“The transaction environment is clearly heating up as additional hotel assets come to market and financing is more readily available on better terms and during the past couple of years,” Kessler noted during the call. “REIT peers who raised equity are motivated to deploy capital and are competing against well capitalized funds that also see upside in our lodging market fundamentals. As a result, bidding is very competitive.”

Bennett said Ashford would like to invest in primary markets along the East Coast. “We would love some exposure to some of these other bigger markets such as New York, Boston and Washington DC,” he explained. “But assets are priced pretty strongly in those markets. So we continue to seek opportunities where we have some kind of edge in order to make an acquisition.”

Bennett concluded: “We are looking to find acquisitions that can outperform what we’ve already have. And if it cannot outperform the assets we already have, then we're just treading water by raising equity and going and buying it. So that's the kind of asset were looking for.”