HMO licence

So, one of the important things for any property developer/landlord is to ensure that you are compliant with legislation and regulations. After finishing the development side of our last project, we became landlords and therefore needed to submit the application for a House of Multiple Occupation (HMO) licence, given that it's a 6 bedroom, all en-suite property.

As part of the application we needed a visit from the Senior Housing Standards Officer, which took place last week.

On the positive side he commented that it was one of the best HMO's he'd seen in the area. However, there were 3 minor advisory actions that we need to undertake within the next 3 months, before the licence can be issued.

Whilst they're advisory, rather than mandatory actions, we will be getting them done within the timescale for several reasons. Firstly, the licence is valid for 5 years, once we have it, which gives us the majority of that time free, to be able to concentrate on other matters. Secondly, why wouldn't we want to provide our tenants with the best quality? Thirdly, we operate in a competitive market, so anything we can do to reduce future voids, is an advantage.

Deals

Over the past few weeks we have been approached directly by vendors and agents about a number of deals, some of which have been off-market.

One of these led to us making an offer but due to a misunderstanding with the agent, despite our offer being the highest, it wasn't accepted.

In addition, we have been contacted about a portfolio of properties, a block, plus a potential flip. This meant that we were busy last week doing initial analysis and organising viewings for the next couple of weeks. Co-incidentally, the portfolios and the blocks are also coming at the right time as we will be attending training with TitleSplit.com – the clue is in the name, as to what this is specifically about!!

Networking

Aidan and I are strong believers in the value of networking. Face to face conversations are much better for those follow up questions, building a rapport and finding connections. Also, whilst the shared interest is property, people come often have such varied and interesting backgrounds and life stories to share.

I have attended WIBN Property Meeting online. Attendees are from across the UK and therefore it can be helpful when discussing issues to hear if they apply to all in the same way or are more localised. There are also connections across the whole range of the property sector, which can again be helpful if you have a particular question. I was interested to know whether having a portfolio deal gave you a better interest rate from lenders – unfortunately not, it appears! Something I’d love lenders to consider, particularly if we’re going into a reduced overall number of transactions taking place for the number of transactions taking place!

I have also been to PPN Warrington where I was a winner! – yes, I was picked out to win the raffle prize of Property Investing Secrets, written by Mark Homer, Rob Moore and Toni Gargan. This will be my next read, after I finish Never Split The Difference by Chris Voss.

WIBN Property Meeting online.

Great connections made at PPN Warrington

This reminds me of 2 cliches which I actually have a lot of belief in :

Aidan has attended Kieba, in person event and the Kieba Skool online session. He finds the latter extremely good for problem solving issues, rather than taking a broad brush approach to discussing property related issues.