Sales Continue to Flourish

At the end of June, we completed on the sale of Bridgend & District Golf Club. 36-acres of parkland course with clubhouse and associated buildings. There was no business goodwill to speak of, so it was purely a property and land sale eventually achieving close to the £625,000 asking price.  When the pandemic struck golf courses were not immune to having to close their doors, so it was heartening to see this opportunity being snapped up by someone expanding their existing portfolio of parkland courses.

We are currently marketing a substantial leisure investment which is also attracting interest.  Ryze Adventure Parks, on the outskirts of Edinburgh, comprises a mix of leisure businesses including Scotland’s largest trampoline operator.  The opportunity generates £277,000 per annum and is available at offers over £2.4 million reflecting a net initial yield of 10.86%.   Whilst the tenants were affected by the various lockdowns, they all quickly returned to full capacity dispelling the notion that these types of businesses would be terminally impacted by the pandemic.

Whilst the leisure sector’s recovery continues to surge, we have also seen surprisingly strong demand for high street retail.   As we all know online retailing is booming but the pandemic has, I think, induced a shift towards local shopping. This has benefitted towns periphery to the main conurbations, and we have seen reduced vacancy and increased investor demand. For example, a shop investment at 73 High Street in Linlithgow, an affluent market town 20 miles north-west of Edinburgh, quickly sold in April for £125,000 reflecting 7.71%.  On the same street at number 79 we also sold a vacant shop to a private investor for £122,500. We were then retained to re-let it and have been inundated with enquiries ever since.

And business centres are doing well too.  Without doubt the trend of working from home is here to stay. Businesses have shed leases in favour of taking flexible, short-term space. Why carry the overhead of an expensive city centre office which might sit vacant most of the week?  We took on the letting of Merryfield Business Centre in Macmerry earlier this year and at the time it was sitting at around 30% occupancy.  Since then, we have used our extensive experience of letting similar properties to complete a flurry of deals to: Winwood Music, ONE Plumbing and Heating, AGL Tax Solutions and GM.PM Ltd.  Occupancy is now over 50%.

*This article originally featured in 'In My View' Commercial Property Monthly, Scotland Edition, August 2022