HMO Market Predictions for 2025 - E - Energy I - Inflation E- Employment I - Interest Rates and R - Regulation

HMO Market Predictions for 2025 - E - Energy I - Inflation E- Employment I - Interest Rates and R - Regulation

For more information, guidance and support to help you invest in HMOs and create a profitable property portfolio, please head on over to my website www.hmosuccess.co.uk

You'll find some free downloads to learn about HMOs as a high cashflowing strategy and how you can get started with very little money. 

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www.101essentialtips.co.uk/
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I look forward to hearing from you!

Wendy

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Daniel Hill’s 2025 predictions podcast 

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/270-2025-property-market-predictions/id1498618503?i=1000682987558

Adam Lawrence - Partners in Property February Supplement - https://partners-property.com/supplement-2-feb-25-the-new-dawn/

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Transcription:

Hello and welcome to the first episode of the HMO success podcast for 2025. I've had a little bit of a break over Christmas and New Year and decided that it was time for me to take a few weeks off recording a podcast. I wanted to review things that were filtering through the pipeline, like the renter's rights bill. I also wanted to take stock of other people's views and opinions about the outlook for 2025 and consider what some of those impacts are going to be for this year. So while many people might have released their predictions and property thoughts for 2025 on the 1st of January, I'm a month late. I hope that you will find that this podcast will give you some thoughtful reflection on what has been an interesting January.

First of all, I'd like to say a massive thank you to those of you who listen to this podcast and write to me when I haven't done an episode and say "Wendy, when's the next episode coming out?" Thank you ever so much. You keep me accountable, keep me on my toes. And I hope that this podcast helps you as you invest in HMOs. I'd also like to thank everybody who participates in the community and who's investing in HMOs and gives me lots of food for thought, content, ideas, and subjects to tackle.

I'm looking forward to 2025. I think it's going to be a very interesting year. What I mean by that is it's going to be one where we're going to have to use our intelligence to navigate the market. Today's podcast is very much about using our intelligence, crunching some of the numbers and thinking more deeply about some of the statistics you might have already heard since the first of January.

There are a couple of people I want to give a quick shout out to who produce excellent material and whose views and opinions I value highly. One of them is Daniel Hill. He has the entrepreneurs podcast. He is very much about looking at business and growing your property portfolio as a business. I listen to a podcast of his a while ago and I thought it was excellent and I would agree with a lot of his conclusions. I'll put the link in the notes so you can jump over and listen to his podcast if you wish to.

The other person I'd like to mention is Adam Lawrence from Partners in Property. His property predictions or update on the market - he does a monthly newsletter for Partners in Property. That was released today and I've been mulling over some of those statistics that he's released. Again, I'll put the link in the show notes so you can go over to that and read his notes on the general wider housing market.

Today, I want to focus on my chosen topic, which is HMOs and predictions for 2025. I'm really delighted that today you have the honor of listening, not just to me, but also to my husband, my partner in crime, Andy Large.

The reason I've invited him on is because Andy's got a really deep knowledge and interest in macroeconomics. At home we have plenty of discussions about this topic. As we're running an HMO business and a property business, we're always very interested in looking at how these links work back and forth because housing is a massive part of our national economy. It's a huge part of our international economy and understanding the macro picture is very important when you're trying to make decisions about the micro picture, which is how you use your money to invest and make it grow, and hopefully also provide good quality accommodation for individuals.

Discussion Topics: EIER Framework Energy

Wendy: Let's start with energy. What are your thoughts about what's happening in the energy world and market? And how's that going to affect us in HMOs?

Andy: It could affect folk differently because we have to recognize that there are different models for HMOs. Not every HMO is an energy inclusive model. Some have tenants that actually pay their own bills with individual room billing, particularly for electric sometimes for gas, mostly for electric. I think most professional HMOs at least are an all-inclusive model. Would you say that's right?

Wendy: Definitely. I think that particularly for the professional market, which is where we specialize, we offer that all-inclusive rent because I think it's really valuable for the tenant. There are so many benefits to it for the tenant. It's much easier for them just to move in and have one all-inclusive fee that they pay. It's rent, utilities, council tax, water, etc. It all goes into one part and makes it much easier for them to move in and move out and be more flexible.

As well as the actual energy costs of running an HMO, the other things on the horizon which I think are part of this wider industry that affect HMOs are regulation when it comes to energy - the EPC regulation, but also the wider costs of energy and the costs of moving to net zero. This is becoming much more prevalent. We are no longer just simply accepting that we should be moving to net zero as a fait accompli, but there are voices which are now counterindicating that.

As we've heard from President Trump across the pond, he stated that he is not going to support net zero and he's withdrawn the United States from the Paris climate accord and he's going to "drill baby drill." What does this wider energy industry direction of travel mean for us in HMOs?

Andy: My view on net zero is that it's a totally suicidal mission. Even if we achieve net zero, what would it do? When asked that question, the reply is "Well, we'll be showing the world how to do net zero." And my view is they'll be laughing at us, particularly in China as they've made billions probably trillions out of manufacturing solar panels and we'll have no energy independence.

The pertinent point for HMOs and rental properties is the EPC piece. That's where the rubber hits the road. My personal view is that this is going to be very hard now for Labor to inflict on the population of the UK. The idea was that by 2030, every rental property needs to achieve EPC C, which is unachievable anyway. There are millions of properties, at least hundreds of thousands that would never be able to meet that energy requirement because of the method of construction, their proximity to other properties, etc.

I think it's an even bigger political problem for Labor now because of the appalling performance in the opinion polls and the rise of Reform who are strongly opposed to net zero. Even if Labor were to introduce a bill or ministerial instrument that said you've got to achieve that target by 2030, that requires consensus across the House of Commons, because there will be another election before 2030.

They are doing a consultation about it at the moment as a live consultation. That's often what you do about what you're about to go wobbly on ideas. There's no certainty. There might very well be a law that comes in that says you have to do EPC C, and then a landlord is going to have to make a decision - are they going to do it?

This is one of the dangers of any of these types of legislation. It's like the car industry having to prepare for getting rid of all ICE vehicles, only to be told, "Oh, actually, you can make some ICE vehicles." It's like a big liner crossing the ocean - it's not very easy to change direction of travel halfway through a strategic plan.

Inflation

Wendy: Linked to energy, of course, is inflation, and this is clearly a topic which is very important when you're investing in property, partly because we talk about real assets hedging against inflation, hedging against effectively the decrease in the value of your pound. What is going on with inflation right now? The headline statistics are that as of the end of 2024, it was 2.5% annualized, which doesn't sound too bad. But what do you feel is going on with inflation?

Andy: You mean CPI inflation, which if you listen to the government inflation figure, that's really like asking a child to mark their own homework. I don't really believe that number. I think it is quite a bit higher than that because it doesn't include housing costs, which is a massive part of most people's monthly budget.

Even then, there are things in the mix that make your head spin. I was listening to shows about housing costs priced in gold, which is the only Tier one reserve asset that has no counterpart. And priced against gold, all these things have indeed been