For an HMO mortgage, you will need to have a substantial deposit. LTV ratios of 60 to 75% are the norm for lenders. At least 25% deposit. Although potential rental income will be taken into consideration by lenders during stress test calculations they will often base their sums more on the rental revenue you would earn from letting the property to one household than individual households. This means that your mortgage must be easily affordable, with substantial margins. A mortgage broker can tell you how big of an HMO loan you can afford, according to the lender.
Multi lets work in the same way as HMOs, except that they are rented to non-related tenants and they share the common areas. The main difference is that multi lets are not licensed.
Young buyers are still unable to afford a home, so the demand for affordable rented accommodation is high. You can check the local listings sites (Gumtree and Zoopla) to see how strong the demand is from prospective tenants.
A HMO can make you a higher profit than renting to a family. You can charge for each room separately and charge more overall. You will require a specialist mortgage to accomplish this.
Traditional buy-to-let models would usually house a family, or people who have decided to live together. Disputes can usually be resolved within the household, without the landlord being involved. Therefore, landlords will usually have an HMO type such as student buy-to-let or one that is only for working professionals.
HMOs are a good investment. HMOs have fewer "impactful vacants". The difference between tenants in a single occupancy home can be less than a month. This allows for viewings, repairs and redecorating while no rent is coming in. Your losses are reduced by an HMO, which allows the tenants to pay rent. Tax-deductible costs are possible to a greater extent than standard BTL.
HMOs don't always produce three times the rental income from a typical buy to let. Utility bills are typically paid by landlords. As you can see, even with a PS2k-3k per year utility bill there is still a lot of rental income.