The flashy HMO king and queen who’ve constructed a £6MILLION property empire by turning low cost household properties into bedsits

A flashy European power couple boast online about building a multi-million pound bedsit empire in just two years by buying up family homes on the cheap and cramming them with tenants.

Lithuanian-born Greta Vnoutchkov, 32, and her Dutch husband Daniil, 36, claim to have amassed a £2.4million portfolio of HMOs – houses in multiple occupation – from scratch in just two years.

The high-flying couple flaunt their wealth on social media while bragging that developments in the pipeline will soon see their empire swell to £6million and rake in £600,000 a year in rent.

The Range Rover-driving pair chart their rise to ‘financial freedom’ in slickly produced YouTube videos with titles such as ‘How We Became Property Millionaires in 12 Months!’ and ‘How I’m Turning This £230k Property Into £600k in 6 Months’.

Their Instagram bio meanwhile declares: ‘Most people chase pay rises. We build assets that pay us.’

The couple, who moved from London to a luxury security-patrolled private estate in County Durham, chart a jet-set lifestyle on Facebook, including a ‘yearly snow escape’ to Norway and getaways to Rome, Sardinia and the USA.

They insist their ‘high-end’ HMOs attract working professionals such as nurses.

But critics in the North East – where the couple say they have snapped up ten low-cost properties to convert into high-density house-shares – have accused them of turning once-proud family homes into a revolving door of transient tenants.

Among the Vnoutchkovs’ growing empire are two former family homes on the same Newcastle street, now nine-bedroom HMOs; a Gateshead property earmarked for a seven-bed conversion; and three listed terraces in Sunderland approved this month for a 20-bedroom ‘mega HMO’.

Tenants can pay up to £800 a month for a single room and their three operational properties generate around £10,000 a month in profit, the couple claim.

They crow in one Instagram post: ‘Imagine replacing the average UK salary…with just one property.’

In a YouTube video posted in January, the pair told followers: ‘Last year was the biggest year of our lives and that’s no exaggeration because we finished three large HMO projects and that created homes for 27 people.

‘On top of that we have another six big projects lined up.

‘Once everything is completed our portfolio will sit at £6million and it will generate us £600,000 of income per year and the crazy part is it took us only two years to get here.

‘Two years. That already puts us further ahead than most people will ever get.’

The couple, who also offer £300-an-hour ‘strategy calls’ for aspiring property investors, claim to have built their HMO empire without investing any of their own cash.

In a video entitled: ‘How to Buy your first Property with NO MONEY’, Daniil told followers: ‘Last year I was in the same position. But in a short space of time I managed to buy three properties with zero of my own money.’

He said the key was using ‘other people’s money’ through interest-only loans and high-interest bridging loans to leverage cash.

He said: ‘You’re probably wondering why somebody would lend you this kind of money. Well this is the very important bit – you have to add some value for them.

‘You don’t just take the money and say thank you and see you later. Instead you need to add some value by offering them interest.

‘This way your friend would get a better return than they would from a bank, and you would get the money to fund your project and also the renovation.

‘By presenting it as an opportunity, you’re not only asking for help – you’re offering your friends and family the chance to grow their money while they fund your projects.’

He added: ‘Every property investor starts somewhere – and if we could do it, you can do it too.’

But as the couple’s property empire has grown, so has local frustration.

One neighbour in Darlington, where the Vnoutchkovs controversially converted a 19th-century townhouse into a nine-bed HMO, blasted the couple for ‘gloating’ about their wealth online while leaving locals with ‘no real sense of community’.

The 19th century property in Greenbank Road was purchased for £145,000 in September 2024 following the death of its elderly owners, with the couple pouring in £200,000 on renovations.

They claim that the HMO – where tenants each live in single rooms of the house and share a kitchen – now generates the couple almost £80,000 a year in rent and is now valued at £550,000.

Neighbours, however, say the street, once packed with families, is now ‘overrun’ with bedsits after being targeted by out-of-town landlords.

Matt Fisher, 47, who lives on Greenbank Road with his four children, told the Daily Mail that the Vnoutchkovs’ online financial boasts were a ‘kick in the teeth’.

‘People are coming and going and you don’t know who’s who anymore. There’s no neighbourhood anymore,’ he said.

‘And to have these investors bragging online about how much they are making is just a kick in the teeth.

‘Earn a living and good luck to you but don’t rub it in our faces. That’s why people are p****d off.

‘We don’t want to see people boasting online that it’s easy money to open a HMO with no thought for people who actually live here and who struggle to get by.’

Grandfather Sandy Duncan, 86, who has lived on the road for 43 years, said the community had been eroded by a surge in bedsits.

He said the family who previously owned the Vnoutchkovs’ HMO would ‘turn in their graves if they saw what’s become of it’.

Mr Duncan said: ‘It’s been a bit tense, really. People here are very upset about it.

‘I’ve lived here since 1982 and back then it was lovely. The streets were full of families, my kids would play on the street and have sleepovers at each others’ houses.

‘Now I can count the families on the street on one hand.

‘These property investors don’t give a damn about what they’re doing.’

In one YouTube video titled ‘They Tried to Stop Our Renovation’, Greta branded neighbours in Darlington ‘an absolute nightmare’, accusing them of going through skips and peering through windows.

Daniil, a product designer by trade, accused neighbours of having a ‘very negative mindset’.