One of the owners, Mark Tammett, of Christchurch, said he and his partners accepted it would probably never reopen as a tavern, and might be better suited as a private residence or alternative business.
While they had gone to auction before and had tried to find a way to run a viable business from the premises, they had now decided to cut their losses and try to sell again, Mr Tammett said.
"The different thing this time is our price expectations."
The historic hotel, on the side of State Highway 73, was once an important staging post for Cobb and Co stagecoaches and a road house in the goldrush days, before the building of the Midland Railway.
Mr Tammett said the low $200,000 reserve was half the current rateable value of the property and "a tiny fraction" of what they had invested since buying the hotel in 2010, including the subsequent renovation and refit.
They bought the property for just under $500,000 in 2010 and had since spent "hundreds of thousands of dollars" improving it.
However, trade declined following the 2011 Canterbury earthquake and their tenant defaulted on rent payments in 2013. The Christchurch-based owners reopened in November 2014 under their own management, but closed again in February last year.
Mr Tammett said they had come to the realisation that with little previous hospitality experience, running the hotel remotely was not realistic and it needed a hands-on approach.
The property had been vacant from when the business petered out early last year until six weeks ago, when a residential tenant moved in.
The property sale included the fixtures, fittings and chattels from the more recent refit of the 500sq m building on 1ha.
An approach to Development West Coast in 2015 about developing the hotel as a gateway tourist promotion hub for the region had come to nothing.
"We’re fairly disappointed. From what I understand they only invest. The whole attitude is ‘we’ll give you the money as long as we get it back’.
"We don’t want handouts, but the money is sitting there, and what is it being used for?"
- Brendon McMahon
