Sell My Hotel Video

RevPAR, the flag, the PIP, and the building itself. Four things decide your price before a buyer ever walks the lobby.

Hotels are the most capital-heavy businesses I broker, and they sell on different math than a main street company. Part real estate deal, part operating business, part franchise transaction. Owners who understand which part drives their particular property walk away with more money, and often with fewer headaches at closing. If you have found yourself searching sell my hotel, the video below walks through the sale from valuation to handing over the keys, and this article covers what buyers in the hospitality market will actually dig into.

Hotel Valuation: RevPAR, Cap Rates, and What Your Property Can Fetch

The Numbers Every Hotel Buyer Runs First

Three metrics frame every conversation: occupancy, average daily rate, and RevPAR, which is the two multiplied together. Buyers benchmark your trailing twelve months against your competitive set using STR reports, and your RevPAR index against those comps tells them instantly whether you are winning or losing your market. A property running a 110 index has a management story to sell. A property at 85 has an upside story, but the buyer will pay you for today's performance, not tomorrow's potential. Have three years of monthly operating statements, STR data, and your business mix between transient, group, and contract ready before you start.

The Flag, the Franchise Agreement, and the PIP

If you carry a brand, the franchise agreement sits at the center of your sale. Most flags do not simply transfer. The buyer applies for a new agreement, and the brand uses that moment to issue a property improvement plan, the famous PIP, listing every renovation it wants: new soft goods, bathroom upgrades, lobby refresh, sometimes millions of dollars of work. That PIP effectively comes out of your price, because the buyer subtracts it from what they will pay. Request an estimate of PIP scope early, and weigh it honestly. Sometimes the smart move is completing key items yourself; sometimes it is pricing the property accordingly and letting the buyer renovate to their own taste.

You Are Selling Real Estate That Happens to Rent by the Night

Most of a hotel's value sits in the dirt and the building, which is why hotels trade on cap rates and price per key rather than the simple earnings multiples used for service businesses. That has consequences. The lender pool is different, appraisals carry more weight, environmental reports and property condition assessments enter the picture, and deferred maintenance gets priced with a sharp pencil. Roofs, boilers, PTAC units, elevators, parking lots. Fix what is cheap to fix, disclose what is not, and know your property tax situation, because a sale often triggers reassessment that the buyer is already modeling.

Owner-Operated Versus Managed, and Why Buyers Care

An owner-operator who lives on site and works the desk runs lean, but that labor has to be added back into the expense line when a buyer models the deal, because the next owner may hire a general manager at market wages. A hotel run by a professional GM with a stable department head team presents cleaner numbers and appeals to passive investors as well as hands-on buyers. Neither model is a dealbreaker. What kills value is bad bookkeeping: cash folios, commingled expenses, and revenue that does not reconcile to the property management system will shrink your buyer pool to bargain hunters.

If a third-party management company runs the property, read your management agreement now. Termination fees and notice periods in those contracts have surprised more than one seller at the closing table.

Who Buys Hotels in This Market

Your property's size and flag determine the buyer pool. Limited service properties under 100 keys draw experienced individual hoteliers, many financing through SBA programs, along with family groups that own several flags in a region. Larger or better-located assets attract private hotel investment groups and funds hunting for value-add plays. Each buyer type moves at a different speed and needs different documentation. A broker who knows the hospitality space will match the property to the right pool and keep the process confidential, which matters when staff, brand, and group booking clients could all react badly to rumors.

From Accepted Offer to Handing Over the Keys

Hotel closings involve more moving parts than almost any other business sale: franchise approval, lender underwriting on the real estate, liquor license transfer where you have one, advance deposit liabilities for future bookings, inventory of linens and consumables, and cutoff procedures for the night of closing itself. Ninety to 150 days is a realistic window. Keep running the property hard through the entire period. Buyers re-check the trailing twelve every month, and a soft quarter during escrow is the most expensive slump you will ever have. Keep your sales manager booking group business, keep the rooms clean, and act like the closing might not happen, because until the wire hits, it has not.

Sell when your numbers are strong and your PIP exposure is known, not when you are exhausted and the carpet is worn through. If a sale is on your horizon, watch the sell my hotel video, pull your STR reports, and get a broker's opinion of value on both the operations and the real estate. Then you can decide from knowledge instead of guesswork.