Hotel Owners and Investors

[Brian Whelan]

As many of you know, the Hospitality industry has become an increasingly attractive sector of commercial real estate for many investors who seek a more creative long-term return.

Saturation in other asset classes has led to savvy investors across the country explore industries such as the Hotel business. 

To that effect, I would like to suggest starting of a Hospitality/Hotel forum or meetup group.

The aim of the group would be to network with hospitality industry professionals, discuss industry trends, and maybe have guest speakers from the Hospitality Industry. 

I am based in Manhattan and would be more than happy to organize a meetup locally or regionally.

If there was interest from across the country then perhaps we could set up a Webex meeting monthly or quarterly depending on interest levels.

The BP site is a great resource with a ton of valuable information. I would simply like to give the Hospitality sector the same exposure which the MultiFamily and Residential sectors enjoy.

If anyone has any suggestions, or maybe a forum already exists, I would love to hear from you!

[Brian Whelan]

@Jeff B. I agree with you that the hotel business is definitely a more mgmt intensive class of REI; but it's still very much a class of REI nonetheless. Your level of involvement in the business will depend on what type of owner you are. Obviously, a mom & pop/owner operator will very much see running a hotel as an operational business more than a real estate investment. On the other hand, you have institutional owners and REIT's such as Blackstone and Lonestar who are very much Real Estate Companies; and are highly leveraged in the Hotel business. Instead of hiring property managers, they hire third-party hospitality management Companies to run the daily operations.

Arguably the business requires more effort than other more passive REI forms, barriers to entry can be higher due to setup costs and larger overheads, but we are seeing that the cap rates and returns achieved by our clients more than justify the additional effort and creativity required.

This could actually be a great discussion topic for our first meetup!