Jim Haliburton

Jim HaliburtonJim Haliburton began buying property in 1991 and letting them to students, organising or doing the work on the property himself. The tenants/students all came from the College where Jim worked as a lecturer.
In July 2003 Jim left his job as a College Lecturer and decided to invest in property full time. At that point he set himself a target to purchase a further 50 properties before the buy-to-let boom finished. In the end it took him 18 months to achieve this.

Jim now owns over 86 HMO’s / Multi-Lets with over 500 tenants. On top of this he has about 20 houses and flats which are let as single-lets. He is now acquiring properties using Lease Options and keeps on telling himself to stop accumulating property and consolidate his position, but anybody in the property business will know how difficult it is to stop buying once you have started.

To contact Jim email jim.haliburton@justdoproperty.com

Please leave your Questions and Comments Below:

  • June Alsop

    how do you manage so many i have 12 properties half of them hmo

    • Jim Haliburton

      I have almost 100 properties now with well over 500 tenants. As a result I now have a number of staff and contractors to manage and maintain the properties. The areas are split into two and so I have two Area Managers who are responsible for the collection of rent, filling the voids and ensuring they are maintained.

      I found it far easier in retrospect to manage the properties myself although at the time I didn’t think so, as I felt that I never had the time and was frustrated by having to do menial tasks. It took me on average 1 hour per week per property once they were up and running and full. The secret is to have all your properties within a few minutes drive of each other and local to you, or only let to professionals who pay you by standing order.

      You need to develop a laid back attitude to it all but at the same time, do the best you can and realise that you will never satisfy all your tenants, all of the time and the more you do, the more they expect.

      Remember that you are the boss, be as professional as you can but at the same time you very occasionally have to say to your tenants that if they are not happy, they are free to leave.

      Do not make the mistake of thinking that employing staff is the answer. It causes more problems than it is worth, but that’s another story.

      If you would like to learn more about managing HMO’s I run courses and mentorship programmes. For details go to the training course section in Just Do Education :-

      http://www.justdoproperty.co.uk/education/training-courses#haliburton

  • Steve

    Hi Jim,
    Just finished reading your pdf “How Multi Let Landlords Can Profit from the Change in Planning Rules”, very interesting reading, although i believe it to be a little dated now.
    You mention the planning consultancy offer you have at the end of it, I am currently dealing with my local planning office and having “issues” I know the pdf concerned HMO’s but does this cover non HMO applications?
    I quick run down, i currently own a flat which is designated as commercial use and wish to convert to residential and at the same time change the shop front to something more suitable to a home than an office.
    Your advice would be appreciated
    Regards
    Steve

  • Frey

    Dear Mr Haliburton,

    I found your great webpage whilst searching for some answers I need about changing a property to an HMO. I hope you can clarify the issues for me. The property used to be let to a family, but has now been empty for a couple of years and I have been told that it would be easier to find tenants if each room is let seperately. It's located in a town centre and is in a conservation area (I think that's what they called it). I wouldn't have to make any changes to the outside of the building, just ensure it is fire safe (30 minute fire doors, fire escape, emergency lighting etc). However, when I phoned the council (and spoke to a man in Building Control), I was told I may have to apply for planning permission and that I would certainly need to get an architect to make plans which I would give to Building Control so they could give it to the Fire Safety people. He also said I would have to have some sort of sound proofing and a sound test. My granddad (who owns the property) has never had to do any of this with his other properties and neither has the letting agent I spoke to.

    I cannot afford to pay an architect to make plans or to have sound proofing so I really hope this is not necessary. Please let me know what you think as soon as possible.

    Thanks for your help.
    Frey

    • Jim Haliburton

      Dear Frey

      A tricky one this, you have a number of issues to consider, however your Grandad sounds like he knows what he is doing, why are you not following his advice? If you want certainty and are rule orientated, running a HMO is not for you. Sorry to be so blunt. Getting back to answer your question:-

      First the planning/conservation aspect You will need to check this out with the conservation and planning department to see if your suspicions are correct as without their approval, you will only be able to single let the property. The recent relaxation in the planning law which now allows up to 6 sharers without planning permission does not apply to conservation areas. Any breach of planning use in a conservation area is a criminal offence. This is not the case with normal breaches in planning use unless you ignore an enforcement notice. Also appreciate that the conservation officers can be very difficult to deal with, time consuming and may add enormously to the cost of converting. Note also that conservation restrictions not only involve the outside of the building but may well apply to the inside of the building as well.

      Where possible, get the planning and conservation departments to confirm their advice in writing, as they have been known to deny later, information they have given. If the departments do not confirm in writing what they say, write to them with confirmation of what you think they said and keep proof that you sent the letter i.e. fax, email or recorded delivery. I would do all three!

      Secondly, I do not see why you have involved building control. I try to operate a “do not involve” approach to any department unless I am legally bound to do so. Building control should only get involved if you carry out any structural changes, and this can be very widely defined by a building control department which is looking for work. Sound proofing and sound tests are generally only involved when you convert a property into flats. A shared house could be so interpreted to be the same as flats by a cautious building control department looking to over regulate the industry, so why involve them? Changing doors for fire doors is not a structural change.

      Finally, the department who should get involved with HMO’s is the Housing Standards department. I would call the department up and talk to them. If they sound positive and helpful, get them involved and do what they tell you to do and then keep quiet, run your HMO well, attend to maintenance issues and problems quickly so not to attract the attention of any other officialdom.

      Best of luck

      Jim Haliburton

  • Sebastian

    Jim,

    My name is Sebastian I am a young guy, inexperienced and just trying to learn as much as possible. I don’t know if you are a genius or just waffling nonsense to sell books but I have some burning questions that are really confusing me.

    One of the examples you use to calculate yield on your website is for a property yielding £32,000 a year. My first question is, is that just a random number you have plucked from no where or is that actually an obtainable amount of achievable rent? Because I have a couple of studios in Berlin city centre that rent no where close to that lol…

    My second burning question Jim is how, if you left your lecturing job to do this full time, did you sustain a living whilst building your portfolio, because my rents are good, they cover my mortgage costs plus some but I still have other expenses like maintenance etc. If I left my job in the Army I would have no money to spend on myself to live. How the hell did you do it?

    My third burning question, (I have alot more but I want to keep this short), do you know anything about renovation, I mean did you have any experience in building etc, because I don’t know anything about that stuff, I would have to get contractors in to do everything and they ain’t cheap. Did you have this problem or did you DIY on converting properties to HMO’s…?

    That’s all for now Jim, maybe I’m just really niave I don’t know, but 12% yield sounds incredibly high.

    Best Regards

    Sebastian.

  • carol

    Hi Jim,
    I read some of your advice on the landlord sites, easy reading and great to read.
    I currently own a 6 bedroomed Hmo which does not need to be licenced as on 2 floors. A really nice house with great professional tenants.
    At the moment the mortgage is up for renewal, it is valued at £245000, we have a mortgage of £143000 but would like to release some equity of £40000 bringing the mortgage upto £183000.
    Do you have any recomendations of mortgage brokers with fantastic rates :) your help would be much appreciated. Many thanks in advance.

  • john knee

    I have 7 BTL properties but no student HMOs. I want to buy my first. Which cities in the UK are in your view the best for yield?

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