Knox buys another New England hotel
Jim Knox is paying a speculated $7 million for the Royal Hotel Moree.
The two storey pub at 54 Haber Street, on the south east corner of Auburn, includes a bar and gaming room with 15 electronic gambling machines.
There is also a motel with 16 accommodation suites.
Moree is about a 500 kilometre drive west of the Gold Coast.
It is also 600 km north-west of Sydney.
HTL Property’s Xavier Plunkett and Blake Edwards represented the vendors and operators, Deb and Tim Evans.
“Despite Moree being one of the highest performing pub towns in New South Wales on a per capita basis, the major pub groups have historically shown a reluctance to enter the town largely due to geographical constraints,” Mr Plunkett said.
“It is however our considered view as agents, that these high-quality hotels in regional towns actually represent some of the most astute purchasing opportunities on offer across any real estate backed asset class,” he added (story continues below).
“Attractive yields, enormous infrastructure spending, consistent and maintainable cash flows, diversified revenue streams, and topically, comparatively limited disruption from COVID related lockdowns,” according to the agent.
Mr Edwards added “in an investment context characterised by strong market sentiment and a clear lack of quality stock on the market at any given time, decisive off-market transactions will make up the majority of total sales volumes over the next 12-18 months”.
The Royal Hotel Moree deal comes 10 days since Mr Knox paid $13.25m for Armidale’s Whitebull Hotel.
The publican described Moree as having a historically resilient economy.
“We are particularly familiar with the town and have adopted a positive view regarding the prospects for both the pub and region,” he added.
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