In need of ideas to sell a portfolio of HMO’s in the South East

I would be interested to hear from Property118 readers who have experience of selling HMOs, particularly larger portfolios.

Over the years, I have built up a substantial property portfolio in the South East, including several HMOs. I have reached a stage where I would like to take a step back from the day-to-day management involved, spend more time travelling and generally reduce the demands on my time.

My current thinking is that I may sell some or all of the HMOs, use the proceeds to reduce or eliminate borrowing, and retain a number of family homes where I have long-established tenants and relatively little management involvement.

I am not looking to exit property investment altogether, simply to reshape the portfolio so that it better suits the next stage of my life.

I suspect that selling HMOs can be quite different from selling standard houses and flats, particularly when it comes to finding the right buyers and achieving the best price. I would therefore be very interested to hear from anyone who has sold HMOs recently.

How did you market them? Did you use a specialist agent, an auction, a portfolio buyer, or another route altogether? Were there any lessons you learned along the way that you would be happy to share?

Any tips, suggestions or experiences would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.