Rent to Rent HMO – My Horror Story!
September 19, 2024
Approximately 3 years ago I tested a local rent to rent HMO business to see how their lettings skills were and to Benchmark them against our very own in-house specialist HMO Lettings Company.
When I say it was the worst mistake of my life, I really do mean it. The below is what a local rent to rent HMO agency called “acceptable”. It is worth mentioning that our in-house lettings team do not offer rent to rent options, as we do not believe in the model.
I recently came to the end of my term with the lettings company, and when I went to go and view the properties, they were some of the worst kept properties I have seen in my 30 years of property experience! I was mortified as these were my very own properties! I let two of my own very own properties out to a rent to rent HMO Landlord to test the model and benchmark our competitors and this was the result.
A key takeaway from this article is that an investment is only as good as the management, and all of our investors have the exclusive use of our in house lettings team, who are a leading name for HMO lettings in Doncaster, we have over 20 years of experience and manage over 650 tenants! We offer full management, from advertising properties and finding tenants all the way to debt chasing.
The agreement of regular property inspections and regular cleans was clearly ignored 3 years ago, as these properties had never been inspected or cleaned. The place was an absolute state. The total refurbishment needed was in the thousands. I would not have housed my own dog in these properties.
Every time I see rent to rent HMO deals; I am constantly reminded of:
A – How pointless they are. You would have to secure a property mega cheap and then rent above market for it to work, let’s hope you are a good negotiator! Is all this hard work worth it for maybe £200 a month?
B – How many inexperienced landlords are jumping on this band wagon because a course or facebook advert sold it to them, only to end up in at the deep end when tenants go rogue or the property is damaged.
C – How this is even a feasible option? You have a lot of hassle for not a lot of stable income per month, you don’t even benefit from Capital Appreciation!
Our specialist in-house lettings team are miles ahead of these so called “Landlords” and we have specialised in HMO only lettings for 20+ Years.
Believe me when I say this… it is a full-time job. And anyone promoting this as “passive income” is living a flight of fantasy. You cannot have a full time job and manage properties with 5 to 6 tenants in an at a time (well, you can! But say bye to all of your free time!) A lot of these new rent to rent HMO landlords have never managed a property in their life.
I entrusted this landlord with two of my very own properties to see how the model worked, and to test the competency of local lettings agents. I completely left them to it and did not interfere at all with asking them for viewings etc, as they told me they’d regularly inspect the properties.
I will let the photos below do the talking for how my rent to rent (r2r) HMO experience went… this is how an actual rent to rent landlord left one of my properties…
