As the government commits to a nationwide housebuilding programme, the UK’s housing crisis has been in the news a great deal this year. But no matter how the rest of the decade pans out, the squeeze on living space doesn’t look like it’ll go away any time soon.
For vast numbers of homeowners, scaling the housing ladder is prohibitively expensive and difficult. There is an alternative, though – a simple but hugely effective concept, pioneered by the franchise business More Than Loft Ladders (MTLL).
The firm transforms dark, largely unused lofts into safe, attractive, easily accessible storage areas. That’s great news for all sorts of people, from expectant parents with a junk-filled spare room to downsizers with a lifetime’s worth of treasured knick-knacks they want to hang on to.
Carrying out loft space conversions like these was a niche idea when MTLL started trading in the noughties. Now it’s a wildly popular segment of the home improvement market, delivering a packed work schedule to the company’s franchisees.
Its current owner, Liam Hobbs, took over the reins in 2022. He was a franchisee himself under its previous management, but saw so much potential in the UK-wide business that he’d wanted to acquire it for some time.
His ambition now is to grow the seven-strong network by four new partners a year so that in a decade, MTLL is the largest franchise in the trade. That’s how confident he is in his business.
In the supplement, we’ll let you in on MTLL’s success story and explain what sort of qualities you’ll need to make a healthy living from this niche but rewarding trade.
We’ll examine the firm’s training course, the loft space phenomenon that’s taken the UK by storm, the concepts that inspired the company’s branding and, in detail, the potential monetary rewards available to a dedicated man with a van (or two, or three, or four!).
In our case studies section, the contrast between the generations is especially interesting. As you’ll see, we profile franchisees Lewis Perkins – powering ahead after investing in the business in 2024 – and fiftysomething Paul Langley, now enjoying the fruits of his hard work in Spanish semi-retirement.
Most of all, we trust that you’ll enjoy this Elite Franchise supplement, and that you’ll never look at lofts in quite the same way again.
