Buying a Freehold

Hi,

I am considering purchasing a pub as freehold. Just wondering if we are being realistic about it. Basically, we are a group of 3 business professionals who are looking at setting up a ltd company to buy, manage, and run a freehold pub. None of us have any previous professional experience of running a pub, but we are all familiar with cellar keeping and running one off bars (at weddings/big private parties).

The pub we are looking at is local to us, so we know it's history inside out. It has been run into the ground by the previous pubco, sales figures are not even available (but we know how bad it was). We are looking at totally refreshing the place and bringing in new clientelle, basically the challege of turning the place around. As you can imagine the freehold price is relatively cheap - the building is listed so it's got no development potential. It is a big pub, with a potential for a large beer garden, and almost in a town centre location.

The location is a large town, which at present does not have any other freehouses, and this is where we see our niche - attracting the real ale folk to a period pub.

Freehold price is around 200k, we can raise about 40-60k capital, but would need a mortgage for the rest. I have done a quick budget and am reckoning on overheads of around 85k/year (mainly staff and mortgage repayments), which I estimate would require a turnover of c. 200 barrels/year. Do these figures sound anywhere near realistic, is it a good time to buy a freehold?

Sorry for the length of this. Any comments or advice on the above would be gratefully recieved. Mike Batte