Buy & sell an hourly and adult hotel

A room let out several times a day generates an occupancy rate that a classic city hotel cannot match. Against that stands a much higher workload: cleaning and laundry several times a day, greater wear on furniture and sanitary ware, higher hot water demand, and more staff hours at reception.

For valuation, this means the room count alone is not what counts, but how quickly a room can be re-let. Short distances between the linen store and the rooms, robust surfaces and reliable hot water supply are hard currency here.

Currently on offer is a detached commercial building in Villingen-Schwenningen: 576 sqm of lettable space on a 1,064 sqm freehold plot, nine rooms, seven of them with en-suite bathroom and WC, plus a Finnish sauna, an XXL whirlpool, a cold-plunge pool, a bar, a club room, a cinema room, a mirror room, a covered inner courtyard, eight parking spaces and two garage spaces. The building has been run continuously since 1991 as a naturist sauna club and prostitution establishment and is free of existing leases or tenancies. Purchase price €848,000.

Accommodation is its own type of use under building law, with requirements for escape routes, fire safety and sanitary provision. Whether accommodation use is permitted in an existing building follows from the building permit, not from past practice. For conversions, a preliminary planning enquiry is the first step.

Registration duties under the Federal Registration Act also apply, and in many municipalities a visitor's or accommodation levy. Anyone taking over an existing property should check whether these duties have been properly met, otherwise back-payments fall on the new operator.

An accommodation business and a prostitution establishment are legally two different things. If sexual services are regularly provided in a building, the Prostitutes Protection Act applies, requiring its own separate permit, regardless of the building being run as a hotel.

This distinction should be clarified with the responsible authority and a specialist lawyer before purchase. It determines the need for permits, insurability and, in practice, banks' willingness to finance the property.

Searches include buy an hourly hotel, sell an hourly hotel, buy an adult hotel, or love hotel. Behind these terms is an accommodation business with unusually short stays and correspondingly high room turnover.

For buyers, the central question is whether accommodation use is approved under building law and how the rooms are technically fitted out. For sellers, it pays to put registration duties, levies and permit status in order before marketing, deals fail on this more often than on price.