Why do tenants choose house shares when a studio costs only a little more?

In lots of locations, usually northern and blue-collar, the difference between an average HMO room and an average studio is tiny. Sometimes the "boutique" rooms aiming for £120-plus a week cost more than the studios, even once bills are added.

So why do local tenants choose HMOs when, for £100 a month more, they could live on their own? It comes down to barriers to entry.

Have you ever been a tenant? I have. The way some letting agents make you feel when you apply, or even ask to view, can be pretty rude. "Sales or lettings?" And when you say you're a tenant, the red carpet gets rolled back up.

Credit checks, referencing, six-week deposits, the electoral roll, signing up to your own bills, broadband and energy contracts: these are all barriers for a lot of tenants.

• Transient tenants who don't want long contracts
• Tenants from abroad with no traceable history
• Tenants who can't pay a big deposit
• Tenants with bad credit or CCJs who are still good payers
• Tenants who want to budget more easily
• Tenants who need somewhere mid-week while they work away

None of these are automatically bad tenants.

If your HMO is in an area where the room rate is level with the studio rate, you have to lower your barriers to entry to make the rooms appealing. It's one reason local self-managing landlords often get better occupancy than landlords using a high-street letting agent, who puts the same process in place for an £85-a-week room as for a three-bed family home.

A specialist HMO managing agent should know these nuances. They can still vet tenants properly and pick the right people, while keeping bums on seats for the landlord.

Knowing your tenants and understanding where they're coming from is the key.

This doesn't apply in higher-value areas with lots of professional tenants. A room in Clapham, even at £1,200 a month, can be half the cost of a flat. But where most of the tenant base is low-earning and blue-collar, studios and one-beds can be found at around the same cost as an HMO room, and your rooms have to earn their place.

First posted on my Facebook page. Lightly edited.