The 532-room Newport Beach Marriott Hotel & Spa has been sold for $216 million.

Host Hotels and Resorts announced the sale — California’s priciest so far in 2020, according to Atlas Hospitality Group — on Wednesday, Nov. 4. The buyer was Eagle Four Partners, hotel investors from Newport Beach who control local properties such as Balboa Bay Resort, Paséa Hotel & Spa in Huntington Beach as well as the Newport Beach Country Club.

The sale comes as COVID-19 hammers the tourism business, making property transactions a challenge. Atlas said in 2020’s first half there were 18% fewer sales in Orange County vs. 2019, and the median price per room was down 19%.

The Newport Beach Marriott is located on a bluff overlooking the Pacific at the Fashion Island shopper center. Opened in 1975, it had a major renovation in 2005.

Host documents show the Newport Marriott had an average room rate of $203 last year when it was 79% full and made the owners $15 million off of $54 million in revenues. The sales price — 14 times last year’s net income — compared to 14 deals Host did in 2019 when it got, on average, 21 times income.

Hotel analyst Alan Reay, president of Atlas, says the sales price — equal to $400,000 per room — is “way below replacement cost and a good buy long term for the buyer. However, in the middle of a pandemic with very little financing out there, not too many buyers could purchase this size of deal.”

Host CEO James Risoleo, noting the sale of the Marriott and some Arizona land, said in a corporate release, “We are pleased to capitalize on these opportunistic sales at attractive prices that enhance our liquidity and reduce our near-term capital spending requirements.”

One of Host’s 2019 deals included selling the 254-room Newport Beach Marriott Bayview for $78 million.

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