The beds you choose for your HMO depends on the look you want to go for. With the HMO market being as saturated as it is it is important to stand out from the competition and the days of exclusively installing divan beds in your properties because they have good wear are long gone.
Property Expert Series: Dale Wild from Pegasus Property Investments & Landlord Co.
- Part 1: Introducing Dale Wild from Pegasus Investments and Landlord Furniture Co.
- Part 2: What Projects Are Pegasus Investments Working On and Why?
- Part 3: What Is An HMO?
- Part 4: What Furniture Should You be Providing in an HMO?
- Part 5: What Colour Schemes Work Best for HMOs?
- Part 6: Is it Better to Put Up Blinds or Curtains in an HMO?
- Part 7: What Type of Beds Should Investors Use in Their HMOs?
- Part 8: How Much Should a Landlord Budget to Furnish an HMO?
- Part 9: How to Give Your HMOs the WOW Factor
- Part 10: How To Invest in HMOs
- Part 11: What Do Landlords Need to Know About HMO Licensing?
Beds For HMOs
Amy: Dale, in your experience, what kind of beds should be put into HMOs? Do you need more hard-wearing beds? Do you use metal, do you use wooden? What are you using and why?
Dale: Across our own portfolio there’s a range of beds because most of them were installed before I set up the furniture company.
Now we’ve set up the furniture company, we’ve spoken to suppliers and some of the beds we even make ourselves within the sofa business that I co-own.
So, it just depends on the look you want. Gone are the days where you have to get a divan bed because it was the best wear, that’s nonsense. It just depends on the individual landlord.
What we do try and do is… We have five or six beds, I think each one’s available in two or three colours, where there are recommended ones.
They’re the ones that we’ve brought into the factory, stuck a mattress on it…
Amy: Had a bounce.
Dale: Bouncing around. Get some random kids off the street to jump on it.
And get feedback off the suppliers or the suppliers’ customers and then we go down the super bespoke side of beds where we can upholster them and I think there are about 120 colours you can choose from.
They are a wooden structure but they are an over-engineered wooden structure that we make ourselves, in-house.
So, I suppose, it’s not really an answer, that. It’s just, kind of, what the landlord wants.
We do have, sometimes, a landlord that will send us pictures and say they want ‘these beds’.
Amy: I’ve seen a few of those on your page, recently. There are these big, extravagant headboards that everyone is into, that are velvet looking, or something.
Dale: Yeah, we sell quite a few of those.
Amy: And they’re built up. I’ve noticed that the headboards that are built into the wall, so it’s not even part of the bed, it’s actually fixed to the wall and goes all the way… Is it your property I’ve seen that in or somebody else’s?
Dale: No
Amy: But I’m sure you do them. Like I say, there are some really interesting designs. I wonder if they’re quite durable for HMOs. I think they are quite a good idea for HMOs.
Dale: Yeah, but the way that was made is the clients, basically. Some of their HMOs are probably the best we do if I’m being honest. The attention to detail is really good.
But because they’re in a market which is, is equally as saturated as the Manchester area is, you’ve got to be above and beyond.
So, we just did… We made the fourteen headboards. The way we had to do it, to be affordable… Because if you went to, say, Habitat and got something there, you could buy another house for the price of a new bed.
So, we just made them lightweight in a sense that they can just be stuck onto the wall and then the bed bases are just made separately to the same standard as what we would normally do.
Amy: That’s fantastic and like I say, I really think they’ve got the wow factor and sometimes that’s what you need, something a bit unusual or a little quirk.
Dale: Yeah, I think sometimes that… You see a lot on the forums where people put pictures up and some landlords will go, ‘that’s great’ and others will go, ‘I don’t really like it’.
I always like to try and find a balance. I don’t like a lot of the stuff I see because I’m bored of seeing greys but that’s just my personal opinion.
You’ve just got… You can’t think like every tenant but you’ve just got to… If you provide something that’s really, really nice and let’s face it, the tenants are either going to like it or not. It is what it is.
But if you can put in something that’s trendy, something that, perhaps, they can relate to, in a magazine they’ve just read or a hotel, kind of room, then I think you’re onto a winner anyway.
Amy: Yeah, definitely.
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