📢 The Truth About Hotel Deals in 2025 – What You Need to Know!

Glenn: Hey, everybody. It’s your hospitality. Friend Glenn here at Alice 2025, in fabulous Los Angeles. I’m with Brian Hughes of Twenty Four Seven Hotels but before we talk to him, I want to thank our friends over at focus. You know, focus technology that drives value. So we’re here. We’re heading towards the end of the conference. Now, you guys might be watching this a few days after it wraps up, but what is the mood over here? What are you feeling? Over here. Is that unbridled optimism or people cautious? Or are people really sad and weeping in the streets?

Brian: It’s slightly flat. No, it’s the mood is there’s some level of optimism that’s trying to break through, trying to, you know, everybody wants to get deals done. Yeah. It’s just harder right now. But there are some factors that are moving in our favor, like, you know, lower financing costs. The REITs are coming in on on debt. And, you know, it seems like the pipeline is picking up. There’s a decent amount of transactions out there. And I think those catalysts should evolve into more transactions.

Glenn: And that’s and that’s something. That’s right. That’s something that’s important to you because that’s only when hotels transact. Now remember, I’m not an expert, but when hotels transact, that seems to be the right opportunity to make a management company change. And you could get in there and help shape that particular property.

Brian: Yeah, absolutely. We’re, you know, we want to bring a story, what we bring to the table, our advantage, how we can help owners and transactions usually are the the point of entry for us that that make the most sense. We can, you know, talk to owners about changing their existing management, but that’s a lot more complicated and not quite, you know, as big of a story that we can bring to the table.

Glenn: But it’s probably one of those things that you’re kind of always working on at conferences and in the background just by like having meet and greets with people and talking with them. It’s because, as I’ve said a lot of times, a lot of this job is being present. So you could be in the right place at the right time for things to happen.

Brian: Yeah. And these conferences are great because of the face time with people, you know. But the more you’re in front of people, the more they think about you and the more you can tell your story. So it gives us that opportunity.

Glenn: So when you take over management contract, say a transaction has occurred, do you then go in and help them with whatever renovation and Pip is probably going to take place as well?

Brian: Yeah, absolutely. We do a lot of that on the front end as part of our underwriting, and then we’ve got all the services in-house to help provide those types of opportunities.

Glenn: It’s going to be a tricky time when you just take over a property, and it’s not quite in the shape that it can be, right? Right. So there’s that in-between time where you’re trying to figure it all out and keep the owners happy, but I’m sure they kind of get what, the deal.

Brian: I mean, you create a story and, you know, you put up boards in the lobby, like saying, here’s what it’s going to look like. Bear with us during this time. And you create that optimism. And and you know, people have something to look forward to.

Glenn: Yeah. It’s always I’ve been to some hotels under renovation. It’s always a complicated time, particularly like that day that they’re going to transform the lobby.

Brian: Right, right. But yeah some disruption. But once you’re over that, you’ve got a new product.

Glenn: Yeah. And then that’s really where you guys could excel. Yes. It’s like have the, have the the pricing of the rooms go up and all those other services you.

Brian: Can start yielding better. Yeah. You really can push ADR at that point. You’ve got a nice new shiny product to go sell.

Glenn: South. So aren’t anything exciting or new here at all of 2025?

Brian: I’ve been doing this a long time, so it’s just, you know, following the cycles and trying to time it. Right. And that’s the most important part in the investment world. And it feels like a lot of people are still being very disciplined, which is great. I mean, you don’t have a lot of foolish capital out there just making, you know, crazy decisions to go out and buy recklessly, so. Right. That’s good for the overall health of the industry. But, you know, we we’d obviously like to see more transactions take place.

Glenn: Yeah. Of course. And I think that’s really going to be the secret sauce of 2025, getting those transaction numbers up. Now, if you’ve been watching some of our other videos recorded here at Alice and on our proper No Vacancy Live program, a hospitality industry owners and operators in general feel that this is going to be the year where transactions really go up. Remember what he said. Lowest year since 2020. So we only got room to to go up. Unfortunately, my career only has room to go down. But hey, that’s a story for another day. All right, we are here. Thank you so much. See you next time. Share. Like this video. Bye, everybody.