Leeds property entrepreneurs expand with new service for landlords and investors

A Leeds-based entrepreneurial husband and wife team have expanded their multi-million pound property business, with the launch of Multi-Let UK.

Multi-Let UK is a bespoke management service for landlords and investors who have HMOs (Houses of Multiple Occupation) portfolios offer accommodation to professional clients.

Paul Lanfear and his partner Liz Lanfear, who founded the multi-million pound business Property Angels, launched Multi-Let UK to offer landlords a strong level of occupancy, increased revenue and reduced cost.

The firm’s services range from rent collection, inventories and monthly inspections to handling evictions, HMO compliance, maintenance calls and refurbishments and is backed by a team of specialists, with an office operation that is working 24/7.

Multi-Let UK is the only national multi-let portfolio management company in the UK that specialises in professional house shares and has provided professional house shares to thousands of tenants.

With headquarters in Nottingham, Multi-Let UK has offices in Lincoln and Derby and has just opened an additional five offices in Leeds, Warwickshire, Luton, Milton Keynes and Bedford.

A qualified barrister, Paul initially became a solicitor in 2000 and practiced at two international law firms, Dechert LLP in London and DLA Piper in Leeds. Paul specialised in investigations and asset recovery, commercial litigation and banking and finance litigation.

Paul has been investing in property since 2006 and became an award-winning property entrepreneur, after developing Property Angels with Liz.

Liz, who studied at the University of Leeds, has been investing in property since 2000 and has built a substantial portfolio of flats, single-let houses and both small and large HMOs. In addition, she has initially acquired, developed and disposed of a significant portfolio of student HMOs and the business now focuses purely on the young professional market.

As landlords with a property portfolio, both Paul and Liz have faced all the challenges of the buy-to-let market. Paul commented: “We know from experience that managing HMOs can be very demanding and stressful. In a typical day, we could be dealing with the occasional difficult tenant; chasing overdue rent; juggling finances; ensuring compliance with HMO legislation; redecorating a property; or evicting tenants for non-payment of rent.

“In spite of all the ups and downs, we have managed to build a very successful property portfolio and came to a point last year, when we decided to expand our business, to provide added-value services to other landlords. From our research, we knew there were very few letting agents with the right experience, knowledge and resources to manage HMO portfolios offering accommodation exclusively to professional tenants.

“This is in contrast to the single let and student HMO markets which has a number of well established and accomplished businesses. So we decided to team up with Multi-Let UK - the market leader in HMO investment and management – to provide a full management service to landlords and investors in Leeds.

“Multi-Let UK provides a full management service for landlord’s portfolios, giving them control and freedom, along with a high level of return for their investments. The firm is leading the way in multi-let portfolio management, ensuring that the operation of house shares are 100% compliant. Today, Multi-Let UK manages a portfolio rapidly heading towards 1,000 multi-let rooms in 2016 and has provided accommodation for over thousands of tenants.

“Demand for suitable affordable rental property is outstripping supply in many parts of Leeds. Typically, the average rent for a Multi-Let professional house share room in Leeds is £402 per month, which is above the market average of £356 and HMO property in the city give landlords an average annual yield of 12% or above. These yields are much higher than standard rental property in Leeds, which are achieving an average of between 4-6%.”

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