i'd appreciate some feedback... call it market research.

I have a house which my tenant of 5 years has now sadly left. it has a large double bedroom, & a ridiculously large double bedroom; is it better to split the ridiculous room and rent as a 3 bed (one double & 2 single about 8x11ft), or leave as is? it only has one bathroom, and a stupidly large garden, and I only have about £2k to spend...

I don't know, but there are too many rabbit hutches out there for people to live in. So you have to weigh the extra income from having an extra bedroom, but with less chance of renting it out in an increasingly competitive market, with less income from it being a two bedroom house but a much higher chance of renting it out.

How difficult are void periods for you? How easy is it to rent out a house in your area? If a tenant lived there for 5 years then it sounds like they were quite happy with it.

Two smaller bedrooms at 8x11 would seem to me only be just about enough room for little uns or students. Is this type of tenant you are looking for? Would you be able to recoup the 2k outlay easily.
5years with the same tenant, must have been very happy with the two bed arrangement.

Thanks for the advice! Just what I needed to help me decide.

All the best

Maybe take into consideration, More and more couples and families will be looking for rentals as we were, needed to get out of the market for fear of HPC. More family space the better. G`luck

Yes, I would split the bedroom into two bedrooms. You will earn much more money by having two flatmates rather than only one in your property. You can choose to split the room by using plasterboards, which are very cheap and allow placing cables, plumbs, and other things that should go through the wall very easily. If there is a way that you can make an extra door through the plaster without forcing one of the flatmates to walk through the other bedroom, that would be perfect.