Serviced Accommodation
Buy, Refurbish, Refinance
How a plumber turned a £62k house into £2,000 of bookings in one week
Project at a glance
Strategy
Buy, refurbish, refinance, then serviced accommodation
Property
3-bedroom house
Bought for
£62,000
Valuation
£120,000
Refurb
About 3 weeks
Refinance
Investment pulled back out
Monthly bills
About £700
Exit options
Sell, rent or SA
Meet Kyle
Kyle is a plumber by trade who has run his own construction company for six or seven years. He met Rahim by chance, when Rahim stopped to ask whether he took on building jobs. That conversation turned into a working partnership and a mentorship, and Kyle has since built two of Rahim’s projects while growing his own portfolio.
A first try that hit lockdown
Kyle’s first step into serviced accommodation was a rent-to-SA property in Birmingham. The timing could hardly have been worse: soon after it launched, the country went into its second lockdown. Kyle and his partner let it out on a normal tenancy for six months to cover the costs, then decided rent-to-SA wasn’t for them. They wanted to own the property.
Buy, refurbish, refinance
They bought a three-bedroom house for £62,000. With Kyle’s building skills, the full refurbishment took around three weeks.
They expected a valuation of about £105,000. It came back at £120,000. That meant Kyle could remortgage and pull his investment back out of the property, leaving him free to choose what to do with it next.
Choosing the exit: sell, rent or SA?
Kyle always buys with three exit strategies in mind. The house drew strong interest when it went on the market, and the numbers on a standard rental were good. But Kyle had been researching the area for a long time, and it was busy with construction work and new roads, which means a steady stream of contractors who need somewhere to stay.
His partner was sceptical after the Birmingham experience. So Kyle sat down with Rahim to run the figures. Together they checked demand, nightly rates and how quickly similar properties were booked, and tested the deal against a minimum occupancy rate rather than a best case. In Rahim’s words, “the figures don’t lie.” The numbers worked, and his partner agreed to give it a go.
The first week
The property went live as serviced accommodation on a Sunday. Six days later it had taken around £2,000 in bookings. With running bills of about £700 a month, Kyle was already roughly £1,300 in profit from the first couple of weeks of bookings, and his partner, the original sceptic, was delighted.
Behind the scenes: building Rahim's HMO
Kyle also led the conversion of one of Rahim’s properties, a run-down, uninhabitable Victorian house that is now an HMO. It was his first HMO conversion, so he studied the HMO regulations, including fire safety and fire exits, before starting.
- Planning: After due diligence with an architect and the council, Rahim chose to start work while the change of use from C3 to C4 was applied for, at his own risk. Approval took about four months. Waiting would have meant the build had barely begun.
- Surprises: A wall turned out to be a chimney breast. A structural engineer redesigned the support: two RSJs on two new pillars instead of one beam.
- Delays: Cement and plasterboard shortages, plus a delayed electrician, pushed the build from 8–12 weeks to about 14. The team kept other trades working in the meantime to claw back time.
- Result: The building inspector was impressed at the final inspection.
What's next
Kyle and his partner are now buying another house two streets away. It’s another full refurbishment, and they expect to leave almost no money in it after refinancing. They’ll keep their three exit strategies open, and if serviced accommodation keeps performing, it may follow the same route.
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