ATLANTA-On July 1, 2010, Pebblebrook Hotel Trust, a Bethesda, Maryland-based REIT formed last December, purchased the InterContinental Buckhead Hotel in Atlanta for $105 million. The 422-room, AAA five-diamond hotel is located in the upscale Buckhead submarket. The hotel will continue to be managed by the InterContinental Hotels Group PLC.

The purchase was paid for by the more than $400 Million IPO that the REIT did last December. Since then, Pebblebrook has signed purchase agreements for five hotels, three of which have already been purchased, says Raymond D. Martz, chief financial officer for the company. One of them is the landmark Sir Francis Drake Hotel in San Francisco which was bought for $90 million around June 21st and another was the Double Tree in Bethesda which Pebblebrook bought for $67 million on June 4th. A fourth hotel is under contract in the Minneapolis/St. Paul region, says Martz.

Given the combination of a global recession and a slowdown in business travel, a lot of hotels are distressed, says Martz. Plus, there were a lot of hotel transactions from 2005 through 2008, which involved high levels of leverage, which made the properties ripe for acquisition today, since many need to refinance now, but are unable to, he says. Plus, notes Martz, “because we’ve acquired hotels for all cash, some other buyers who may need financing are at a disadvantage,” he says.