Three Art Deco Mecca bingo halls with future redevelopment potential will go under the hammer in the Acuitus sale next month.
The lots, with guides ranging from £1.4m to £1.95m, are in Gloucester, Taunton in Somerset and Southport in Merseyside. They produce a combined annual income of more than £500,000 and have lease reversions in 2021.
“This is a very strong covenant with four years of income left,” said Acuitus chairman Richard Auterac. “Then you have to take a view on where the leisure market will be in 2021. You’ve got a huge building that offers opportunities. Residential could well be one of them.”
Acuitus will offer 80 lots at the 7 December auction at the Radisson Blu Portman Hotel, W1, producing around £5.25m of rent pa in total. Some 19 lots have guides in excess of £1m.
The largest is three prime shops on the Promenade in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, producing £302,200 pa, offered with a guide of £4.4m to £4.5m.
Sellers include Co-op, which hopes to see investor interest in a store let to Wilko in Castle Douglas, in Dumfries and Galloway, guided at £1.5m.
The sale comes as private investor appetite for buying commercial property at auction is at its highest for five years.
“Our analysis shows that nearly 40% of all private investor commercial property purchases between the start of the year and the end of July were made in the auction room. In total, private investors had spent £1.9bn on commercial property by the end of July. Of this, £774m was committed by private investors through the auction room,” Auterac said.
He added that demand from private investors was being met by a growing number of institutions, investment funds and banks selling through auction as the most efficient way to reach the widest pool of capital.
“In the first three quarters of the year, 26% of the total private investor purchases by value that were classified as having involved ‘institutional-grade’ stock were bought through auctions. This is a marked increase on last year, when 22% of sales were categorised in the same way – which itself was a record proportion at that time,” Auterac said.
To send feedback, e-mail julia.cahill@egi.co.uk or tweet @egjuliac or @estatesgazette
