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Knowing When to Sell an HMO and When to Hold

Xuan Meng talks with Richard Bowser

In recent years, many residential portfolio landlords in higher value locations experienced a more challenging period in respect of finding and completing projects, and which would ‘add up’ financially. Covid and its consequences added another layer of complexity to consider, which prevented some landlords and developers taking on new projects. However, it is said that ‘fortune favours the brave’ and that ‘when times get tough, the tough get going’.

Well, the above clichés would certainly seem to apply to the Wimbledon-based developer and landlord Xuan Meng who has in just four years achieved what many others struggle to do over decades.

When we spoke recently, Xuan explained that she was born in China and spent her early years there before attending university in Ireland and then embarking on a career in finance. However, the arrival of a baby daughter was the ‘game changer’ as to why she chose to pursue a career in property development.

“I was working full time in the asset management industry before starting my career in property,” said Xuan, “so I have a strong financial background and am very good at investment analysis and financial appraisals.

“To be clear, I really enjoyed my old job, but when my daughter was born, I realised that I did not want to work full time in a company and leave our daughter to grow up barely knowing her mother due to my time commitments at work. In 2018, after 10 years in management consulting at one of the ‘big four’ firms, and whilst on maternity leave, I made the decision to start my own property business using the name Cosy Hauz.  Over the next four years, we have grown the business to a portfolio of properties worth over £11m in value and with annual revenues over £600k, while the business has diversified to include property investment, development and property management. In 2018 I was a sole trader, but now there are 16 employees working within Cosy Hauz and in three geographical locations.

“Real estate/property was always an interest for me and so I rented out my first property back in 2018 and started to focus on renovations and HMO services. At first, I was not that ambitious, and I did not expect the growth we have achieved as we did not have that much money to start out with. My aim at first was to replace my income from my previous career and to contribute to the family household. However, once I realised the opportunity that there was in property development, I then made the decision together with my husband to start a company.

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