OLD BANK HOUSE, BILLERICAY HIGH STREET - A RARE FREEHOLD INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITY
This substantial FREEHOLD Commercial Property occupying a prime position on Billericay's highly desirable High Street, immediately adjacent to Waitrose!
Old Bank House, formerly the Halifax Bank, presents an exceptional and compelling investment proposition comprising a newly refurbished ground floor retail/office space with three residential flats above (2 x two-bedroom and 1 x one-bedroom apartments), each being sold (prior/separately by the developer) with 199-year leases.
THE INVESTMENT
The ground floor retail space is available to let now at £25,000 per annum, offering immediate income potential if taken prior to the purchase, whilst the three residential units above provide additional smaller revenue streams via communal areas maintenance and from providing management packs and documentation when the flats are sold.
Thus this Freehold opportunity allows the discerning investor, complete control over this versatile asset in one of Essex's most vibrant High Street locations.
THE PROPERTY
Actually constructed in the 1960s but in a traditional Victorian style, No.110 presents an attractive red brick frontage with period features including triple sash windows to the first floor and Dormer windows to the top floor, thus retaining character and charm yet benefiting from recent comprehensive refurbishment and reconfiguration.
GROUND FLOOR RETAIL/OFFICE SPACE
The newly created commercial space has been finished to bare plaster throughout, ready for incoming tenants to fit out to their exact requirements.
The fully open-plan layout offers excellent flexibility and can be easily divided with partition walls if desired. Of particular note is the exceptional frontage visibility afforded by the large, glazed entrance door and adjacent full-height glazing, ensuring maximum exposure to the considerable footfall generated by the neighbouring Waitrose anchor tenant.
KEY FEATURES
Freehold ownership - complete control and long-term capital appreciation
Prime High Street location - next to Waitrose
A versatile space - suitable for retail or office use (no permission for food use)
Strong rental income potential - £25,000 per annum present target for ground floor space
Three residential flats above, each with 199-year leases
Excellent transport links - Billericay Mainline Railway Station 6-7 minutes' walk (London Liverpool Street 35 minutes)
LOCATION
Billericay High Street offering a vibrant mix of national retailers and independent boutiques. The street benefits from strong daytime and evening footfall, supported by numerous restaurants, bars and pubs which create a bustling atmosphere throughout the week and particularly at weekends. The proximity to Waitrose ensures consistent pedestrian traffic, whilst the railway station's connectivity to London makes this an increasingly sought-after commuter town.
This is a rare opportunity to acquire a freehold mixed-use investment in an established and thriving High Street location.
The Premises in more detail:
Sturdy, anthracite grey powder coated aluminium entrance door, with twin obscured glazed panels through to:
MAIN AREA 30ft 6" x 10ft 9" (9.3m x 3.3m).
Notably bright due to the nine energy efficient LED batten lights and with plenty of sockets along the right wall.
The area measurements exclude a further space to the left at the rear, which lends itself to be partitioned off as a separate room/area.
SECOND AREA 12ft 6" x 9ft 1" (3.8m x 2.8m)
'Around the corner' from the main area, this area incorporates the plumbing for the WC and so we expect a small area to be partitioned off this secondary area for one.
Note the new consumer unit, several sockets and lighting.
VAT
All prices are exclusive of VAT under the Finance Act of 1989.
RATING
Interested parties are advised to make their own enquiries at the local authority, Basildon District Council, for verification of the rates payable
LEGAL COSTS
Each to pay their own legal costs.
HOW THIS ALL WORKS IN SIMPLER TERMS
You're buying the whole building for £350,000. It's got a shop on the ground floor and three flats upstairs/behind.
The shop, you own it completely. You can rent it out to someone who wants to run a business there, and they'll pay you £25,000 per year.
Or of course you might have a business you can run from there and its would be nice to own it the premises yourself, rather than pay rent to someone else. A SIPP might be the order of the day for that, but that's something that you can speak to your financial advisor about...
The current owner (the builder/developer) is selling the three flats to other people on long Leases - basically 199-year contracts. So in a nutshell, those flat owners get to live there for the next 199 years. In reality as the leases get shorter they will pay you to extend them, but that's another story and years in the future, so not something to dwell on now.
But here's the thing: Even though they "own" their flats for 199 years, YOU still own the actual building. You are the Landlord of the whole building.
What does that mean for you? Well of course the developer will quite rightly take the sale proceeds of the flats when they are sold off, but the new flat owners will have to pay you for things like building insurance, fixing any roof repairs, external maintenance, keeping the communal areas nice - basically anything that affects the whole building. It's not going to be lots of money, but it's something, and it should be profit.
Of course you have the opportunity currently to buy any of the flats as well, as they are all currently available for sale.
AGENT DETAILS
Henton Kirkman's' Commercial Department 01277 500800
Notice
Please note we have not tested any apparatus, fixtures, fittings, or services. Interested parties must undertake their own investigation into the working order of these items. All measurements are approximate and photographs provided for guidance only.
Billericay is a popular, historic market town just 30 miles from London.
The market at the top of Crown Road disappeared years ago and Billericay nowadays is more well-known as an excellent commuter town, with excellent rail links to the City (35 minutes by train), very good schools and a charming High Street, part of which is a conservation area.
It also has great access to the key main roads of the M25, A12 and A127.
The town lies on the edge of rural Essex, which makes it a very desirable place to live. This coupled with the City access goes some way to explain the high levels of Londoners we see looking to move here every year.
Since I moved here in 1973 and started as an estate agent in the mid 1990's, I have seen the town grow to where it is now, with some 14,000-15,000 homes and a population of over 40,000.
The Billericay you see today is economically and physically a thriving and attractive place to live and work. There are many open green spaces including the 40 acre Lake Meadows Park, a must in summer, and they throw a pretty impressive Fireworks Night too.
Norsey Woods is a great place for a walk or to exercise your dogs...or the kids! It dates back to the Bronze Age and covers about 165 acres with a visitor centre for the educational visits it has too.
I remember camping there as a cub scout back in the day and both Nick and myself have enjoyed many a afternoon there over the years with our families.
The High Street must be one of the prettiest in the county and dates back to Roman times. The shape we see now certainly hasn't changed much for over 500 years, our office itself is part of one of the 25 old coaching inns the town has seen over the years!
With well over 100 shops including some well known names and some boutique locally owned ones, the High Street also has some great pubs, bars and restaurants. The Chequers is probably the most popular, most people we know rate it as the best pub in town, with newer bars like Harrys Bar, Bar Zero and the Blue Boar, also very sought after, growing venues on friday and saturday nights.
There are too many great restaurants to name, suffice to say you don't need to travel out of Billericay to have a fantastic night out and there's a taxi rank by the station to get you home if you want to leave the car on the drive.
Waitrose is our local main supermarket with there also a very good Co-op over on Queens Park. Smaller supermarkets over in South Green, Sunnymede and along Stock Road also provide a super local service in their areas.
Billericay Christmas Market is a very popular annual event which sees the High Street completely shut to traffic for the day and then filled with stalls selling anything and everything Christmasy!
All the local schools, both Primary and Secondary have good OFSTED reports and there is a good choice of both State and Private. Please feel free to contact our office for more details although the OFSTED website is the ideal first port of call of course.
A BIT OF HISTORY
Billericay has an facinating history, much of which can be researched in our local museum, the Cater Museum on the High Street.
Billericay was first recorded as Byllerica in 1291 with notable events including a Peasants Revolt ending up in Norsey Woods in 1381 and some of Billericay residents, including Christopher Martin, the ship's victualler, sailing with the Pilgrim Fathers to the 'New World' of America on the Mayflower in 1620 - hence the many representartions of the Mayflower ship in numerous local businesses and the Mayflower High School.
In 1916 Billericay became famous as a result of a Zeppelin airship crashing in flames on the outskirts of the town, down what is now Greens Farm Lane.
A union workhouse was built in 1840 which later, together with additional later built buildings, became St. Andrew's Hospital in the 1930s. The regional plastic surgery and rehabilitation unit was opened here the same year I moved to Billericay, 1973. Many a local will still refer the estate there now to me, as 'one of the houses on the old Burns Unit', although it is in fact Stockfield Manor now.
Only the original workhouse building, including the chapel, and the main gatehouse, now survive, converted now into Grey Lady Place, a residential development of luxury apartments.
The railway came in 1889 and opened up opportunities for landowners to sell plots to Londoners looking to move out of 'The Smoke' into a cleaner rural environment. Both myself and Nick have sold many an old 'plot land' home over the years for redevelopment. A few still remain on the edge of Norsey Woods down Break Egg Hill.
With the housing shortage created by the war time bombing of London, pressure to build was great and the new town of Basildon was given the green light. The 'Green Belt' stopped expansion and the blurring of Basildon and Billericay, hence why lot of the Billericay housing estates were built on abandoned farmland around the town centre and Great Burstead/South Green, where permission was more easily granted.
