NEW YORK CITY-The new LWHA Q3 2012 Major US Hotel Sales Survey has been released and shows that hotel REITs continue to be active, while coastal markets are prime. In terms of REITs, the survey highlighted that Chesapeake Lodging Trust and Pebblebrook Hotel Trust purchased two and three major hotels respectively as examples.

So far in 2012, the typical markets on the East and West coasts have seen impressive activity. According to the survey, 13 transactions, or roughly one half of the quarterly total, included assets located in California, Florida and New York. Here in the East, the $400-million sale of the Grand Hyatt Washington DC and the $362-million transaction of the Essex House here were both huge in the last quarter.

Information in the survey includes 81 single-asset sale transactions over $10 million each that are not part of a portfolio allocation. These transactions totaled more than $4.5 billion, and included 20,000 hotel rooms with an average sale price per room of $230,000. Last year across the same time span, 99 major US hotel sales transacted for a total of more than $7.0 billion. The average sale price per room was slightly under $230,000 LWHA says.