that point. 

Okay. Moving on. Step five then you need if possible to get a bit of a reality check if you've seen a property that you like from your contractor. Now this can be difficult if you don't have a contractor that you're already familiar with working for or with. If you have got a contractor that is happy to come and look at a property before you buy it before you even put your final offer in that is just a great way to get a sense check just to get a bit of an idea what can you do.

What do you think about these plans that I've just had very quickly sketch from my architect? Costs, complexity or knowns, just the really important, very, very, very high level stuff. Just get that feedback. That can be such a useful tool that can again, really inform that offer that you ultimately want to put forward. Contractor might just see something that you haven't seen. Could be good, could be bad. But either way, again, it can just help you reduce the risks and get to that offer that you want to make that is most appropriately priced relative to what the actual property looks like. What you actually need to do. But I appreciate if you haven't got that contact, then this is a very difficult step. Please don't ring around contractors randomly and expect them to come and look at a property for you on the promise that you'll give them the work because in all reality, you probably won't as I'm going to come on to.

Andy Graham (14:20.086)

So this might be a difficult one for everybody to do, but if you know someone you can call in a favor. That's the stage to do it. So that's step five. A contractor reality check. If you can before your offer, just get a professional builder in to have a quick look at your scheme. 

Okay. Moving on number six then finally, moving on to your offer and your negotiation strategy. So let's assume that you have done your viewing. You've then got your sketches and your layouts and your feasibility done. You've got an opinion on the planning risk. You've had your contractor have a little look around the property. You are now really informed to make your offer to put your offer forwards and you can negotiate and you should negotiate. Try where possible to get as much insight as to other interests that you can on the property. Try and squeeze that out at the agent. I'm pretty good at it. If you get really friendly and if you've got a good relationship, you can usually try and eke that out. If it's something that goes to best and finals, wait till the end, make a few calls through the day, where are you up to? Can you give me a bit of a steer? 

Look, they might not be able to give you the exact price. I would be very surprised if they did. They shouldn't. But a nice little trick I use is to sort of say, look, if I was at this level, do you think I'd be competitive? Do you think, wink, wink, I would have a good chance of getting it? If they say, look, we've already got some offers above there, then you know you're going have to sharpen your pencil or give them an offer and walk away. Like I said, be prepared if you want to get a good deal. You have to be prepared to walk away. So that's step six, your offer strategy and negotiation. 

Moving on, step seven, let's now assume that you got your offer accepted. Well done. It's time to give the deal to your legal team, to your solicitors. Now, ideally you should have this person or this team set up beforehand. It's not ideal if you're getting an offer accepted and then you've got to scramble around to find a solicitor and get some quotes from different people. I can honestly hand on heart say I speak to our solicitor, to my solicitor every single week. There's a lot going on in my businesses, but they are and should be a very important part of your business. A good solicitor understands the objective and they get the job done quickly. And it's become the norm, but you should not accept anything but that. Slow solicitors and solicitors who don't do a good job, you know, that is not acceptable. Okay. I would much rather

Andy Graham (16:46.158)

pay a premium and get a fantastic service. But make sure that you've got that person or that team ready and in place. So once you get your offer agreed, you're straight into legal's and things can start moving. And you can also, if you need control the pace of the completion. So if there's a few things that you might need to do or would benefit from doing during the process of conveyancing, if you've got a good relationship with your solicitor, who's working very much on your behalf. You can just try and control the pace of the program, okay? The pace of that completion. That's a little tip. 

Okay, step eight. Just make sure you've got some insurance in place before you complete on that deal. I've forgotten this myself. I've seen lots of people forget this. It's very easy to forget unless it's on some sort of a checklist, but do make sure you've got the right sort of insurance in place pre-exchange, ready for exchange. 

Okay, number nine then. So at this point, we're now, let's just assume that you have Completed on the deal. Well done. Congratulations. The deal is yours. You now need to go to your architect and get the detailed design of your scheme. Now in an ideal world, you could actually do step nine a little bit earlier But I want to make this very very clear if for any reason your deal didn't complete but you brought step nine forward and you went to your architect for the detail design of whatever it is you're planning to do so if you're planning to

Completely redivide, subdivide the property, extend it, whatever. If you need plans for that, then as soon as you get the offer agreed, you could theoretically start this step. And I would recommend that you do if you don't see any inherent risks of the deal collapsing. If the deal collapsed for whatever reason, maybe something came up in the search reports or whatever it might be. If you've already spent substantial monies on an architect and detailed design, you're going to lose it. 

That money is being spent at your risk. It's worth weighing up what that risk is versus getting all of that work done during the conveyancing period, which is typically going to take anywhere between, I don't know, four to six and 12 weeks easily. That's a really nice period of time to get things like this done. And as part of the architectural and detailed design process, you actually need to do things like get a measured survey, go through some iterations of drawings then

Andy Graham (19:06.966)

You might need regularized drawings for building control and things like that. So it can be quite a lengthy process, but you are going to spend a few quid on that. You should expect to do that. So you can either do it at this point once you have completed, or if you're prepared to take the risk, you could do it a little bit earlier in the process. But if it's a scheme that needs drawings, if it's a scheme that has got substantial changes to it, basically, unless you're going in and painting and decorating, replacing the furniture, you really probably are going to need to do this stuff. 

This is the time to make sure that you get it done or earlier. And once you've got this stuff in hand, once you've got the drawings, they may be needed to submit with your planning application or they may be required to give to a contractor so that they can actually do the job properly. Well, they certainly will be needed to give to the contractor to get prices, which I'm going to come onto as well. Okay. So that's step nine, get your architect to give you some detailed design drawings and then ultimately submit anything for planning. If you do need to submit it for planning, you could also go back to your planning consultant and get them to submit to planning. it's entirely up to you. It depends on the relationship. It depends on your, who you're most comfortable with doing that or who wants to do it. 

Step 10 then building control. Before you appoint a contractor, now once you've got your drawings, But before you appoint a contractor or before you go out to tender to contractors, it's a good idea to have a conversation with building control to get an idea of what you are going to need, what's going to be involved in the process. You'll get a quote for it. Depending on the scope of works, there might be some building control elements that you haven't thought about. There could be things to do with energy and other compliance requirements that you might not have thought about, which need to be included in your tender process.

Or it might just prompt some things that you need to make sure that at least your contractor is aware of that they are going to be potentially responsible for managing and delivering. So that is step 10, building control. Go to building control. Just get an idea before you go to your out to your tender process. 

Step 11 then is the tender process itself. This is one that a lot of people miss. A lot of people certainly who are inexperienced tend to

Andy Graham (21:26.136)

Get the idea of their project together, the drawings, whatever it might be, go to one or two builders, get them around the house and then ask them for a price. That is the wrong way to do it. It is so wrong. It kind of makes me want to pull my hair out. Please, please, please don't do that. Tendering a process out and we don't necessarily need to call it a tender because sometimes that can make it sound like it's a more expensive process or the job is going to be more higher cost than it really needs to be. But going out to a number of contractors in a particular way to make sure that you get a standardized set of costs back from a spectrum of contractors is really, really, really, really important. It does a number of things. First of all, if you've got a tender pack together, which will consist of all of your drawings and the plans, and your architect can do that, if you give that out to, let's say, five or six different contractors, they can all come back to you with prices and they are all measuring against the same pack of information. 

So first of all, you know you're comparing apples with apples. If you haven't done that, if you haven't been able to give builds and contractors this sort of information and you're asking for prices, then you're going to be comparing apples and oranges. And I can guarantee when it all washes out, the prices will be very, very different by the time you finish the project. So that's really, really important. The second thing is going through a process like a tender. It does take a bit of time. There is an investment in that process, but It allows you to see lots of things that you wouldn't otherwise see. Responsiveness from contractors, organization, detail, all of that stuff. And then of course the actual costs and the breakdown of costs, depending on how you want them to present things back. 

There's so much value in that process that you simply will not get if you're just asking one or two guys from down the pub to give you a back of the fag packet cost. If you don't do this, I can almost guarantee that the price that you agree with your contractor will not be the price that you end up paying at the end of your project. The only way to really guarantee with the exception of justified extras, know, additional costs that absolutely are justified. The only way you can guarantee you end up where you think you are is to go through this process. So that's step 11, a tender process. 

Step 12, I can almost guarantee that 99% of our listeners

Andy Graham (23:51.662)

will not be thinking about doing this. I would suggest step 12, you get yourself a contract administrator. A contract administrator is often QS, project manager, somebody like that, but somebody who understands contracts such as JCTs. And that's the type of arrangement, the agreement that you and a builder or a contractor would put in place between yourselves. It protects both parties, it outlines the roles and the responsibilities and who is accountable, and it protects both parties.

And it's really, really, really important. If you don't put that in place, you have got nothing to stand on. If you have a disagreement with the contractor, if all of a sudden the conversation changes, if all of a sudden your contractor has forgotten what it is that you agreed or the price that you agreed conveniently, if you don't have a contract in place, then it's very, very risky. Now a contract administrator can do two things. They can set the contract up for you. They can help you and your contractor, can essentially manage that process between the two of you. It's a pretty standard template, but there might be some bits and pieces that you each want to add. There certainly will be specifically when you look at things like your drawings and exactly what it is, the costs, you know, exactly what it is that you're building the contract around. But they could also administer the contract for you, which means that for the duration of the build. 

So let's say that your refurb is going to take six months and it's a £200,000 refurb. That's a lot of money and you want to be very, very careful with it. Your contract administrator could manage the works that is done by the contractor and the payments that you make. So essentially what they could do is every month they could come and measure the works that had been done. Your contractor might say, I'd like you to pay me 30,000 pounds this month. And your contract administrator might come around the project say, okay, well, I've had a look at the works. Actually, it doesn't quite look like you've done 30,000 pounds worth of works. I can see you've done X, Y and Z, but some of that's not quite where it should be as per the plan.

So actually I think the measured works is more like 27,000 pounds and ultimately they're an independent person and that is what you would be then happy to pay. If they want to get paid 30 grand, there's a bit more work that they need to do to get that interim payment. If there's a dispute or an argument or a disagreement or any problems between you and your contractor, it's great to have that contract administrator there because they can actually help you.

Andy Graham (26:11.502)

understand how the contract can be enforced and what you can do if things are not going very well. Now, this might sound like overkill for something like a small HMO refurb. It depends how small it is. It depends what you perceive the risk as being. If you've got no experience and it's a £250,000 refurb, then I would absolutely advise that you do this. If you've got quite a bit of experience and you're doing a 50-60 grand size projection you've already worked with the contractor before, then it's probably a very low risk. So you might feel like this is a step that you can skip, but it is important that you know that this step does exist here at point 12 and you really should consider it. 

Okay. Moving on is step 13, appointing your contractor. Okay. This is where you actually sign your contractor up. You'll point them to the build. You should have made sure that as well as getting your contract together with your contract administrator, You've got references and all of that jazz. You've got a nice sort pack of due diligence. You've not skipped any of those steps as well to get your contractor appointed. 

Step 14. Now I'm going to assume that once you've got your contractor appointed and you've done everything that I've told you and you've got the plans that you've given to them and you've done it all through a formal or at least a semi-formal tender and you've got a contract in place. I'm going to assume that once that contractor starts, the build is going to go really, really well. Your refurb is going to run like clockwork and you're not going to have any problems.

Honestly, that is pretty much how it should be. There will be things that crop up, bits and pieces that you didn't know that you would need to do, but the contracts and your arrangement with your contractor should very comfortably deal with all of this now. But other than that, it really should just run well. The program should be delivered over the time that you agree with your contractor. So I'm going to just skip that whole step. I'm not going to talk about refurbs today. That's not really what this is about. So the next step then, assuming all of the work is being done and it's done really well, is that you need to go back to your broker and you need to prepare for your refinance and valuations. You need to start thinking about getting that value you're in to give you that opinion on your enhanced value now that you've done all of this work and ultimately get them in to value it as soon as possible. Get that mortgage application in as early as possible so that you get that money back in your account as quickly as you possibly can. Okay.

Andy Graham (28:29.752)

So your valuation strategy, putting some evidence together, all the timing here, that stuff really does matter. If you wait to do all of this and go back and have those conversations till right at the very end, you've probably lost yourself four or five weeks. Sometimes it can take weeks just to get a valuation booked in. So it's really important that you're thinking about this stuff before you actually need it. Hope that makes sense. Now, step 15 is about compliance and furniture. I've just sort of lumped these together.

These tend to be bits and pieces that sit outside of your contract and arrangements with your contractor. Now, it really does depend on the arrangement that you had or you make with your contractor. You could leave them to be responsible for all of your compliance stuff if you want. Fire risk assessments, EPCs, EICRs, gas safety certificates, even your licensing requirements if you want. But if they're not and it's your responsibility, you just need to make sure as that project comes to its natural end,

You have got all of those compliance records in place. It's very important that you don't make final payments on contracts until that stuff is there. You will need, for example, your EICI if you've had loads of work done or a part P. You might need a new EPC depending on the works that you have had done and all of that jazz. The other thing, and I say this from my personal experience that tends to sit outside of your arrangement with your contractor is your furniture. If you are going to a separate furniture supplier to get your beds, your mattresses, your wardrobes, your chest of drawers, your sofas, your coffee tables and all of that stuff. You just need to make sure that you've organized that sufficiently early on in the project so that it can get delivered onto site at the right time. If you get it delivered too early, it'll just be in everybody's way. It'll get dusty, it'll get dirty, it'll get damaged. If you order it too late, well, the project will be finished. It'll be sitting empty and you can't do anything. You can't do the final step until you get that furniture in first. So you've got to get that timing just right. 

Ideally, the furniture, this is the way I do it, the project gets finished, it gets snagged, then I get the furniture delivered the next day. This is literally how I will run the project and then the furniture will get delivered and then the property will get cleaned and then it's ready for the final step, which is step 16. So what is step 16? Well, the final step of my find to fill process is you need to dress, stage and shoot the property only at the very end

Andy Graham (30:51.35)

And when you build this out, when it's been deep cleaned, when your furniture is in, do you go in and do you dress the property? Do you stage it? And do you shoot it? You get your videos, you get your photographs. If you want to do a Matterport 3D video, you do all of that stuff. And I would literally be getting the contractor to finish and know exactly what day is finishing furniture in deep clean. And then the following day photos.

Staging dressing and all of that jazz. That's literally you should have it. It should be like a military parade It should be that systematic. Okay, if you're not doing it like that, you are wasting time you're wasting days Now once you've done it once you've dressed it staged it and shot it then you've got your professional photos and they can go online and onto your ad So that pretty much takes you up to the fill step. Okay, I'm gonna take a breath. 

Find to fill. Let me just very quickly recap. Step one, get your finance aligned. Speak to your broker. Step two, your property search and multiple viewing. Step three, if you've seen something you like, get your sketches, some layouts, a feasibility study. Step four, also get an opinion on the planning risk from your planning consultant. Step five, get a contractor reality check. If you can get a builder in before you make your offer, or at least before you make your final offer, that might just help sense check any issues that you haven't seen. 

Step six,boffer and negotiate. Try and get it at the very best price you can and be prepared to walk away if you want to secure yourself a good deal. Step seven, let's assume you got the deal agreed. You're going into legal's and you need a good solicitor. Hopefully you know who your solicitor is. If you haven't got a good solicitor, shop around before you need this. Just, you don't want to be getting this at the last minute. Step eight, before you do exchange and complete, make sure you've got your insurance in place. Step nine, the property is yours.

You're going to need your architect to do your detailed drawings. If you're doing a refurb of that sort of substance, if you're doing that kind of project, then you need to get your architect onto drawings. Now you could bring that forwards if you like, you could do it a little bit earlier in the process, but you will be spending that money at risk. If the deal goes sour, if it falls over for whatever reason, you will spend at least a few thousand quid on architectural fees that you won't get back. So that risk is up to you. It really depends on that perceived risk. Step 10.

Andy Graham (33:11.394)

Get an opinion from building control once you've got your drawings and the plans from your architect. Get an opinion from building control who's going to be appointed as your approved inspector and what sort of things are you going to need to consider and make sure that you do to get your building control sign off. That information will form part of your tender pack. 

Step 11, you need to pack and you need to do the tender process. You're going to go out to builders with a full tender pack, which will include drawings and measurements of the property as it is, plus drawings and measurements of what you are proposing to do with it, plus details of spec and building requirements and all of that stuff. You're to go out to your builders, you're going to give them some time to price on it. You're going to get those prices back and ultimately then you'll be in a better position to make a decision on who it is that you want to appoint to your job. 

Step 12, think about getting a contract administrator in place, somebody that can put your JCT arrangement in place between you and your contractor. Somebody who can also administer the contract once you've appointed your contractor. 

Step 13, appoint your contractor, get them going on the job. Step 14, the build's been going really well, your refurb's almost done. Go back to your broker, get ready for your refinance and your valuation. Step 15, make sure that all those little compliance loose ends are tied up and make sure that all of that furniture has been arranged, organized, delivered and ready for step 16, which is to dress, stage and shoot your property. At that point you are ready to go to market. 

Find to fill. There we go guys. 16 steps. I told you look, it really isn't rocket science but you can see how it would be quite easy to overlook and not even know that some of those steps exist. If you do all of that and I appreciate that for some projects that process might sound like overkill but I can almost guarantee that if you have been having issues or if you do have issues it'll almost certainly be because you haven't done

some of the stuff that I've shared with you in today's episode, or you haven't done it in the order that I've suggested that you do. If you're spending more money than you expected, if it's taking longer than you expected, if it's more stressful than you expected, if you feel overwhelmed, a bit confused about the process, it's because you haven't followed this 16 step process. If you take one thing from today's episode, it is this, it's that the find to fill process isn't one action, it is a sequence.

Andy Graham (35:38.726)

Most issues, like I said, people blame on the market. They blame on contractors, but it isn't. It's usually a sequencing error. It's usually something here in today's episode that isn't done or isn't done in the right order. 

Look, if this is the year that you do want to build your HMO property business, if you've got a project in mind, a project that you want to start, then please, please, please pay attention to what I've shared with you in today's episode. You could save yourself hours of pain and stress.

thousands of pounds in additional cost that you just don't need to spend. This is really simple stuff that will make all the difference in your business. And it's very difficult to know if you haven't done it before. But trust me, I say this from nearly 20 years of experience. Now this will help you to no end. That is about it for today's episode, guys. I know that it was a bit of a sort of a whistle stop tour on that 16 step process. And like I said, I could have gone into each one of those. done a full episode on each one. That wasn't the objective, but...

I do hope that that has been helpful. I'm sure it will have been, but please make sure you do put that into action. As I said earlier, if you've got any questions about anything in today's episode, head over to the HMO community and Facebook. That's our free group, our free community and come and hang out, ask your questions in there. Ask for advice, support, look for some guidance. And if you can help anybody else, then please, please do. But if you want to take it serious this year, if you're leveling up, if you really want to scale your business up, if you want to put in steroids, if you want to pull rocket fuel on this.

If this is the year where you really want to build a business that'll change your life, then just head to the show notes. There's a link there. You can watch a video and you can find out a little bit more about the three step framework that I work with to help all of my clients build their HMO property businesses and see results in less than 90 days. And if you want to have a chat with me, you want to book a strategy call, follow that link and you can do just that. 

That's it for today's episode guys. Thank you so much for tuning in. Hope you've enjoyed it and don't forget that I'll be right back here in the very same place next week, please join me then for another installment of the HMO Podcast.