Arthur Buser, managing director and head of West Coast operations for Jones Lang LaSalle Hotels, tells GlobeSt.com that the portfolio includes the 132-room Holiday Inn Santa Monica across from the Santa Monica pier, 401-room Holiday Inn LAX Airport, 234-room Holiday Inn Long Beach Airport, and 260-room Holiday Inn Seattle Airport. The properties are being offered individually or as a portfolio and are unencumbered by management.

The seller isn't quoting an asking price, Buser says, but he notes that comparable sales suggest that the Los Angeles, Long Beach and Seattle airport properties would likely bring something below $100,000 per room and the Santa Monica property more than double that. "Considering that there is a moratorium on building hotels in Santa Monica and that the occupancy of this property has never been below 75% in the past 10 years," the selling price could be in the mid-$200,000 range per key for the Santa Monica property, he says.

The pool of prospective buyers for the hotels is "quite deep," according to Buser, who says there is "a lot of equity chasing the deals" and that there are more buyers looking for hotels than there are properties on the market. In addition, he says, investor interest in West Coast hotels is keen, particularly for hotels in the Los Angeles area.

Among the likely buyers would be regional or national owner-operators who might invest jointly in the deal with money partners, Buser says. Buyers would expect the properties to increase in value as the market improves, but they might also be able to boost the value by improving operations, he says. Since these are franchised hotels, he adds, a new owner could change hotel brands if desired.

The hotel market hit bottom pretty quickly after the Sept. 11 terrorists' attacks, Buser says, so many prospective buyers believe that hotel performance will improve quickly as the economy improves. "Hotel performance moves pretty quickly, along with current events and consumer confidence so you can have a large swing in cash flow in a short time," he says.