Regional spotlight: Brighton
Cosmopolitan Brighton has long had a reputation for its buzzing night-life and hard-partying gay community, and its popularity with visitors from the capital has earned it the nickname of London-on-Sea.
But unfortunately for new entrants to the licensed property scene, the market is near saturation point.
"There has been an explosion in trendy bars in the centre and there's a general lack of properties on the open market, both leasehold and freehold," says Nick Earee, sales manager of the Brighton office of chartered surveyor Fleurets. "It's very difficulty to find sites."
One upcoming freehold opportunity is the Sussex Art Club, next to the Hotel du Vin. The site has a bar, restaurant, ballroom, function room and eight letting bedrooms, and will have a guide price of about £1.7m.
The hotel front has become incredibly competitive, with the opening of three boutique hotels - the Hotel du Vin, Alias Seattle and Hotel Nineteen - in the last two years and the soon-to-open Drakes. A Myhotel is scheduled to open next year, and others like Sir Rocco Forte are looking for sites. Earee says the prices being achieved for freehold hotel properties equate to £60,000-£70,000 a room.
According to Earee, a lot of people who start looking for licensed property in Brighton end up buying a few miles along the Sussex coast in Eastbourne, where there are still opportunities to find good properties in the centre.
Closer to home, there are some good opportunities for new entrants on the outskirts of Brighton, at locations like Southwick, and some "pretty, foody, country-style pubs" three or four miles out, Earee says.
