High demand for free house pubs is pushing up prices and boosting demand for leasehold properties, reports property agent Christie & Co.
Freeholds are becoming scarcer because pub companies are buying them to convert into leaseholds, said director Colin Wellstead. Overall good trading made owners less inclined to sell, he added.
Christie & Co's 14 UK offices have found the highest demand is for freeholds costing up to £500,000, especially in "honey pot areas" such as the North-east and South-west, where would-be buyers are seeking a lifestyle change.
Wellstead pointed to the case of the Red Lion at Alnmouth, Northumberland, which sold for about three times its annual turnover of £150,000, and the sale of the Five Bells Inn at Clyst Hydon, Devon, for a whopping £1m.
Would-be buyers from the South-east outnumber local buyers for properties in the West Country, which is enjoying a tourism boom, said Wellstead, while the dearth of freehold pubs in East Anglia has boosted the price of leasehold properties.
- Britons spent £17.5b buying drinks at the pub last year, a sum that represents almost half the money spent on leisure activities outside the home, according to new research by Mintel. But the amount spent in nightclubs dropped to £1.7b from the £2.2b recorded in the peak year of 1998. Spending in health and fitness clubs has risen by almost 50% since 1998, from under £2 to over £3m.
Source: Caterer & Hotelkeeper magazine, 30 October - 5 November 2003