Cant sell my hotel

sukysue

I'm so sorry Slowdog I wish there was some better news for you m'dear.

chickmug

slowdog wrote: »

i have never heard of people wanting to stay in a 5* B&B. a 5* hotel, yes, but a B&B?

I really don't know the Blackpool market but the area I do know there are many 5* B&Bs that do really well. Many furnished along the lines of Langtrys but in much better locations.

slowdog

maybe its just me. "5*" and "blackpool" in the same sentence doesnt happen very often

chickmug

Someone mentioned Hotel and Caterer which is a very expensive magazine. I doubt any agent would put your place in there unless you PAYG (pay as you go) for the ads.

Advertising that does work is: -
Daltons Weekly paper but less now than in previous years.
Businessesforsale and Daltons web sites.
Your local paper
Your regional media

Advertising that is worth it but not as important: -
Rightmove and other associated web links.

Advertising that is good for promoting the agent with you PAYG'ing but brings very few enquiries: -
Hotel and Caterer and other such media.
Ads in other regional media
Ads in London media
Ads in dailys

lincroft1710

slowdog - just found agent who has your hotel, they've got 225 hotels/guest houses for sale in Blackpool. Is this number the norm? Several have ceased trading. Although yours is amongst the higher priced ones it does seem to be good value.

fc123

slowdog wrote: »

sorry. i must have missed the earlier question.

if you mean by way of job, thats a good question. i know what i want to do, but its more likely a filler job will be taken till i can sort that out. i want to remain self employed however.

we would love to buy a nice house. however, a swap isnt really a feasible option. we would be seriously out of pocket as there is no way we would go for a house the size of which the mortgage would allow. it would be nice to think we could come out of this with some money in the bank. that will allow us to both get somewhere and be able to support ourselves while we sort ourselves out.

the rates, thanks to the council, are stupidly high. and we've just got them reduced.

we really do not want to cut our losses though, but the state of us at the moment makes us think (certainly not want) that the bank may own this by the end of the year

Hi I have just read this whole thread and really sympathise with your situation.

I don't know how serious you are being with the above sentence and whether that is a real possibility?

Later on in the thread you mention mortgage being just over half of current price (the £400k one).

It would be better for you to sell at less rather than get repo'd even if you don't have much spare left. A repo situation would leave you far worse off.

We had to make the decision on whether to close down a major part of our business last year.
Different circumstances and sector but we had a drop in T/O post crunch, a rent increase that we knew we couldn't win on review, therefore a drop in profits ( to pennies) not seen since our first year trading 11 years previously.

The big factor for us was that it was taking up 98 manhours per week for a neglible return. However, to leave we knew it would cost us a fat sum (that we didn't have at the time) but that large sum would be far less longterm than our forecast profits (tiny) and 'wasted' manhours.

Manhours that we have now put into something else.

We decided to cut our losses and I am just coming out the other side now to a far better new business model/job/income from our labour.

Only you truly know your figures and your liabilities (mortgage and other debts on the business, if any) and to cut your selling price meanwhile pushing up your turnover (for a potential buyer to see better figures) by putting up some room rates and all the other suggestions on here could get you out by Xmas.

Then you are free to start again even if you have less surplus from the sale.

Wishing you luck but it's sometimes harder to make the decision on what to do rather than following it through.

Rockporkchop

Sorry that you are in this difficult position slowdog.

Have you considered putting the hotel on ebay? Compared to loads of the properties on there, yours isn't a bad price and you would reach a lot more people than on the sites you are advertising on at the moment.

I know it's not the same but I managed to get rid of a couple of BTL flats on there that weren't selling through the EA, it only cost me about £35 for each flat.

lincroft1710

Rockporkchop - on another thread you're considering buying a holiday business at £850K. Here's one at well under half that. I know it's not quite what you're after, but as a business investor what would attract you to buy it?

fc123

lincroft1710 wrote: »

Rockporkchop - on another thread you're considering buying a holiday business at £850K. Here's one at well under half that. I know it's not quite what you're after, but as a business investor what would attract you to buy it?

That's a good question.
Different market sector to that which RPC is going for.

I notice thread has 'died' for a while. I hope he's getting on OK. Lots of summer trade and new pics etc to sort out. 32 rooms is a big job.

mynameisdave

I've not read through all the ten pages so apologies if this has already been mentioned. Have you considered a planning application to allow the property to be converted to a mix of studio / 1 / 2 bed apartments?

You wouldn't have to do the work yourself but outline PP might seriously interest a developer.