NEW YORK CITY—With many experts offering the most positive assessment of the US economy in years, hotel property investors continue to exhibit exuberant confidence in the nation's lodging sector. US hotels continue to lure domestic and foreign investment and a surge of institutional capital continues to be deployed into single assets and portfolios. Robust investor appetite is expected to continue, with greater participation from a wider array of equity sources. The stars continue to remain aligned and the fundamentals of the US lodging industry are simultaneously favorable to buy, sell, and develop a variety of lodging product types.

The LW Hospitality Advisors (LWHA) Q2 2015 Major US Hotel Sales Survey includes 56 single asset sale transactions over $10 million, none of which are part of a portfolio. (Click here or the image to the right to download the accompanying fact sheet.) These transactions totaled roughly $4.5 billion, and included approximately 16,800 hotel rooms with an average sale price per room of $267,000. By comparison, the LWHA Q2 2014 Major US Hotel Sales Survey identified 42 transactions totaling roughly $4.5 billion including 12,800 hotel rooms with an average sale price per room of nearly $354,000. Comparing Q2 2015 with Q2 2014, the number of trades has impressively increased while total volume has remained steady. It is important to note that while the quarter over quarter 33 percent per room price decline appears dramatic, the Q2 2014 numbers were skewed due to inclusion of the $1.73 billion trade of the 2995 room Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas.

With 16 major hotel sales, Florida has been by far the most active transaction market followed by California with 9 major hotel sales. Million dollar plus per room trades are now occurring on a more frequent basis in top markets including the Q2 2015 sales of the Bardessono Hotel & Spa in Yountville, CA, and the Marker Waterfront Resort in Key West, FL which also set a new record for per room pricing metrics in Key West. The Waldorf Astoria Chicago trade of $600,000 per room is also a new record for the City of Chicago. Conversely, a record low trade has also occurred, the Revel Hotel and Casino, a bankrupt Atlantic City boardwalk property that originally cost $2.4 billion to build traded for $82 million ($59,000 per room), or 4 cents on the dollar.