Yorkshire HMO Case Study – Our Latest HMO Development Completed

August 14, 2026

We are delighted to share our latest completed HMO development, delivered on behalf of one of our investors in South Elmsall, Yorkshire. This property will house professional tenants, and is not part of Social housing or any other form of Government Contract. Our tenants work local to all of the HMO properties we develop.

This is a six-bedroom, six-bathroom fully compliant HMO that was designed, developed and is now managed entirely by our in-house team. We handled the property from the early planning stages through to the refurbishment, licensing, furnishing and final setup, and our own lettings and management team has now taken over the day-to-day running of the property.

South Elmsall is an area we know extremely well. We did not arrive here by looking at a spreadsheet and deciding the figures looked attractive. A few years ago, we spent our own money developing an HMO in the area first. We tested the market using our own funds, learned the area properly and proved the model before putting similar opportunities in front of investors.

That gives us genuine skin in the game. There are plenty of property companies willing to tell investors where they should buy, but far fewer that can point to a location and say they were prepared to put their own capital into it first.

Why We Like South Elmsall

South Elmsall works very well for the type of HMO developments we want to create, particularly when you compare the housing stock with properties closer to central Wakefield.

The further into Wakefield you go, the more compromises start appearing. Parking becomes harder, usable gardens become less common, houses get tighter and purchase prices rise. A lot of the housing stock closer to the centre consists of smaller terraced properties where creating six genuinely good bedrooms, proper communal space and sensible parking can quickly become difficult.

South Elmsall gives us much more to work with. The houses are generally larger, many are not terraced, off-street parking is far easier to find and proper gardens are much more common. That makes a considerable difference when you are trying to create a shared property that six adults can comfortably live in rather than simply forcing six bedrooms into a building because the floor area technically allows it.

Parking alone can become a serious issue with HMOs. Put several working tenants into a house on a cramped street with no driveway and very limited on-street parking and the problems are fairly predictable. A property with off-street parking is simply better suited to that type of occupancy.

The same applies to outside space. A decent garden gives tenants somewhere they can actually use rather than a small concrete yard at the back of the house. Larger plots also give us more options when we are designing extensions or changing the internal layout.

I also know central Wakefield from personal experience because I lived there. From an HMO development point of view, I would not choose it over South Elmsall for the type of property we want to produce. The housing stock, lack of parking, smaller plots and higher purchase prices make it much harder to create the standard of accommodation we are prepared to put our name to.

Six Large Ensuite Bedrooms

The finished property has six large bedrooms, all with their own private ensuite bathrooms.

We deliberately design bedrooms that are well above the minimum HMO room-size requirements. Our view is simple. A bedroom should feel like a proper room, not a box that happens to satisfy the legal minimum.

For many HMO tenants, their bedroom is their main personal space. They may spend evenings there, work from there, relax there and store most of their belongings there. Giving somebody enough space to live comfortably is not excessive. It should be expected.

The ensuite bathrooms are just as important. Think about coming home after a long shift and having to share a bathroom with several people you barely know, all working different hours and following different routines. It might be acceptable on paper, but it is hardly attractive accommodation.

Private ensuites remove that problem. Tenants have their own bathroom and privacy, with far less friction between the people living in the property. We firmly believe tenants are more likely to stay when they are comfortable, and larger bedrooms, private bathrooms, good communal space, parking and a usable garden all contribute to that.

A Full Back-to-Brick Refurbishment

This property was completely refurbished back to brick.

The works included new electrics, new plumbing and pipework, new flooring, new furniture, a completely new kitchen and a new brick-built extension. The extension is a permanent part of the property, not a prefabricated addition or converted conservatory used to create cheap extra floor space.

Our in-house team handled the entire development.

Taking a property back to brick gives us much more control over the finished result because we are dealing with the actual building rather than covering over old systems and hoping they remain reliable. When an investor is planning to hold an HMO for years, what sits behind the walls matters just as much as the furniture and paintwork people see in photographs.

The electrics, plumbing, pipework, layout, kitchen and bathrooms have all been addressed as part of one complete refurbishment. The property has effectively been rebuilt internally around the way it is now going to be used.

Protected by Our Price Lock Promise

Just as importantly, this development was protected by our Price Lock Promise.

The investment did not go over budget by a single penny.

When our investor committed to the development, they knew the agreed development price rather than being left exposed to a stream of unexpected extras as the project progressed. On a substantial back-to-brick HMO refurbishment involving new electrics, plumbing, six ensuite bathrooms, a new kitchen and a brick-built extension, keeping control of the development budget matters enormously.

For this project, the figure agreed with our investor was the figure delivered.

Planning, Licensing and Compliance

HMO development involves far more than construction. Planning, permitted development, licensing requirements, room sizes, fire safety and the wider compliance obligations all need to be dealt with properly if the property is going to operate as a long-term investment.

Our in-house team handled the relevant planning, permitted development and licensing work for this project alongside the development itself. We prefer having those responsibilities within the same team because decisions made during construction often affect licensing, compliance and how the property will eventually be managed.

There is far less room for misunderstanding when the people designing and developing the property are working alongside the people who will later manage it.

A Net Yield Above 10%

We are often asked exactly what our investors spend and exactly how much rent their properties produce.

We do not publish those figures without the investor’s permission. Our clients trust us with private financial information and we take that seriously. It would not be fair for us to disclose the exact development cost or rental income of an individual investor’s property simply because it would make a case study more interesting.

What we can say is that this property produces a net yield exceeding 10%, alongside capital appreciation in the area of around 6% per annum.

For our London-based investor, the attraction was not simply buying a cheaper property in Yorkshire. The value came from having a property selected for a specific strategy, developed around that strategy and then managed by the same company afterwards.

We Continue Managing the Property

Our involvement does not stop when the refurbishment is complete.

This property is now moving directly into our fully managed HMO service, with our in-house lettings team responsible for the tenants and day-to-day operation of the property.

We handle tenant enquiries, lettings, maintenance, inspections and ongoing compliance. We also pay the property’s utility bills from the gross rental income, removing another administrative job from the investor. If something needs repairing, our team deals with it. If a tenant leaves, our lettings team handles the room. If an inspection or compliance requirement comes up, we organise it.

The investor does not need to coordinate a sourcing company, builder, licensing consultant, letting agent and maintenance contractor separately. We already know the property because we developed it, and we continue looking after it once tenants move in.

For an investor living in London while the property is in Yorkshire, that matters.

We Invest Where We Are Prepared to Invest Ourselves

South Elmsall is a good example of how we approach HMO investment. We did not start recommending the area and then decide later that we might buy there ourselves. We put our own money into the market first.

That gave us direct experience of the local housing stock, rental demand, tenant expectations, refurbishment costs and the practical realities of operating an HMO in the area. It also meant that when we later began developing properties for investors there, our decisions were based on experience rather than theory.

This latest project is exactly the type of HMO we want to produce: six spacious ensuite bedrooms, good communal areas, proper outside space, parking, a full back-to-brick refurbishment, a brick-built extension and long-term management handled by our own team. The entire development was also delivered under our Price Lock Promise, without going over the agreed development budget by a single penny.

We are delighted with how the property has turned out, and equally pleased to have delivered it for our investor.

To view HMO investment properties similar to this one, visit:

www.footforwardproperties.co.uk/hmo-for-sale