Almost 63% of pubs that were offered at auction were successfully sold in the first half of the year, a slight decline compared with the same period last year.
That’s according to the latest statistics from the Essential Information Group (EIG), which monitors and collates information on every property auction held in the UK.
It reported that 277 pubs went under the hammer in the first six months of the year, of which 174 sold. No pubs were put up for auction in January.
The figures dropped slightly compared with the first half of last year, which saw a 66% success rate. There were 271 pubs offered at auction between January and June in 2012, of which 180 sold.
However, it is a 12 percentage point drop compared with the same period in 2011, which saw a 78% success rate. In the first half of 2010 69% of the pubs offered were sold. Although these figures could be skewed because Enterprise Inns sold a bulk of its estate over 2010 and 2011 in 35-year sale and leaseback deals.
In 2013, the north-west saw the most activity with 43 properties sold out of 63. February came out to be the most popular month for auction sales as it saw a 76% success rate – 47 pubs sold out of the 62 offered.
