The Property Unleashed Podcast

Serviced Accommodation Deal Finder

• Mark Fitzgerald • Episode 379

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Most serviced accommodation “deals” look great until you price in reality: cleaning, utilities, seasonality, voids, and the time it takes to run a short-term rental business. 


We walk through how we actually find good serviced accommodation opportunities and how to pressure-test the numbers so you do not end up chasing a property that only works in a spreadsheet.


We break down four clear ways to profit in serviced accommodation: converting your own property, using rent-to-rent, structuring a joint venture with an owner, or running a serviced accommodation management model for a monthly percentage. I also share why bigger units like three-beds and four-beds can outperform smaller apartments in today’s market and what that means when you are deal sourcing in competitive areas.


Then we get tactical about sourcing and stacking. If a landlord says no to rent-to-rent, you can still create value by introducing a strong short-term rental management company and earning a referral fee, turning “dead” leads into income. 


We also cover how to use basic tools like RROI, how to check comparable listings on Airbnb, and why a 12-month forecast is the only honest way to judge performance in serviced accommodation.


If you want more help building your serviced accommodation portfolio, check out the free resources and then subscribe, share the show with a friend, and leave a five-star review so more investors can find it.

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How To Find Better Deals

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How to find good service to accommodation deals.

Welcome And What The Clinic Covers

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Hello and welcome to the Property Unleashed, a podcast with me, your host, Mark Fitzgerald. So today's episode is actually taken from one of my live service to accommodation clinics where I help my community to get out there to find good deals, whether they're looking at converting a property to service to accommodation that they own or whether they're looking at getting out there and doing some rent to rent as well. I'm sure you're going to find this session, for want of a better word, very, very helpful and useful. And equally to that, if you do need any help and support moving forward with your property investing, then please do check out my online community, Education to Action. You can visit it at educationtoaction.com where we have rent to rent training, service to accommodation training, HMO training, refurb training, you name it. Go over there and have a little look for yourself. So without further ado, let's jump into this session right now. Welcome to today's session. Happy to talk about rent to rent, social living, sorry, supported housing, social supported living, social housing, put my teeth back in, temporary accommodation as well, service accommodation, HMOs, anything that you're looking at deal-wise. If I can help in any way, shape, or form, then do feel free to stick it in the old chat. Hiya, Thomas, good to have you

Why Bigger Units Perform Right Now

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on, my friends. So I'm going to talk a little bit about serviced accommodation here and the different methods that you can actually use to profit from the serviced accommodation industry. It is an industry that's ever growing. There is a need out there for properties. I'm finding myself that three beds and four beds serviced accommodation properties are actually outperforming your ones and your two beds right now. And I just think because the market can be quite busy with the smaller ones, but there is still great demand for it. And also with people wanting to look after themselves better and keep themselves in better condition, staying in hotels for contractors and stuff is becoming a bit of a nightmare because obviously there's sort of that bar culture and stuff, and people just end up, you know, snacking, not really eating the best of foods as well. So there's still a great time for service accommodation, but there's four fundamental ways that you can structure and do service accommodation deals if you like.

Four Serviced Accommodation Deal Structures

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Of course, one is directly with the owner of the property, with the landlord of the property. You can take the property on and you can obviously be the owner of that property and just convert it to service to accommodation. You can use the rent-to-rent strategy as well, which obviously is something that I've done a lot of. I've used my own properties, I've also used other people's properties. You can joint venture with property owners. Now, some people just think you've got to go in there, you've got to offer either management or you've got to offer a rent-to-rent deal to owners. What I will say is you don't always have to do that. What you can do is if you build up a good relationship with the owner of the property, you can say, look, well, let's joint venture on this. And I've done this myself on a block of flats, three flats in London, but only because the price of the flats was atrocious because of London prices. So for me, I thought I heard me better. So rather than offering a rent-to-rent, which is what I was going to do, I did a joint venture with them as well. And the joint venture was structured in such a manner that obviously they supply the property. We all put a bit of money into each of the units just to get them all furnished. And then we supplied the management, obviously, and the day-to-day running of the property as well. So after like the mortgage costs, after the management fee as well, which was taken out of this, we split the profits with the owners. So obviously, we have skin in the game with these, but that's worked very, very well. And of course, you can do that yourself as well if you uh get on well with the owner, or maybe you know somebody with a property, maybe you can take that property on, manage it for service accommodation, or hand it to a management company, but you're the go-to person in that sector, and that can work well. And of course, management is a great one as well, which is all about taking a percentage of the profit each and every month, very much like a letting agent does. As I said, uh more and more people obviously join in the call. If you do have any questions, you want to talk over anything, then please feel free to put it into the chat. I'm just doing a bit of a presentation now to give people an opportunity to do that. So those are four fundamental ways that you can do service accommodation deals. And of course, you know, it doesn't just have to be one route that it's just rent to rent. If you're trying to make money yourself out of these opportunities, and maybe, you know, a lot of you will be deal sources as well.

Joint Ventures And Management Profit Paths

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Is there management companies that you can potentially source opportunities for? So a friend of mine actually does this. So he will go in there and he will try and structure a rent-to-rent essay deal that he can package up and sell to an investor. But if they aren't up for that sort of thing, then he promotes his friend, he's got a national service accommodation company. He'll promote his friend's services and say to the owner, Well, if you converted this, you could potentially earn this. Now he does this after they've turned down his first offer, which was a rent-to-rent. But he says, if you put a bit of money in here, you make this look like this, potentially you can you can make this money. And he knows how much obviously the owner can make on the property because he'll have already done his due diligence and run the numbers on it. Now, if it won't make money, there's no point in offering this. But if it will make money, you could say, and if you do this, we've got uh a company that are more than happy to take this on. And he actually gets a commission from the from the service accommodation management company. So as a deal packager ourselves, we don't necessarily always have to be the ones that find the deals, package them up, sell them to the investors. If we can pass them over to a partner, a provider or something like that, that you obviously build up relationships with, then you can still make money from potentially deals and opportunities that aren't, you know, you're not going to get anyway, are you? Because uh obviously somebody else is has already said no to what you've already put out there. So you need to make sure that obviously you're out there, you're meeting landlords, you're talking to agents, you're getting out there.

Deal Sourcing When Rent To Rent Fails

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I see a lot of people that are struggling with property opportunities and properly deals, and normally that's just down to the fact that you're not talking to enough people. So you need to make sure you're out there talking to enough people, shaking hands, and obviously getting out there and making sure that people know that you exist. Sending out marketing materials or having marketing materials as well in your deal sourcing business is very, very important. So make sure that you have got cards and things. Again, a lot of you might have, you know, tap this card on a phone or or they they just more and more networking events I go to now, and people haven't got any cards or anything. So if you go into networking events and stuff, I was just trying to look for mine. I have a little notebook I take as well. Obviously, you can take notes on your phone. I'm a bit old school, but I like to write things down or I like to get people to write things down as well to share their numbers and stuff. But make sure that you've got marketing material that you can put out there, that you've got your email lists and things like that as well. Make sure you look professional and that your marketing stands out from what everybody else is actually doing. So, as I say again, if you go there, you're trying to negotiate deals, it doesn't quite work. If there's another option, which is i.e., we could potentially give this to another provider, somebody that can manage the property, look after it, and you get a fee for

Networking That Actually Creates Leads

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that, then why wouldn't you do so? So have a little look for people in your areas, people in your property investing areas that you can sort of partner up with, that you can get earned affiliate commission from as well. Because, well, why not? You know, at the end of the day, it makes the world go around. Once you find a prospective opportunity, you need to stack the deal and make sure that it will be profitable. Obviously, we can help you with that. But it's good as well if you've got somebody in the area that is a specialist in service accommodation management company, because predominantly, if you do a rent-to-rent deal and then you sell that onto an investor, not all investors will want to manage it. A lot of investors would like the hands-free. So you will be looking for reputable companies in the area. So ask them to help you stack the deals. Why? Because most of those will have access to all of the tools that you don't necessarily then have to pay for yourself in your business unless that's what you want. And of course, too many people get into essay and don't know the true costs of things or what exactly is involved. So make sure that you do have a good understanding of that. And that's why I actually have a partner company myself where I'll get them to sanity check any service accommodation opportunities that I'm looking at, because then it helps me to know that my numbers are right in those areas. I know what works in my area because that's where I do it, but I don't always know what works in every other area. And of course, some uh costs are either lower or or higher. So we want to be as accurate as we possibly can. And we never want to fudge the figures to make you know, make everything look brilliant. Honestly, if the deal won't stack, don't try selling it on, don't

Stack The Deal And Forecast 12 Months

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try doing it yourself either, because it just won't work, it'll end in tears. And make sure you accurately stack your deals that you get. So, as I say, most of the time it's all about perception, it's all about obviously, you know, forecasts as well. And we should always remember when it comes to the likes of service to accommodation or anything like that, that we we've got to look at it over 12 months. You can't look at service to accommodation on a month-on-month basis. You've got to look at it over 12 months. If you take a property on or you sell a property deal to somebody, and after three months of saying, well, it's not performing, you've got to say, can't say that until the end of the year. Now, if it's really not performing, there could be a major problem. But majority of the time, you have your slow months, then you have your good months, and you've got to see what that balances out. So realistically, you want to be forecasting everything, all the opportunities over at least a 12-month period, and then seeing how it performs. Give it 12 months and then take it from there. And finally, on this one, we have this is something that obviously we can help you with on this platform to make sure that you get it right. Because perception becomes reality. So by acting as a potential business partner to those that you're meeting, you'll soon find somebody who is generally willing to work with you and give you an early chance. So if you are struggling at getting opportunities or deals over the line and things like that as well, I say make sure that you're set up as a business, you look professional, and that you can get out there and get the results that you're looking for in all of this. So let me come back into this now. I'll stop sharing a minute and let's see what we've got.

Studio In Birmingham Numbers Breakdown

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I've had a property with an agent, they are open to a company Let's, but I don't know how to stack. It's a studio in Birmingham. So what's it called? There is a free website where you can get some basic numbers from called R R O I. And you can sort of have a little look at stacking those numbers there. The other thing is Google, you know, short-term rental, service accommodation management companies in the area and say to them, I've got a property. First of all, check their books, make sure that property is not on their books. But say, I've got a property in this area, or I'm thinking of letting it out for service accommodation. Do you think it would work? Do you think it would be profitable? Would you happily run some numbers on it before up for me? Most management companies will run the numbers on it because if they think that they're going to get the opportunity, they'll have somebody working for them who will be able to run those numbers for them as well. So that's a great way of stacking it. I mean, obviously, if you're going to be looking at sourcing rent-to-rent opportunities and stacking deals, then you want to be paying for a bit of software so that you can do that yourself as well. But it is important to get those numbers. Now, one thing I will say is, you know, studios are they will make money, but they're not as profitable, obviously, as a one-bed because you've just got a lack of room on there. But again, they they can still stack very, very well. But I would I would have a real good look out there right here, right now, even in this community. Ask anybody if they're happy to have a little look. Anybody doing service accommodation at the moment would be happy to have a look at stacking this deal for me, you know. And if I get the deal over the line, I'm more than happy to give you a couple of quid for your time and effort. If you can just help me with the numbers, and there will be there will be people in here that are paying for software. If you haven't got the funds at the moment to pay for the software and stuff to be able to stack deals. But uh, the fact that you've gone out there, you've found a company that are quite happy to do the company lets, that is good. Make sure that you go back to them and say, Have you got any other landlords that are interested in this, whether you or not you can get this deal to work or not? Because you can always go back and just say, Oh, for the clientele that we're we're looking for at the moment, it's a little bit small if the numbers don't work. Have you got any, you know, one one or two bare properties that it can work with? And if you get any like this, you know, be more than happy to look at taking these on. So you've got you've got a good lead there, you've got your foot in the door, and that could be a great little opportunity for you. But again, you've got a massive community here. I would definitely put a post out there and just say, is anybody you know operating studio one bed flats in and around the Birmingham area? I'd love to have a quick chat with you if I could, or uh buy you a virtual coffee, as they say, and of course, stack those numbers. But yeah, uh ROI will give you uh it'll give you the basics at the end of the day. I wouldn't run my whole diagnostics off of it because it's not it's not gonna help you massively in the sense of I wouldn't, you know, I wouldn't sell deals on it, but it will give you a a good broad stroke of uh of how it's performing and things. And of course, you know, you can go on Airbnb and stuff and have a little look at studio flats in Birmingham City Center or the area that you're looking and see see whether it works for you. So any other questions on that, please feel free to let me know. But I I predominantly, as I say, got out there with a management company and I get them to run the numbers for me. So I always say to them that I will put you as my preferred choice as long as the numbers work, and I'd rather have a manager, you could say to them, I would rather have a management company like yourself run the numbers and tell me that you think it's gonna be a good deal because you're gonna manage it, than I would, you know, obviously just running numbers and stuff. So a company worth its salt will help you, especially if they know they're gonna get the management. And if you need a company to help

Trusted Help, Resources, And Next Steps

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you, look at prim short stays. Tell them I sent you, Mark Fitzgerald sent me. I'm deal sourcing this, but I need to package it up, and I'm we're gonna need a management company to look after it. They can manage properties across the UK and they should look after you. And if they don't, tell me and I'll get them to look after you. But there should be a guy there called Jason who will be more than happy to run the numbers for you if Prim would be the likely choice for you to be able to manage those properties. So I hope that helps. And also a quick reminder: if you do need help and support with your serviced accommodation portfolio business, we have members in the community at the moment that are finding some superb rent-to-rent deals, are setting those up and are making them happen. I do also offer one-to-one coaching. So there is a load of help and support there for everybody. And listen, if you're just starting out, why not head over to the resources tab on the Education to Action or Property Unleashed website? And there's a lot of free guides, deal analyzers, all sorts of goodies there to help and support you moving forward. I like to always say the same thing here, which is I hope you are getting out there. I hope you are smashing it, and I also thank you very much for joining us here. If you would like to leave a five-star review anywhere you listen to the podcast, that would be hugely appreciated by us, and it does make a massive, massive difference. But until the next time, you take care.