75% drop in pub value

A CORK city pub with a chequered history may prove to be one of the year’s smart purchases.

Trading at one time under the unlikely name of the Whiff’n’Poof (a metaphor for rising and falling bar values?) Paddy the Farmer’s Bar was bought at auction for €485,000 last week, just over its €480,00 reserve, and reportedly below a recent private treaty offer of over €500,000 on it via different agents prior to being listed with Allsops. Back in 2006, it sold for €2 million, to the now-distressed Rebel Bar Group, who eventually had up to 20 Cork bars in their portfolio.

Good rental returns and quick profits came with some of the purchases at last week’s Allsops auction, with a 93% auction success rate and which netted almost €18m. In the same price bracket was Co Cork’s Charleville Imperial House, which made €465,000 under the hammer for receivers, well over its €400k reserve. It has rents of €95,680, but with some short tenancies via a mix of three retail units, and seven residential units. It too had a higher private treaty offer on it with other selling agents, according to local sources, but the nature of those offers and/or special provisos isn’t known.