Parramatta real estate business owner Morris Short took a bold step this year and added a hotel specialist to the sales team.

Charlie Fenton has experience with hotels spanning at least 45 years, in which time he’s been associated with hotels and motels across New South Wales. He is a specialist in commercial hospitality transactions and has worked as an executive hotel broker with one of Australia's largest hospitality industry consulting and brokerage organisations.

“Having Charlie on the team brings a whole different side to our business,” said Short. “I respect his speciality and am happy and privileged to support him as he grows his profile and business.”

Ironically, Fenton and Short both went to The Scots College in Sydney and later, unbeknown to each other, they both ended up in the hotels industry.

Fenton started out in the industry in November 1977 at The Lord Dudley Hotel, Paddington, and sold the last hotel he owned in 2017, having owned at least 10. Short was associated with the Woombye Hotel on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast from 1988 to 1999.

Since selling his last hotel, Fenton has been general manager of a golf course, had several cracks at politics and a career in hotel brokering.”

He has also authored a practical handbook for hoteliers. He describes ‘The Publican’s Mate’ as ‘how to run a hotel 101’.

“I realised I had amassed a vast bank of knowledge and knew the tricks of the trade so could significantly help people in the industry,” said Fenton. “I saw too many coming to hotel ownership without the skills they needed - or had been at it for such a long time that they were overlooking the basics.”

Fenton and Short were in touch when the latter owned an alcohol wholesale business but then lost touch again when Short moved into residential real estate. Last year their paths again crossed again and this time the synergies in working together were on the table for discussion

“As a fourth-generation hotelier, I thought that as a hotel broker with RE/MAX Extra, I could offer a lot more than just being an ‘agent of sales’,” Fenton said. “As a specialist in knowing the game, in knowing where to put your money if you want to attract a buyer, I can be of great assistance to a seller, for instance.

“This is a hot market for sellers if they have a good business operation and it can be a good time to buy.

“You can do a lot with a $1mil budget,” Fenton said. “That will get you a hotel in great condition, though forget the pubs with poker machines as you need a minimum of six at $500k plus each.

“Around $500k will buy you a good country town pub BUT you have to make it work as a business.”

Fenton acknowledges that running a profitable hotel business is hard work and it frustrates him to see closures because it impacts on communities.

“Look at West Wyalong. It used to have nine pubs and maybe there will be three left by the end of this year. That’s very sad.”

He said country pubs were proving attractive to city buyers, but they should realise their purchase needed to be the centre of its community.

“Take Willow Tree Hotel, for instance. Willow Tree is a small town in rural NSW, halfway between Scone and Tamworth, with a population of just 308. When Sydney businessman Charles Hanna moved to Willow Tree, the town pub was run down. He stepped in to help pay the bills just to keep the doors open, and then he bought it. Willow Tree Inn stayed open through a five-month renovation then officially reopened in November 2011, barely recognisable from its former self.  The pub was very successful, it ‘made’ the town, and more businesses opened. Graze restaurant at Willow Tree Inn, is famous. Now it’s often hard to find a parking spot in the town’s main street.”

Fenton has a vision.

“I’d like to establish a ‘pub school’, where a buyer can be trained into ownership and, to put it bluntly, not invest the dollars until they know what they are getting in to.”