Orange County Business Journal
02/08/18

Hotel Sales Stable on No ‘Big Deal’
By Paul Hughes

http://www.ocbj.com/news/2018/feb/08/hotel-sales-stable-no-big-deal/

OC hotels sold at a slightly lower rate for a markedly lower dollar volume last year—but results were affected by the lack of a trophy property sale in 2017, a survey by broker-consultant Atlas Hospitality Group in Irvine shows.

Twenty-two local hotels sold last year for $485 million, down from 23 and $807 million in 2016, for a transaction decline of 4.6% and a volume drop of 40%.

Average price and price-per room also declined.

A big sale in 2016—the 396-room Ritz-Carlton, Laguna Niguel in Dana Point went for $366 million—accounts for the entire decline on the deal side and more than the $322 million on the dollar side. The Montage in Laguna Beach sold in the same deal as the Ritz when Blackstone Group LP moved more than a dozen properties to Anbang, a China-based insurer, for more than $6 billion.

The two resorts skewed annual totals in 2015 as well when owner Strategic Hotels & Resorts sold both—acquired separately and nine years apart—to Blackstone.

By contrast, last year’s priciest deal was $125 million paid for the 440-room Fairmont Hotel in Newport Beach; it was renamed the Duke during a $30 million renovation and is set to be renamed Renaissance Newport Beach Feb. 19.

Hotel transactions in Los Angeles County declined 14% to 50 deals; dollar volume increased 26% to $1.7 billion.

Hotel transactions in San Diego County rose 38% to 29 deals; dollar volume was up 29% to $612 million.