CHICAGO-As the US 2012 hotel transaction volume has reached $5.1 billion, almost half of the respondents to a Jones Lang LaSalle Hotels investment survey said they are looking to buy assets in the next six months. With an added increase in selling in North America, transactions should hit $15 billion this year, according to JLL.

According to the company’s Americas Hotel Investment Survey, directed toward the world’s 6,000 leading hotel investors and owners, 45.7% of respondents said they plan to acquire assets in the next six months. The most popular buy regions, according to the survey, are, in order, Hawaii, Chicago, Boston and Miami, as the markets have witnessed double-digit growth in RevPAR in the past year. Vancouver and Mexico City are also popular “buy” locations.

Arthur Adler, managing director and Americas CEO for JLL Hotels, tells GlobeSt.com that the previous survey had been more full of “hold” sentiment. “Hotel investors are once again eager to buy,” he says. “The increase affirms our view that there is significant demand among private equity and institutional investors, and increasingly, REITs, to make hotel investments at a favorable basis.” Trusts had dominated during the first half of 2011, and following the second half pull-back, should be increasingly active again this year, Adler says.