The popular Bath Arms Hotel in Burwood has been sold in an off-market transaction by DHI Hotels.
The sale of the Sydney hotel represents a significant windfall for the group whilst setting a new yield benchmark for Sydney metro gaming hotels.
The well-known pub group repositioned and significantly improved the business over the course of its tenure, but hotelier Peter De Angelis said the group has chosen to focus on its several brownfield and greenfield pub developments.
“Following our strategic portfolio review, we’ve determined to reshape our stable of hotels and focus time and financial capital more liberally towards greenfield projects; an area of our multi-faceted business in respect of which, has continued to reward our concerted efforts.”
The sale was exclusively negotiated by HTL Property’s Dan Dragicevich, Sam Handy and Andrew Jolliffe; and follows some of the agency’s other recent inner city sales including the Crystal Palace Hotel (CBD), Agincourt Hotel (CBD) and the Fire House Hotel (North Sydney).
The Bath Arms features 16 accommodation rooms and a dual access car park with 25 car spaces, also enjoying 3am liquor licence with 30 gaming machines attached and holds an average ILGA NSW gaming ranking of 178 over the past 12 months.
The pub generates $8m in annual revenues across bar, bistro, gaming and accommodation departments, and sits on a 2,561 sqm site with favourable planning approvals and long, high visibility frontages.
The Bath Arms was recently renovated and refurbished with a single service point servicing an expansive trading footprint. It is prominently positioned at the corner of Parramatta and Burwood Roads, immediately adjacent to the approved Burwood North metro station – which is currently under construction and set to service the expected population explosion being created by the state-sponsored Burwood North Metro precinct.
The precinct is forecast to deliver 15,000 new homes surrounding the new Metro Station, which will be positioned just four stations away from the Sydney CBD.
In addition to housing, a new inner west community with more jobs, greenspace and better infrastructure is set to emerge to support the growing population.
The Bath Arms Hotel site sits within the boundaries of the Burwood North Precinct Master Plan, and it is anticipated that it could provide for significant mixed-use redevelopment potential in the future.
Handy commented on the significance of the sale to the Sydney pub market which is continuing to attract interest from investors.
“This sale represents our fourth inner-city pub sale over the course of the last three months and is further validation of our view that investors are actively searching for hard yielding property assets,” he said.
“The Sydney pubs market has been particularly transactional over the first half of calendar year 2025, with HTL Property confirming that enquiry and transaction volumes are up across every single market and price point; with numerous additional hotel sales yet to be announced, under agreement and/or in varying stages of the sale process.”
Dragicevich said the property group expects to see continue interest in the Sydney pub market into the second half of 2025.
“The sale of the Bath Arms Hotel is symptomatic of both the current industry sentiment and ongoing, laser-like investment market focus on pubs as an asset class. We’re on record predicting elevated transactional activity over the course of the second half of the year as supply constraints intersect with strong trading conditions and further easing of interest rates.”
While gaming assets are highly coveted, Jolliffe noted that non-gaming related growth continues to be leading the way in terms of Sydney’s recent sales.
“Non-electronic gaming machine revenue performance is underpinning positive system growth across the greater Sydney hotel market; and the combination of deliberate lending institution behaviour and the weighted average cost of capital contracting means hospitality asset metrics look as proud today as they have at any other point in time.”