Hotel Trades Drop in Q1 While Sales Price Per Room Rises

With continued elevated levels of inflation and interest rates, and fears of an impending economic recession, the U.S. commercial real estate industry continues to find itself in choppy waters. The recent stunning and swift collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), and subsequent failures of Signature Bank (SB), and Credit Suisse Group AG (CS) has created a perceived credit crunch now rippling across the global financial system. 

The SVB implosion was caused by a three-year monetary policy that began during the COVID pandemic and included enormous sums of government stimulus and near zero interest rates resulting in a bloated balance sheet that put money to work providing loans and acquiring bonds. When the Federal Reserve (Fed) pivoted its monetary policy to combat rapidly rising inflation, SVB was suddenly holding below-market interest bearing securities that were never marked-to-market. When capital clients began withdrawing deposits on a large scale and at a breakneck pace, SVB began selling assets at losses which in turn triggered a classic bank run and ended with the parent company filing Chapter 11 bankruptcy. On the heels of the SVB collapse, SB also experienced a bank run and was shut down by regulators attempting to quell market fear and perceived potential of contagion within the banking sector.  Furthermore, to strengthen confidence in the U.S. banking system the Fed, the Department of Treasury, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) created a rescue package known as the Bank Term Funding Program (BTFP), essentially guaranteeing insured and uninsured depositors of both failed institutions. Shortly thereafter, 167-year-old CS announced that it had found “material weaknesses” in its financial reporting procedures resulting in the Swiss government brokering an emergency sale of the bank to UBS Group AG. Volatility remains for now; however, investors are largely betting on continued economic growth and reflecting the wide availability of capital despite illiquidity isolated to smaller regional banking institutions.