Pub prices "cooling

Average pub prices are "cooling", according to property agents Fleurets.

The company's annual price survey revealed the average price of a freehold pub has risen two per cent this year to £690,425.

But the figures, which cover England and Wales, reveal a fall in the leasehold and bottom-end market.

This follows a record year in 2006, when average freehold prices shot up 12 per cent, from £612,260 to £683,260.

This year prices have tailed off on freeholds, particularly in London. In the capital the average price of a freehold fell from £1.8m to £1.1m.

However, Barry Gillham, chairman of Fleurets, put this down to the fact that many pubs sold this year were in the Home Counties, rather than Central London.

He added: "Everybody has been very uncertain and we have seen prices cooling, although 2006 was a record year."

The average price of a freehold in East Anglia dropped around 10 per cent to £425,111, which Gillham put down to there being "too many pubs in East Anglia".

In respect of "bottom end" pubs, Gillham noted: "We have sold a lot more bottom end pubs than last year - a lot for Admiral."

The average price of a bottom end pub remained relatively constant at around £320,000, according to the survey, based on all pubs sold by between October 2006 and September 2007.

However multiples are now selling for precisely double the turnover, higher than any year on record for Fleurets.

In the leasehold market, average prices fell slightly to £85,338, compared to £87,011 in 2006.

Despite predictions of economic doom and gloom next year, Gillham said that it may mean an influx of people into the trade. "When you have a downturn, you suddenly have a lot of people wanting to become their own bosses," he said.

• For full details of the survey, please download the pdf attachment attached to this story