The deal includes two hotels in Grand Rapids, MI--one a Hampton Inn and the other a Spring Hill Suites--and two Hampton Inns, one in East Lansing, MI, and the other in Champaign/Urbana, IL. The average age of the four hotels is five years and the average cap rate is approximately 9.7% based on the properties' trailing 12-month net operating income.

Equity Inns chief executive Howard Silver tells GlobeSt.com the company has been averaging a 10% cap rate on the 31 hotels it has acquired over the past 18 months. The seemingly lofty return on investment is due to how AMB works with the seller, he says, which includes not using brokers.

"In almost every one of our hotel acquisitions, we let the seller continue to manage the property for three years so they have a management income, and we tell them that when they stabilize more hotels we are a natural exit strategy for them," Silver tells GlobeSt.com. "We also have 60 to 75 other hotel management contracts that come due every year such that our development partners may end up with additional hotel management contracts from us; so we are doing more than just buying a hotel from them and because of that we are able to get a better cap rate."