Hotel Deals and Lending Zapped by Coronavirus at the Finish Line
Photo Credit: Lenders have taken a wait-and-see approach on hotel deals slated to close before coronavirus spread globally. Pexels / Macki Ladrera
Skift Take
Until lenders can wade through the $2 trillion U.S. stimulus package and determine valuations, hotel deals will remain on ice. Expect smaller banks to issue the first round of hotel loans on the upswing.
Heading into 2020, the hotel sector was expected to slow down, but deals were still getting financed. Then came coronavirus.
U.S. hotel investment sales were already down 21 percent in 2019 and on track to decline an additional 6 percent in 2020 due to election year uncertainty, according to a February JLL report. Coronavirus uncertainty pushed the industry's investment nose down even further. Banks have shored up lending to the hotel sector over the decimated travel demand, and investors tell Skift that will include previously confirmed deals.
“Generally speaking, there is not a marketable number of buyers or willing sellers, and that creates a difficulty on the valuation side,” LW Hospitality Advisors Chief Operating Officer Evan Weiss said. “There’s always going to be value in an asset, but the question is how is all of this going to shake out?”
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