Increase in end of year property viewings and enquiries announced

Fleurets has announced that the number of enquiries and viewings it has received has risen significantly from this time last year, despite the economic downturn.

The number of new applicants - interested buyers that had not previously been registered on the agent's Buyer Alert service - in November and the first week of December grew by 18 per cent from the same period last year. Enquiries rose by eight per cent and viewing increased by three per cent.

Fleurets director, Richard Negus, said: "This [new applicant] statistic surely tells us that there remains an enthusiasm for the licensed trade, we just need to put the right buyers in touch with the right vendors.

"There are perhaps many reasons for this uplift, but I would suggest that it is, in part, due to us having more properties on the market and the quality of our stock improving through the year.

"Whilst the market is of course suffering, stats like this highlight the importance of not falling into a negative mind-set; rather, we need look at the market in a balanced way, because as these figures show, there are indeed positives out there."

The news comes just a few weeks after Fleurets reported that freehold pub prices had dropped by 20 per cent in 2008 and that the price of a leasehold pub had fallen by eight per cent to 20 per cent of turnover in the past two years.

The news comes just weeks after Fleurets reported that freehold pub prices had dropped by 20 per cent in 2008 and that the price of a leasehold pub had fallen by eight per cent to 20 per cent of turnover in the past two years.