There are some shrewd property deals to be done in Blackpool at the moment as for many years the town has seen a decline in visitor numbers, subsequently many owners are looking to sell and may well be ready to strike a good deal.
It is vitally important to do some research before you buy. Blackpool has a number of ‘niche’ markets, such as stags and hens, pensioners, families and business visitors. You will need to establish what market sectors you will be aiming at. It is also important to learn as much as you can about the area you are intending to buy into. For example one area of Blackpool has seen a virtual blight due to it being earmarked for a large scale visitor project. A snow dome has been mentioned along with a circus type visitor attraction but as this was all tied into the ‘Super Casino’ bid which failed in 2007 funding for such lavish projects has never materialised. Subsequently the area in question has suffered from years of non-investment and has deteriorated to such a state the local taxi drivers call it Beirut. Did I mention research a must for any potential buyer into this business.
Blackpool has a number of Estate Agents in the Commercial Property market and still tend to ‘value’ properties very much on their location. In the past this has served well as clearly any value placed upon a business which is run from a static location will be worth more if it is placed in a favourable position. For example Bed and Breakfasts on Station Road in South Shore are seen to be worth more than those on say Withnell Road or Dean Street. Both these streets are adjacent to Station Road and similarly they run from Lytham Road down to the Promenade, there is however a subtle difference.
Station Road up until 1916 had a railway station at the Lytham Road junction (hence the name) visitors to Blackpool would alight the many trains that arrived and walk down Station Road in order to reach the Promenade and the sea. Consequently those B&B’s that were sited on this road stood to engage in much more ‘walk up trade’ that the adjacent streets. Clearly on this basis accommodation provider properties for sale in this street were worth more than those in the adjacent streets.
The fact that the Station closed (actually moved a few hundred metres to Waterloo Road) in 1916 and the ‘walk up trade’ no longer exists in this fashion has gone straight over the head of the local agents as they still insist that the street commands a premium. Be aware of this and if any particular street seems more expensive than the one next to it ask the estate agent why.
The key to everything about buying into this business is knowing your market. As an accommodation provider you are going to need customers, you need to work out how you are going to get those customers. B&B’S on Blackpool Promenade have pretty much cornered the market on the ‘walk up’ trade as those people deciding to stay at short notice are going to migrate from other parts of the town to the seafront. This is not to say other Guesthouses will not get a look in simply that the vast majority of people that come to Blackpool with the intention of staying over without having booked in advance will more than likely end up on the Promenade or very close to it. As I have already mentioned the streets surrounding major transport hubs also seem to be popular as a significant amount of the walk up trade still arrives by train or coach. This has led to a cluster of guesthouses in the street’s around Blackpool North Railway station which in itself has migrated in the last few years into the ‘Gay Quarter’ due to the proximity of the popular drag review show ‘Funny Girls’.
Blackpool has a wealth of car parks for visitors and these are located all over the town. In fact the main feeder road from the Motorway into Blackpool called the Yeadon Way has car parks along pretty much its entire length from South Shore to Central Blackpool, it is in these car parks that visitors usually park their cars in before walking down to the Promenade. Whilst Blackpool provides plenty of parking for visitors this is not cheap so clearly those bed and breakfast accommodation providers that can offer their guests onsite parking are going to be at a great advantage.
So now we have two strategies we need to examine. How we are going to attract custom and what additional facilities guests can be offered (such as parking).
At this point it is worth having a quick look at Blackpool’s history as a British seaside holiday resort.
The town became popular firstly due to the expansion of the railways but its real claim to fame lies way back within the Industrial Revolution itself. That revolution saw a step change in British employment. More and more people came to be employed in factories as opposed to working on the land and whole centres of industrial manufacturing grew up in the north of England. Towns such as Bolton, Rochdale, Huddersfield even Manchester were born and grew ever larger as the population flocked to them to work in the new Industrial mills.
The railway grew with it allowing free movement of goods and people. All this machinery needed regular maintenance but more than that they needed a week once a year where whole factories could be closed and the machines overhauled and replaced. A practice was born where the employees would be given an annual holiday a period where they did not have to attend work. So all these people with money in their pockets had some downtime and as the railway by this time had reached Blackpool they started to come to the resort. The practice became ever more popular that the town itself was having trouble integrating all its visitors into the available guesthouses so the Wakes Weeks were born. Wakes weeks were an unwritten agreement between the factory owners where all the factories in one particular town would close down for one particular week whilst the others all chose a separate but unique week.
So practically the entire population of Rochdale for example would decamp to the seaside resort of Blackpool for its ‘Wakes Week’ the following week it may have been Bolton or Leeds turn. In turn this led to ever more inward investment in the town and the piers were built, leading on from that the Tower Company was formed and that was built, a fair started appearing on the sands at South Shore and this would in time evolve into Blackpool Pleasure Beach. The town was gaining some sizable visitor attractions and of course this attracted ever more visitors, and other investments into pubs, dancehalls, cafes, hotel’s large and small and of course the mainstay of Blackpool its bed and breakfasts establishments.
Things continued pretty much in this vein bar short interruptions for the World Wars up until the late 1960’s when the package holiday came on the scene. By the 1960’s the post war austerity in Britain was pretty much at an end people had more money in their pockets and could afford the new types of package holidays which were coming to the market where a week or two in Spain or Greece were becoming far more popular than Blackpool. Clearly the resorts around the Mediterranean could offer far better weather even if the actual visitor attractions in those resorts were few and far between. Blackpool evolved over this time as a one/two night stay destination for people visiting the Tower or Pleasure Beach whilst overall visitor numbers decreased significantly. Many small hotels and B&B’s in the town closed over these intervening years and the properties were turned into other uses not all of which the remaining communities agreed with. A study conducted by the Local Authority in 2010 suggested that Blackpool was approaching the ‘correct’ number of guest bed spaces’ within the remaining visitor accommodation sector. At the same time the last 4 or 5 years has seen £Millions invested in new sea defences and regenerating parts of the town for the 21st Century. Merlin Entertainments are investing in new visitor attractions such as Madam Tussauds and improvements at the Blackpool Tower. Pleasure Beach has introduced Nickelodeonland, the list goes on. Blackpool is emerging reborn into the 21st Century ready to greet a new generation of visitors.
So to recap the three most important things to consider before buying into the guesthouse industry in Blackpool is
- Which sector you will aim at to attract custom. If it is to be either stags and hens or families then the next consideration would be:
- Location. Stags and Hens are better suited to the Town Centre where most of the nightlife is situated whilst families tend to congregate in South Shore Blackpool close to the visitor attractions such as Blackpool Pleasure Beach and Sandcastle Water Park. At the same time research each in and every street in your chosen location work out if asking prices for property are fair.
- Look for added value, something you can offer guests. A Bed and Breakfast with multiple parking spaces is going to be far more beneficial than one without. The number of Google searches for a B&B in Blackpool with parking is increasing by the Month as visitors look for that little extra and try to combat the high car park charges in the town.
Finally once you have done your research and decided on a property to buy you are strongly advised to have the property surveyed. Most of the building stock in Blackpool is over 100 years old and whilst it was solidly built, for peace of mind you should always seek the opinion of a professional surveyor. It is likely the survey will highlight some small points but these can often be used to re-negotiate the purchasing price with the vendor. Finally ask an accountant to prepare a report on the health of the business. The seller should furnish you with the last 2 or 3 years’ worth of the profit/loss trading accounts and whilst you may be able to read and interpret these yourself again it is always worth a professional looking over them to see if they can spot a trend or indeed if there any immediate cost savings to be made once you start trading.
