am I being silly, so sell one of my houses, with a view to buying something similar

snickpan

I own 4 houses, the one in town centre is an HMO, in an area where you can't get the licenses any more, which adds appeal. I have no kids or siblings, so I plan to have sold all houses and spent all money by the time they find shadows on my lungs. I'd like to live a bit more central, toying with the idea of buying a house or flat in town, but I'll have to take a hit with blimmin' stamp duty, at Brighton prices. Market is flooded with properties at the moment, so if anyone wants to sell, they're having to knock £50k off.
Sell my HMO, pocket the change, buy later on in the year, something a bit smaller.
I can't help but think I'm being daft, why don't I just wait until the students are out of HMO in August 2018?

cloo

Do wait until they are all out, I'd say. We viewed a property that was an HMO when the owner clearly hadn't warned the poor residents we were coming and we couldn't see some of the room, so we gave up. Also didn't want to deal with the LL having to evict them all, given they were so clueless about managing showing the house properly that presumably they'd mess that up too.