The managing director of a Norfolk licensed trade agent turned down the offer to market a dilapidated pub due to the "totally unrealistic" price stated by the owner.
Graham Scott, owner of the run-down Kings Head in Pulham St Mary, is demanding £225,000 for a 125-year lease with a £30,000 annual rent payable.
A new lessee would also have to shell out around £500,000 to get the Grade II listed building structurally sound and ready for trading.
Alan Crowest of Diss based Britannia Business Sales said: "Nobody will take the pub on and the owner is doing this deliberately so that will be the case. It is a means to an end.
"We declined to take it on for that reason."
Scott told the Diss Express that he must market the pub to prove that there weren't any interested buyers before putting in a planning appplication for up to six houses on the land behind the property.
He said he would legally have to carry out the renovation on the Kings Head to reopen it if he was given planning permission.
If a buyer is not found in six months, Scott will fund the building work with an English Heritage Enabling Development Grant. A leaseholder would not be eligible for such an application.
"An enabling development will be submitted in the late summer or early autumn, for the planning committee to judge," he confirmed.
The rent payable has subsequently been dropped.