Hotel transaction volume through November has reached $13.7 billion, says Jones Lang LaSalle Hotels, which is 5% off last year’s year-to-date numbers and $1.3 billion short of the commercial real estate company’s forecast for the year.
If this week is any indication, the $15 billion projection will be met, or the 2013 count will get a quick start, depending on when several major deals close.
RLJ Trust yesterday announced it was buying the still-being-redeveloped 231-room Hilton Cabana Miami Beach for $71.6 million and Loews Hotels & Resorts announced it was purchasing the 356-Madison Hotel in Washington DC for an undisclosed (yet surely significant) amount. Also yesterday and without an announced price were Modus Hotels’ acquisition of the 97-room Brookshire Suites in downtown Baltimore and KSL Capital Partners’ plan to buy a 24% stake in Whistler Blackcomb Holdings, the Canadian owner of the popular ski resort that hosted the 2010 Winter Olympics. And in Europe, Host Hotels & Resorts’ joint venture yesterday acquired five Marriott-branded hotels totaling 1,733 rooms from Whitehall for $572 million.
Those deals all pale in comparison to the big one announced Friday, Blackstone’s $1.2 billion agreement to buy Apple REIT Six and its 66-hotel portfolio.
All those deals won’t close by year’s end, and some aren’t even in the U.S., which is what Jones Lang LaSalle Hotels’ $15 billion projection is for, but that’s a lot of action in a short period of time. It bodes extremely well for a choppy transaction market that has started and stalled through the past two years.