How to Start & Run a B&B BandBED2eBook-1 | Page 105

As we said earlier on, because most B&Bs are basically private houses, their sale will
follow the dictates of the housing market in almost all respects. In most cases, the B&B
will be valued as a house, with some additional value to represent its earning potential
as a business. However, this would only be relevant to buyers who intend to carry on
your B&B business; you may find that many buyers will only be interested in the
property as a home.
As this book is about B&Bs, we will assume that you are offering the property for sale
as a B&B, and that it will be bought as a B&B.
Just as we insisted on the importance of planning ahead carefully before you started
your B&B, we now want to emphasise how important early planning is to a sale. The
worst situation to be in is to have to sell in a hurry.
So think ahead, well before anything happens in your life which may force a decision.
Here are a few things to consider:

Property prices – try not to sell at the bottom of a property depression!

Seasonal timing – perhaps not quite as important as it used to be, but the best
times to go to market are still Spring and late Summer/Autumn, and it is still
best to avoid midwinter or the high Summer holiday period

Your B&B accounts – the best value will be obtained from a good succession of
steadily growing revenue figures; if the current season will be much better than
last, it may be better to time the sale so that this can show up in a set of
comparative accounts. If however this season looks like being a downturn,
perhaps you should sell now and use the results to date in your marketing?

Get very early advice (it cannot ever be too early) from experienced local estate
agents about the likely demand for your property. Don’t forget, they may advise
that it would sell best as a home, and in that case many months of future
bookings would actually be a negative which might deter buyers. It is always
better to hear such advice, weigh it up and decide what to do about it, than to
decide not to listen because it may not be what you wanted to hear.

This early estate agency advice will also help in identifying enhancements you
should make pre-sale: those things which will add more value than they cost,
and which will attract buyers and speed the sale process. It may be worth
decorating tired or unfashionably decorated rooms, painting the outside of the
house, or trimming lawns and hedges and filling the flowerbeds with new
blooms. First impressions to visitors are very important to a sale.

These improvements must also be photographed, and you must use your very
best pictures for the sales literature (and of course, blue sky and flowers make
any external shot more attractive than leaden Winter skies and bare trees).

Make sure your leaflet, stationery and website look as good as you can make
them, as they will be the first thing that most potential buyers will see.

Think about how the selling process will affect B&B guests; it may not be a good
idea, for instance, to let the estate agent put a “For Sale” board outside, because
people are less likely to book ahead at a B&B they know is for sale. This is