Hotel Investment Sales
I just graduated in May and looking to get into hotel brokerage. Networking with alums and people in this niche has been helpful so far, but curious to see if anyone has any advice specific to hotels for a new grad. This seems to be somewhat of a unique time given strong hotel fundamentals despite slower transaction volume.
What helped you early in your career? Any good resources? Would love to hear what your trajectory has been like and your thoughts on this space.
Additionally, which firms have the strongest hotel brokerage teams? Is it primarily market-specific? Interested most in working in the Northeast, Midwest, and South Florida, but I'm open to anything that would be a great opportunity.
For reference, I have several years of hotel ops and accounting experience from working in college and internships. I had a job lined up with an IS team for after graduation that recently fell through and I have now reopened my job search.
Hotel guy here.
Top brokerage shops are your typical Eastdil, JLL, Newmark, C&W, and CBRE. Probably more so in that order. Hodges historically has been a top one and crushed things through COVID but since 2022 have really started to fall off the map. They’ll likely get bought out at some point. Networking is your best friend as cliche as it sounds. The issue with the hotel industry is that many roles are dominated by your typical Cornell Hotel School people (I am not one). Not saying you have to come from there (as I didn’t) but it doesn’t help when some firms have that mindset and only choose those grads which I have seen before. I would really hone in on your ops experience as that is something many do not have and we all know hotels are more so an operating business than piece of RE.
Happy to answer anything further.
Newmark definitely crushes it - they brought a dedicated hotel team over from Eastdil in 2018. The guys I've interacted with in their LA office are sharp, and are laser focused on building out their west coast pipeline.
CBRE’s hotel team in Atlanta was hiring like a month ago. Not sure if it’s still open but worth a shot.
Network and lean into your ops experience. Hotels are a business in addition to the real estate. Understanding ops is crucial. I’m working on a hotel now and I just find it opaque. Partially because the ops are so different from traditional real estate and it’s a business. For example, you need to be willing to lose money in certain departments so you can compete in the market. This makes sense - but you need to understand the ops of each department and how they function / staff to understand the ‘why’ of the specific asset class.
Heard great things about Hodges Ward Elliott from a coworker
From my experience Hodges Ward Elliott is a meme... has fallen a lot since COVID
Newmark or Eastdil prob top hotel teams
Depends upon market and whether full-service or select-service asset. 5 main shops you’ll see are CBRE, JLL, Eastdil, HWE, Newmark.
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