Colour schemes, decorations and feature walls come down to personal choice but there are trends (grey is popular at the moment). More than anything the trick here is attention to detail. Not only do you want to create something that your tenants will love but also something that will stand out in your advertising.
In Conversation with Dale Wild from Landlord Furniture Co.
- Introducing Dale Wild from Pegasus Investments and Landlord Furniture Co.
- What Projects Are Pegasus Investments Working On and Why?
- What Is An HMO?
- What Furniture Should You be Providing in an HMO?
- What Colour Schemes Work Best for HMOs?
- Is it Better to Put Up Blinds or Curtains in an HMO?
- What Type of Beds Should Investors Use in Their HMOs?
- How Much Should a Landlord Budget to Furnish an HMO?
- How to Give Your HMOs the WOW Factor
- How To Invest in HMOs
- What Do Landlords Need to Know About HMO Licensing?
- What Has Been Your Biggest Mistake in Property Investment?
- What Has Been Your Biggest Win in Property?
- How Does the Cashflow from HMOs Compare to Buy-to-Lets?
Colour Schemes
Amy: In terms of decorating and colour schemes, have you seen any trends? Do you have a go-to colour? How do you stage your properties?
Dale: Essentially, Lisa, my partner, will go and buy the interior design magazines, see what’s trending and do a bit of research.
Amy: A woman’s touch.
Dale: Yeah, I’m a bloke, I admit. I’d say 90% of the ones that we install – and we’re probably doing anything between 8 and 10 installs a week – are all grey.
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Amy: Oh, really? That’s interesting.
Dale: Which, when people started doing it 18 months ago, grey, it looked really smart.
Amy: It used to be magnolia, that everything was Magnolia and now everything’s grey, yeah?
Dale: We’ve kind of evolved. Some of the landlords, they’ll do a nice feature wall which goes along with the grey.
What we’ve now done is gone back to all-white and then we’ll have a nice feature wall with it, whether that be a decorated, a wallpapered feature wall, or a colour.
And again, it’s just up to Lisa to do.
Things that are trending at the moment, like what we have got in the background, here, like an industrial look.
One of our clients did a house down in Salford, it looked great. And it was probably one of the only HMOs that I’ve been on the install, recently, where I’ve thought, ‘Wow, that’s something different’.
And perhaps it doesn’t cost a great deal of money because you’re knocking the plaster off and making sure it looks alright and it saves on putting the plaster back on and it looks really, really good.
Amy: I know, little touches, I think you’ve mentioned in another video, lamps. Bedspreads and matching lamps and cushions and little cost-nothings. Go to Dunelm or Asda, just to buy coordinating stuff.
And for probably 20 or 30 quid for each room, you can have these little touches which really make it stand out.
And, I know we had a photographer to come and give us some tips on photographing for your listings and these types of properties when you’re scrolling through, they really do stand out.
It’s ridiculous that spending five pounds on a lamp can make somebody click on your advert but it really does work in these types of properties.
Dale: Yeah, of course. I think it’s more to do with whether tenants are clicking through Spareroom or Rightmove, wherever it’s listed. If you’re looking for a house, yourself, you don’t click on the square box that looks terrible or the generic… You click on something that looks nice and you’ll have a look through it.
And, like you say, it costs nothing to do it. And you can sell it to the tenants if they like it.
Amy: And if they don’t you can take it away and use it for the staging for your next one because the chances are that the tenants are going to want to bring their own bedding and wall hangings and stuff, anyway.
Dale: And they do that, yeah.
Amy: Perfect.