Celebrating £135 Million of Property Development

September 4, 2026

Once in a while, we decide to dust off our trusty calculator, look back through more than three decades of projects and work out roughly how much property Foot Forward Property Investments has actually developed during our time in business.

Our latest conservative estimate now sits at £135,000,000 of property developed across HMO properties and specialist care developments during our 34-year history, with a further £25,000,000 currently in the development pipeline.

For us, that figure carries far more weight than simply being a large number. It represents around £135 million of investor capital that has been entrusted to Foot Forward Property Investments to develop fully managed HMO properties and fully managed regulated care investments for investors from the UK and overseas.

That level of investment says an awful lot about the trust placed in our business over more than 34 years.

£135 Million Developed, Not Sourced

There is one distinction we want to make particularly clear.

The £135 million figure relates to property we have developed, not property we have sourced.

Foot Forward Property Investments is not a property sourcing agency, deal packager or middleman. We are the direct developer and managing company behind the investments we sell, which means responsibility for the development stays with us from the beginning rather than being passed between unrelated third parties after an investor has completed their purchase.

Sourcing and developing are very different things. A sourcing company can find a property, introduce it to an investor and charge a fee for the transaction. A developer has to take responsibility for what happens afterwards, including refurbishment budgets, planning, construction, compliance, licensing, design, delivery and, in our case, the ongoing management of the completed investment.

That difference is one of the main reasons investors searching for the best HMO investment company in the UK should look beyond headline yields and ask who is actually responsible for developing and managing the property.

A Fully Managed HMO Investment Company

Our HMO business has been developed around a straightforward principle: if we develop an investment, we remain accountable for how it performs afterwards.

We have now developed more than 450 HMO properties during our time in the sector. Our current focus is on fully managed professional HMO investments, with development and management handled through our own group rather than selling investors a conversion and leaving them to arrange everything afterwards.

Our involvement can cover sourcing a suitable shell, planning requirements where needed, refurbishment, extensions, licensing, compliance, furnishing, tenanting, maintenance and ongoing management. Once the HMO is completed, the property remains within the management structure rather than being handed to an unrelated letting agent with no involvement in the original development.

For investors searching for a fully managed HMO investment company, that continuity matters. The company developing the property knows exactly how it has been constructed, what specification has been used, how the rooms were designed and what maintenance is likely to be required over the years ahead.

It also means we have to live with our own development decisions.

If we use unsuitable flooring, poor-quality furniture, awkward layouts or cheap fittings, our own management operation deals with the consequences later. That naturally pushes our development decisions towards durability, practicality and long-term rental performance rather than simply making a property look impressive for the day it is sold.

More Than 450 HMO Properties Developed

Developing more than 450 HMOs over 34 years gives us a very different perspective from somebody entering the market after completing a handful of projects.

We have seen the HMO market evolve through major changes in licensing, planning, building regulations, fire safety, tenant expectations, lending conditions and local authority policy. We have also operated through several difficult economic periods, from recessions and credit tightening through to COVID, sharp interest-rate rises and the current pressures affecting landlords and tenants.

That history matters because HMO investment is not simply about finding the cheapest house and creating the greatest number of bedrooms.

Property selection matters. Room sizes matter. Parking matters. Local HMO saturation matters. Tenant demand matters. Refurbishment quality matters, and the management operation sitting behind the finished property matters every month after completion.

Those lessons have been learned across hundreds of developments rather than from spreadsheets and theoretical deal appraisals.

Fully Managed Care Property Investments

Our specialist care property division has become another substantial part of Foot Forward Property Investments.

We have now developed more than 50 specialist care properties, including regulated children’s care homes and other specialist care and education developments, with further properties forming part of our current £25 million pipeline.

These are not conventional buy-to-let properties with a care-related label attached afterwards.

Specialist care developments require the building, location, intended use, planning position, refurbishment specification and regulatory requirements to be considered together from the beginning. The property has to be suitable for the people who will live or receive care there, while also meeting the operational needs of the regulated provider.

Our fully managed care property investments are developed around that structure from the outset. We develop the property, deal with the development process and work within the operational structure that will ultimately manage the completed investment.

This is very different from selling an investor a property described as being “ideal for care” and leaving them to locate a provider, organise planning, appoint consultants and work out the regulatory side afterwards.

Complete Accountability From Start to Finish

One of the largest problems we see in property investment is fragmented responsibility.

An investor can easily end up with one company sourcing the property, another organising the refurbishment, another supplying furniture, an external planning consultant, a separate licensing company and yet another firm managing the finished HMO.

When something goes wrong, responsibility becomes difficult to pin down.

Our model has been built differently. Foot Forward Property Investments remains directly involved throughout the investment process, with development and ongoing management sitting within the same wider operation.

That gives investors one clear point of accountability.

It also means the original development decisions are made with long-term ownership and management in mind. We are not trying to maximise a sourcing fee or make a refurbishment brochure look artificially cheap. The property has to work once real tenants move in and the day-to-day management begins.

Investors From Across the UK and Overseas

Over the years, Foot Forward Property Investments has worked with investors from throughout the UK and from international markets including the Middle East, Asia, Europe and further afield.

Some investors have purchased a single HMO or care property. Others have gone on to build larger portfolios with us over a number of years.

For us, that repeat investment is one of the strongest indications that the model works.

A new investor is placing trust in our track record and the information we provide. A returning investor has already experienced the development process and has decided to deploy further capital with us based on what actually happened after their first purchase.

Across more than 34 years, those individual investment decisions have contributed to an estimated £135 million of property being developed through Foot Forward Property Investments.

£25 Million More in the Pipeline

The £135 million figure is based on developments already carried out during our history. We currently have a further £25,000,000 of property development in the pipeline, covering both HMO and specialist care investments.

That pipeline reflects the direction the company continues to take.

We are not trying to become a high-volume sourcing operation selling hundreds of unrelated deals around the country. We would rather maintain control over what we develop, remain within areas and sectors we understand properly and continue managing the properties after completion.

That has been our approach for decades, and it remains the basis of the business today.

What £135 Million of Property Development Represents

Looking purely at the headline figure, £135 million is substantial.

Behind that figure sit more than 450 HMO developments, more than 50 specialist care properties, 34 years of property development experience and a further £25 million currently progressing through the pipeline.

There are thousands of individual decisions sitting behind those numbers: property purchases, surveys, planning applications, extensions, refurbishments, compliance work, licensing applications, tenant placements, repairs, inspections and years of ongoing management.

The £135 million also represents trust.

Investors have entrusted Foot Forward Property Investments with substantial amounts of capital because they wanted a company capable of taking responsibility for the entire investment rather than simply finding them a property and disappearing once the purchase completed.

That is the reputation we have spent more than three decades building.

For investors comparing the best HMO investment companies in the UK, the numbers behind a business matter. So does understanding exactly what those numbers represent.

Our £135 million figure is not the value of properties we have introduced, advertised or sourced for somebody else.

It is an estimated £135,000,000 of property developed through Foot Forward Property Investments, backed by more than 450 HMO developments, more than 50 specialist care properties, over 34 years of experience and another £25 million of development currently in the pipeline.

That is the scale of Foot Forward Property Investments today.