I want to buy a hotel
A hotel is the one asset class in this library that is a business first and real estate second — its own P&L, its own labor force, its own brand relationship, and revenue that reprices nightly rather than on a lease cycle. This path starts with the vocabulary, then walks financing, underwriting, valuation, franchise economics, management agreements, and the tax treatment that makes hotels the strongest cost-segregation asset class in real estate.
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1Read
Hotels as an asset class — the hub for this library's hospitality cluster
Start here — why a hotel purchase is a different kind of decision than any other property type in this library, and a map of the rest of this path.
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2Read
The five numbers that actually govern a hotel
Five numbers govern nearly every hotel decision — RevPAR index, GOP margin, NOI after reserve, DSCR, cash-on-cash. Learn these before anything else.
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USALI — the one hotel accounting language, and why it matters right now
One accounting format makes any two hotels comparable. Read a seller's P&L or an operator's monthly report in its own language.
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How to invest in hotels — four ways in, and what each one actually nets
Four ways in — direct, with a flag, REIT, or syndication — and what each one actually nets after fees.
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Underwriting a hotel — normalize the P&L before you believe the cap rate
Normalize the seller's statement before believing the cap rate. A worked example moves an 8.76% quoted rate to a true 6.01%.
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What a hotel is worth — three methods, one defensible range
Three methods, one defensible range — income, per-key screen, and DCF — and why per-key alone is never a valuation.
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Financing a hotel — the three constraints that actually size the loan
Three constraints size the loan at once, and the tightest one binds — almost never the one the brochure assumes.
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Hotel franchise fees — what the flag actually costs, and what it has to deliver
What a flag actually costs, and the asymmetric math between taking one and dropping one.
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Hotel management agreements — the fee stack, the key money, and the exit
The fee stack, the key money, and the two performance tests that actually get enforced.
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10Read
Cost segregation for hotels — why the return is so much bigger here
Why hotels are the strongest cost-segregation asset class in real estate — and the passive-activity math that decides if it helps you.
Finished the path? The full Library has 70+ more topic cards across 10 categories. Or jump straight to another path.