The HMO (House in Multiple Occupation) and many a property investor are having a love affair at the moment. The opportunity to buy one property and create six income units from it and trebling the achievable rent is proving difficult for many landlords to resist.

Its almost like every property investor nowadays either has one or wants one, but to get a letting agent to manage your HMO can be a challenge as many agents run for the hills as soon as the word HMO or House Share is mentioned. So this month I wanted to look into the psychology of just why when an agent is presented with an opportunity to manage six or more units, all within one block, and get a lot more percentage on a higher rent, many just do not want to know.

Just for clarification, a HMO property is where three or more non related people share a property. In most parts of the country you can house up to six people in a HMO before you need planning approval (unless you are in an elective Article 4 area) and once you get to seven or more people you will have to have planning consent. If the property is five or more occupants and is three stories or more in height then you will need to have a License (and some areas, this will apply to other properties too as selective licensing creeps across the UK).

The HMO is not a new thing, it has been around for many years and been the subject of a few TV programmes too which you may remember, Rising Damp, could be loosely described as a HMO as could the group of post graduates sharing their home in London in the 90s programme This Life so why the sudden interest now?