Ajay Ahuja Blog Post on HMO’s and Competition

I was doing my normal searches for HMOs (House In Multiple Occupation) last night and I found out there were more of me than I expected.

There were two companies actively seeking HMOs to buy!  At first I was taken aback as more competition means less supply but then I remembered when I first went to Corby back in 2000.

In Corby I was the only one buying.  The estate agents thought they had found a nutcase buying all the properties in the rough parts of the town.  I used to travel up when I had some cash and buy 2 or 3 properties at a time, cherry picking the cheapest properties I could find.

Then I would advertise my properties to let with my own home telephone number with a prefix of “01708”.  After about 6 months I noticed other adverts coming in the paper from private landlords and their telephone numbers with non-corby prefixes such as “0208” London and “01273” Brighton.

At this point I knew competition had moved in!  And by 2002 there was nothing left to buy as all properties had doubled in value.

So even though I do not like competition, they are good for capital growth.  I am not relying on it as I am focusing on cash to be made NOW.  But its nice to know there are at least some other people doing what I do.

The strategy for anyone who wants to make money out of UKproperty is to focus on monthly cash producing properties such as high yielding flats in Scotland and North England or HMOs across the UK.

If you need help expanding your portfolio then have a look at my advice page. 

Good luck with your property pursuits.