HMO Investing Do's & Don'ts - Day 5
Do style your HMO for professional photography and marketing opportunities.
By styling your property and paying a professional photographer to shoot the finished product, you are showcasing the property in the best possible way. The value of that content far outweighs the cost of your photographer.
That photography becomes your marketing material. You use it to advertise, market and attract tenants to your property. It allows you to showcase your work, present case studies and pitch future projects to private investors. Use it to build or update your company website full of high quality images of your own work (as opposed to stock images) and tell the world who you are and what you offer.
Visibility is creditability. Use the photography to market and build your brand on social platforms. Being able to share all the details of the deal, the challenges and what you learnt alongside high quality images will help to grow your profile and creditability in the property industry.
As you can see, the benefits of styling and shooting your HMO extend much further than simply advertising on Spareroom. Please don’t spend months putting in all the hard work creating an incredible HMO and overlook this powerful marketing opportunity.
Top Tip
We include the cost of our photographer, videographer and 360 degree virtual tour in our deal analyser. By doing so, the cost is factored into the deal so paying for the professionals at the end of the project doesn’t reduce our ROI.
Don't leave your styling in the HMO. Remove it before tenants move in.
After the photo shoot, leave the styling in place for tenant viewings. A styled property helps create an emotional connection. It allows prospective tenants to envisage what it would be like living there. People fall in love with spaces when they see a lifestyle they want for themselves. When that happens, they won’t want to live anywhere else.
Want to know what styling items stay and what is removed from the bedrooms? Register for our guide below which includes the full list.
In our first HMOs, we left everything. A costly mistake. Items got ruined, went missing, the inventory process and returning deposits becomes an administrative nightmare. Don’t repeat this mistake. The exception to rule is the communal spaces. We keep most styling there as we always want those areas to maintain the personality and high standard of the house.
Register below to receive our step-by-step styling process that you can implement in your property business and up your game.
What to expect on Day 6 HMO Investing Do's & Don'ts
Keep a look out for tomorrow’s blog where we discuss laundry facilities and why they should be positioned away from the kitchen. Laundry facilities are one of the most common causes of friction within an HMO so it’s really important that you get it right. Where to position the washing machines and dryers and what is the right number to supply.