The businessman planning to own a portfolio of 5,000 properties “as soon as possible”  has elaborated on his ambitions to buy up letting agencies across the UK.

Graeme Carling, who runs his PRS Group with wife Leanne, said he is looking to acquire letting agents with at least 250 properties under management and which have been established for a minimum of five years.

He said he is not looking at the London market but at smaller towns and cities, and would be interested in acquiring agents or their lettings books in these locations.

He said: “I am not looking for distressed companies, but at firms with good staff who would stay on and continue to work, as before, under the existing brand.

“I am envisaging situations where the owner is looking for an exit – either because they lack the funds to grow the business or perhaps because they’ve simply had enough.”

Carling, who will be competing with Lomond Capital to purchase businesses, said that unlike them, he will not buy sales agencies.

“Where a business runs both sales and lettings operations, we would buy the lettings book only, allowing them to continue with sales,” he said.

Like Lomond, PRS Group is Scotland-based and planning on moving south over the border.

Carling said that as someone who has been in property for many years, it is a key part of his plan that his company manages all the properties it owns.

“Ten years ago, you could buy a property and give it to an agent to look after. Now, the margins are too tight. Landlords are making 50% of the money they were.”

Like Lomond – which has acquired agency business in cities such as Birmingham and Brighton – PRS Group would look to consolidate firms.

Whether he acquires portfolios directly from landlords or from agents, there is no doubting his ambitions.

“A few years ago, our target was 1,000 properties. Now we have said 5,000 but really our target should be 10,000.

“Five thousand properties is ambitious, but probably not ambitious enough.”

He thinks he will meet the 5,000 target within two to three years. He is particularly interested in what he calls the traditional bog-standard buy-to-let property – family homes, rather than HMOs or student properties.

Carling says that as a large-scale company, he is much less concerned than smaller, individual landlords at the raft of tax and legislative changes which are under way in all parts of the UK.

Licensing has already been in place in Scotland for some years “but has really tightened up recently”. The effects of the abolition in December of the so-called no-fault possession ground in Scotland have yet to be seen, but is clearly a concern for small landlords.

The tenancy fees ban is already in place in Scotland, with England and Wales set to follow. Carling said: “The only way the fee is recoverable is for both the tenant and the landlord to absorb some of the costs.”

He said: “The market is going through a tough time, but if you look at the global market – particularly in America and mainland Europe – then family rental homes have absolutely got to be a top asset class.”

www.prsuk.co.uk