That sale marks a change in Sunburst's investment strategy, ChrisMilke, vice president of Acquisitions & Development, at the companytells GlobeSt.com. Going forward for the foreseeable term, the companywill only be investing in hotels.

It is looking for limited and full-service hotels and extended-stayhotels with target room counts of 70 to 300 rooms. It is alsointerested in hotel debt notes, with a first mortgage size of $5million to $50 million--either performing or non-performing.

While the company is open to any deal nationwide, it has a preferencefor the East Coast "or at least this side of the Mississippi," Milkesays. Also, the $100 million is not a figure etched in stone, he adds."If we want to spend more we can figure out how to make that happen."The company has about $300 million of private equity under its belt aswell.

Unlike funds with a specific time frame to invest, Sunburst is notlooking to invest its capital over a certain period if the deals arenot available--which certainly has been an issue for investorsranging from private funds to REITs to institutional investors.

Also, in certain markets--namely the Washington, DC area whereSunburst is located--there have been virtually no hotels trading.

Milke, though, believes that will change--both in the DC area andnationwide. There are a handful of hotels quietly on the market--Sunburst has chased a few of these, Milke says. DC, though, isunlikely to see any distressed sellers put assets on the market--which is where Sunburst would like to play and where Milke expects to see the best deals.

"If nothing happens here, we will go elsewhere. Right now, there are distressed owners dealing with banks directly and if they are unable to get a work-out done and the proverbial pretend-and-extend is no longer palatable to banks, that is where we will come in."

It's a strategy on which a lot of investors are waiting to pull thetrigger, but hotels in particular are ripe for it, he says. While somebanks may keep an office building on their balance sheet, for example,or an apartment building, few to no banks are interested in holdingonto hotels, Milkie says.