We’re back with our warts and all lowdown of what we’ve been up to in property over the last month. Give it a listen for tons of juicy updates, including getting two properties fully tenanted and taking the first steps with two commercial conversions. We’ve even managed to squeeze in a little time in to scout out some office space and take on our newest member of staff.
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Recent completions
We’ve finished two properties in the last few months. Even better, both are already fully occupied. Our first is a 4 bed MiniMo in Stockport, which we carried out for an investor. It was a simple 3 bed to 4 bed conversion with a single storey-extension. Taking just over 13 weeks, the rooms are now on average renting for £480 per month.
The second is a larger 6 bed HMO in the town of Macclesfield, which is now bringing in over £3,000 per month. We’re on the second refinance after the first came back at a terrifying 0… it turned out the first lender was unwilling to lend on commercial properties. A lesson to all: make sure your lender’s product is suitable for your own project.
Ongoing Projects
Warrington
We’re currently working on four projects, less than the six or seven we had on the go a couple of months ago. The nearest to completion is a conversion of an office into four flats in Warrington, which should be finished by early September. Three of the flats will be single lets, whilst the final one will be serviced accommodation, aimed at professionals.
Manchester Road
The next project we’re working on is a mixed use space in Stockport, only a few minutes walk from our front door.When we bought the property, there was already a ground floor barbers shop, which has provided some extra pennies to offset architect’s and planning fees from day one. We’re intending to convert the first floor into a two bed apartment and add a one bed flat to the loft space, whilst retaining the barbershop downstairs.
Hillgate
Some people say new builds are better than conversions, but based on my experience with this project, I couldn’t disagree more. It’s our first new build and compared to conversions it’s dragging at snails pace. At long last, we have the foundation plans and the next step is designing the steel and timber frame. All being well, this will be erected by the end of the year.
Wellington
Our final ongoing project is back on familiar territory. It’s a big commercial to HMO conversion beginning soon. We’re planning 8 bedrooms, plenty of communal space and adventurous interior choices. We’ll be taking design inspiration from Stuart Scott and Carly Houston’s recently completed boutique hotel in Brighton and Luke Spikes’ higgihaus@hanover in Swansea.
Coming soon
Bolton
We’re planning to convert office space into a 6 bed HMO in north west Greater Manchester. We’re working on this project purely on a project management basis, similar to the apartments in Warrington. All being well, it will be starting in 2-3 months time once the purchase goes through. Here’s the breakdown of our projected £111,000 spend:
Office Space
We’ve recently taken on our newest member of staff and we’re looking to move on from our dining room-cum-office space. After viewing several small and disappointing office spaces, we were inspired by our visit to the co-working space WeWork in Manchester. The plan now is to rent an office space much bigger than we need and sublet the extra desk space.
Future Projects
We’re no longer actively seeking sourcing and project management work, but we’ll still happily project manage other people’s properties, like we’re doing in Warrington. We’ve been spending a lot of time finding deals that are good enough for us to send to an investor. We’ve come to realise that if they’re good enough for us to give to someone else then they’re likely good enough for us too! We’re also taking on a number of high-end HMOs, purely for management, around Greater Manchester.
Other than that, as always we’re looking to do more HMOs. We’re also looking to do more single lets and a couple of flips (which we haven’t done for a while) to raise some quick cash for the boat we’re hoping to buy.
The newest addition to the team, our staff writer Robert, is looking for projects and products to write about. If you’ve got a project you’d like him to do a case study or have something else of interest then get in touch with him with any ideas: robert@insidepropertyinvesting.com