CFO, the money brain. Every dollar has to make sense.
The pipeline has one deal that clearly earns its capital and a lot of deals waiting on homework. DoubleTree Galleria at $30M ask plus our $8M RS-adjusted PIP is $38M all-in against $3.53M of trailing EBITDA, a 9.3% all-in cap on 476 keys at $79.8K per key all-in ($38M divided by 476 keys), from a bank seller with the Hilton relicense already negotiated at a 3/3/4% royalty ramp. Nothing else in the book comes close on price-to-proof ratio. Meanwhile we are mid-refi on the SpringHills with a Nov 2026 maturity, a ~$28M appraisal contingency, and $250K of principal forgiveness expiring 2026-12-31. Capital is not unlimited, so the ordering is simple: refi first, DTG second, the DT IAH turnaround third if the receiver takes our number, and everything else either gets its missing data or gets formally parked. Do not let three simultaneous Houston distressed turnarounds pile up while the refi is open.
DoubleTree Houston Galleria (H150, 476 keys), LOI. EBITDA $3.53M on $38M all-in (ask $30M + RS PIP $8M) = 9.3% all-in cap, $80K per key. Even at the broker's market-GC PIP it's $30M + $16M = $46M, a 7.7% cap, so the deal survives the pessimistic PIP case. RGI 98.1 means we're buying at market share, not paying for someone else's turnaround, and 18.5% EBITDA margin on $19.06M revenue leaves room for our operating playbook. This is the #1 deal for a reason; the only discipline point is keeping the lender KeyBook's $8M bank-ask consistent and never letting the broker $16M number near a lender.
Crowne Plaza Med Ctr-Galleria (H155, 354 keys), LOI. No ask price and negative $510,840 EBITDA on $9.03M revenue, so there is no cap rate, only a basis story: our $12.4M cash offer is $35K per key on a box where the lender already spent $6M on reno. The thesis is the rate gap ($90 T-12 ADR vs ~$194 comps) and the +27.7% YTD recovery. That can work at this basis, but it's pure execution with zero in-place cash flow, and it competes for the same management bandwidth as DT IAH. Hold at $12.4M cash / $15.0M bridge, no creep.
DoubleTree Houston IAH (H156, 313 keys), LOI. In-place it's $501,315 EBITDA on our $14M cash offer = 3.6% cap, which is nothing; the deal is the margin gap, 17.3% GOP now vs a 30-32% target, and the stated Y1 stabilized ~$2.7M would be 19.3% on $14M cash ($44.7K per key). RGI 110.7 says the top line is already there, which is the right kind of turnaround, expenses not demand. Two open items before I'd sign anything: the relicense PIP cost is not in the data, and the $352K fire pump plus chillers is only the known CapEx after 6 years of receivership neglect. At the $18M ask the in-place cap is 2.8%; hold at $14M.
Hyatt Place Sugar Land (H158, 214 keys), LOI in the DB, parked in the notes. At the $23M ask, $1.72M EBITDA = 7.5% cap and $107K per key, and that trailing number is stale: the asset broke in early 2026 (occ -18.9% YTD on a +15.8% ADR push), so forward EBITDA is worse than trailing. On top of that sits an unpriced, past-due 14-year Cycle 2 PIP owed within ~12 months of close. At our $17-18M anchor the trailing cap is 9.8%, but I would not pay a trailing cap on a broken asset with an unquantified PIP. Keep it parked and fix the DB stage so the pipeline reflects reality.
Element Vintage Park (123 keys), LOI. Ask $11.3M on 123 keys is $91.9K per key with no financials loaded and RGI at exactly 100.0. I have no revenue, no EBITDA, no PIP number, so I have no opinion, and neither should anyone else. A deal at LOI stage with zero financials is a process failure: get the T-12 or move it to prospecting.
NorthPark pair, Hampton (H133) + HGI (H129), underwriting. $32M combined on 234 keys is $137K per key ($129K on the Hampton, $145K on the HGI), the richest per-key basis in the pipeline, with no T-12 loaded on either. The deal folder itself says NOI declined three straight years on expense creep, and RGIs of 148.5 and 155.5 mean they're already market leaders, so there's no rate-gap lever, only cost-outs against a rising Dallas tax and Hilton relicensing bill. The adjacency to our Home2 NorthPark is real strategic value, but at $137K per key with declining NOI and no financials in hand, the burden of proof is entirely on the seller. No more underwriting hours until the T-12s and a real (not placeholder) price split arrive.
Guest dealmaker persona. Buy distress, never pay asking, leverage is the whole game.
Look, this is a good pipeline, better than most I see, because almost everything here is distress: banks holding paper they hate, receivers who've been babysitting for six years, an institutional seller with a broken asset. That's where fortunes get made. You never make money paying a happy seller his number. The DoubleTree Galleria has "it": trophy location, bank fatigue, and a PIP arbitrage nobody else in the room can execute. The Crowne Plaza and the airport DoubleTree are ugly ducklings with real bones, and ugly is fine when the seller is more desperate than you are. The losers? NorthPark Dallas. Paying $32 million for two hotels that are already the best in their market with three straight years of declining NOI, that's buying at the top, and I don't buy at the top. Element Vintage Park wants $11.3 million and won't even show you the books. Insulting.
DoubleTree Houston Galleria: THE ONE. This is a beautiful deal. 476 keys in the Galleria, Houston's premier district, location, location, location. Wells Fargo doesn't want to own hotels, banks never do, they want it OFF the books, and every quarter it sits there it embarrasses somebody at REDUS. The broker quotes a $16 million PIP and you can do it for $8 million: that's an $8 million edge nobody else at the table has, so you use the $16 million number to beat the price DOWN and keep the difference. You've already got the Hilton relicense pre-negotiated at 3/3/4 royalty against the standard 5, which means you extracted value before you even signed. $19 million in revenue, $3.5 million EBITDA, RGI 98, real cash flow day one. Do NOT pay the $30 million ask. It's a bank. Banks blink.
Crowne Plaza Med Center-Galleria: The Steal Nobody Wants. No ask, negative EBITDA, CMBS-REO: this is the definition of a motivated seller, they can't even name a price. And here's the beautiful part: the lender already spent $6 million renovating YOUR hotel for you. I love it when the other guy pays for my renovation. ADR of $90 when the comps are getting $194, that's not a broken hotel, that's a broken operator, and you replace operators. Your $12.4 million cash number is the right posture: cash, fast close, take the problem away, and the negative $510K EBITDA is your hammer in every conversation. Whoever buys this cheap looks like a genius in three years.
DoubleTree Airport: The Receivership Special. Six years in court receivership. SIX YEARS. Everybody involved is exhausted, and exhausted people take deals. $13.4 million in revenue with an RGI of 110.7, so the market already loves this hotel, it just has no flag and terrible management: 17.3 GOP against your 30-plus target is the whole thesis. The yellow-tagged fire pump and two dead chillers ($352K) aren't problems, they're negotiating chips: itemize every deficiency and take it off the price. Your $14 million against their $18 ask is fine as an opener, but a six-year receivership shouldn't get its number. Slap the DoubleTree flag back on and it's a different asset.
Hyatt Place Sugar Land: Squeeze Starwood. Starwood Capital is a big institutional shop, and big shops cut losers loose, they don't fall in love. The property broke this year: pushed rate, lost 18.9 percent of occupancy, and there's a mandatory comprehensive brand renovation due within 12 months of close. That renovation clock is ticking on THEM, not you, and every month it ticks their $23 million ask gets weaker. $1.72 million EBITDA is real, RGI 105.6 is real, but you hold your $17 to 18 million anchor and let the brand deadline do the negotiating. Never chase an institution, they always have another asset to worry about.
Element Vintage Park: Show Me the Books or Show Me the Door. $11.3 million ask and no financials? In my world, no numbers means bad numbers, because good numbers get shown off. Either the books come out in a week or the deal is dead, and tell them exactly that. If they do open up, whatever's in there justifies a discount, because sellers who hide are sellers who know. Only 123 keys anyway, this is a side dish, not the meal. Don't spend brainpower here while the Galleria is live.
NorthPark Dallas Pair: Pass, and I Don't Say That Often. RGI of 148.5 and 155.5, they're already kings of their market, which means the upside is gone, someone else already made this money. NOI down three straight years on expense creep, no T-12s loaded, and a $32 million ask with a lazy $16/$16 placeholder split that tells you nobody's sharpened a pencil yet. The only angle is that you own next door, which gives you operating synergies nobody else has, so IF you engage, it's at a number that embarrasses the broker, and you make Patterson produce full financials before you even return a call. But your whole thesis is buying broken things cheap and fixing them at half cost. This deal is the opposite of that. Walk.
One: Weaponize the missing financials. Element won't show books, NorthPark has no T-12s loaded, SpringHill Dallas Central wants $19 million with no financials. Stop treating that as "pending data." Treat it as a discount. My rule: every document a seller won't produce costs him money. Set a deadline, and when the books finally show up, whatever's ugly in them (and something always is) becomes an automatic re-trade.
Two: Package the REO fatigue. You've got Wells Fargo REO, CMBS-REO, and a six-year receivership all in one market, and you're negotiating them one at a time. These sellers all share the same disease: they hate holding hotels. Move on all three at once with proof-of-close, and use speed and certainty as the currency instead of price. A bank will take less from a buyer who closes in 45 days than more from a buyer who might not close at all. Certainty is worth millions and it costs you nothing.
Three: Sell the PIP gap out loud. The $16 million broker PIP versus your $8 million self-GC cost on the Galleria isn't just your margin, it's your bid weapon. Every other buyer has to underwrite the full $16 million, so their maximum price is structurally below yours, which means you can win the deal AND still underpay if you negotiate like the $16 million is your cost too. Never show the seller your real renovation number. Cry about the PIP in every meeting. That's Deal Making 101.
Cash is finite and you've got a refinance clock (Guaranty Bank, 6.00% target rate and a $28M+ appraisal contingency per the W5 Whiteboard refi bet, November 2026 maturity), so you cannot be a tourist in six deals at once. I'd put everything behind the DoubleTree Galleria: it's the trophy, the seller is a bank, the PIP arbitrage is enormous, and the flag is already pre-negotiated at a discount. Deal number two is the Crowne Plaza, because a no-ask CMBS-REO where the lender already sank $6 million and ADR is $90 against $194 comps is the kind of deep-value swing that makes careers, and your $12.4 million cash posture is right. Keep the airport DoubleTree warm at $14 million and let the receivership rot work for you. Hold the line on Sugar Land at $17 to 18 and let Starwood's renovation deadline squeeze them, not you. Walk from NorthPark, it's a full-price deal wearing a broker's smile, and put Element on a one-week books-or-bust ultimatum. You already passed on the Sheraton with its negative $328K, good, dead deals should stay dead. Concentrate the firepower, close the Galleria, and everything else in Houston gets cheaper the day you do, because now you're the buyer every distressed lender in Texas calls first. That's leverage, and leverage is the whole game.
CRO, revenue intelligence. Every index point matters.
Rank this book by the quality of the revenue story, not by the EBITDA line. The genuine share-capture story is Crowne Plaza Med Ctr-Galleria (RGI 84.9 with 15 points of fair share on the table and a $6M reno already paid for by someone else), followed by DoubleTree Galleria (RGI 98.1, essentially at fair share, so the top line is believable as-is and the deal is an income-in-place basis play, which is fine, just don't underwrite share you haven't earned). DoubleTree IAH is an honest deal because the folder note is honest: RGI 110.7 means the revenue upside is largely spent, the story is the 17.3% to 30-32% GOP gap, a margin deal wearing a hotel. Hyatt Place Sugar Land is a broken-rate-strategy repair job: the asset proved it can index at 105.6, then management torched occupancy chasing ADR, so you're buying a self-inflicted wound plus a past-due PIP. SpringHill Sugar Land at 98.29 is at fair share and small, a portfolio bolt-on THM can price off its own HOURP/HOUZN operating knowledge, not a revenue story. Element Vintage Park and the entire prospecting column are un-underwritable today, no T-12, and in Element's case an RGI of exactly 100.0 with no financials behind it is a number I trust the way I trust a casino's posted odds. The NorthPark Dallas pair at RGI 148.5 and 155.5 is the one that worries me most: those are peak-index prints with declining NOI, meaning you'd be paying for share that has nowhere left to go while the expense line eats the house.
DoubleTree Houston Galleria (RGI 98.1, ask $30.0M, 476 keys). At 98.1 this box is capturing essentially its fair share, so the $19.06M top line is credible and the underwriting question is margin (18.5% EBITDA is thin for that revenue base) and basis, not revenue growth. There is maybe 2 points of index to grind out, which is operations, not strategy. Demand the full 24-month STR trend split by MPI and ARI: I need to know whether 98.1 is a stable print or a snapshot on the way up or down, and whether the mix is occupancy-heavy discount business propping the index. Also demand segmentation (group vs transient) at 476 keys, because a big-box index is only as durable as its group base.
Crowne Plaza Med Ctr-Galleria (RGI 84.9, ARI 65, no ask). This is the real share story: 15 index points below fair share, recovering +27.7% YTD, and a $6M lender reno already sunk. But the data as pulled does not reconcile, and I won't bless a top line built on numbers that fight each other: an ARI of 65 against a stated ADR gap of ~$90 subject vs ~$194 comp implies a rate index in the mid-40s, not 65, and an RGI of 84.9 on an ARI of 65 arithmetically requires an occupancy index well north of 100, which nobody has shown me. Required diligence: the actual monthly STR trend report with the printed MPI, and confirmation of what compset that ~$194 ADR represents, because if the compset includes full-service Med Center product this hotel can't actually chase, the "share upside" shrinks fast. If the comps are legitimate, this is the best revenue-capture asymmetry in the pipeline. No ask is set, so the index case should set it.
DoubleTree Houston IAH (RGI 110.7, MPI 121.8, ask $18.0M). Read the two indexes together: MPI 121.8 with RGI 110.7 means the implied rate index is 90.9 (RGI 110.7 divided by MPI 121.8, times 100), so this hotel is stuffing rooms at a discount to its comps. That's a durable occupancy franchise (airport demand, likely crew and contract business) but it also means the RevPAR lever left is rate mix, not more heads in beds, and rate-mixing up at an airport box is slow, careful work. The deal folder note is correct and I endorse it: lead with the margin gap (GOP 17.3% vs 30-32% target), because at 110.7 you are already outrunning the compset and any underwriting that assumes further share capture is fiction. Demand the segmentation report and the crew/contract rate contracts before believing the ADR floor, and the STR trend to confirm 110.7 isn't a comp-set casualty (a competitor renovating or closing flatters your index).
Hyatt Place Houston Sugar Land (RGI 105.6, ask $23.0M). The 105.6 tells you what the asset can do; the 2026 YTD numbers tell you what management did to it: ADR +15.8%, occupancy -18.9% is a textbook failed rate push, they priced past the compset's willingness to pay and the demand walked to the neighbors. That's actually a recoverable wound, since it's property-specific, not market-wide, but understand what you're underwriting: a return to the 2024-25 index, not growth beyond it, and the past-due PIP (comprehensive, due ~12 months from close) will be disrupting rooms exactly when you're trying to win occupancy back. Demand the weekly STR trend through the break so I can see exactly when share left and to whom (the compset winners tell you where the demand went), plus the 2026 rate calendar to autopsy the push. Price the deal off the broken run rate, not the 105.6 glory year.
Element Houston Vintage Park (RGI 100.0, ask $11.3M). An RGI of exactly 100.0 and no T-12 loaded is not a revenue story, it's a placeholder wearing one. Fair share is a fine starting point if it's real, but extended-stay indexes are notoriously sensitive to how the compset was drawn (against select-service comps an Element's occupancy index inflates and rate index deflates). Required before this deal advances at all: full T-12 financials, the 24-month STR trend with MPI/ARI split, and the compset roster itself, because at 123 keys the entire underwrite lives or dies on whether that 100.0 was measured against honest peers.
Hampton Inn NorthPark Dallas (RGI 148.5) and HGI NorthPark Dallas (RGI 155.5, $16.0M placeholder each). These are the highest indexes in the pipeline and that is precisely the problem: at 148.5 and 155.5 you are buying assets already lapping their compset by half again, and the folder note confirms ARI ~125 on both, so there is no rate gap to close and, arithmetically, the occupancy indexes are elevated too. Upside cannot come from share, it must come from market growth or margin, and the note says NOI has declined three straight years on expense creep, so the margin story is currently running backward. Two possibilities: either the compset is drawn soft (older, weaker product flattering two newer builds from 2017 and 2020, which makes the index a mirage), or these really are the submarket's best boxes at peak performance, in which case you're buying the top of the index cycle. Demand the T-12s (none loaded), the compset rosters with build years and chain scales, and a 3-year monthly index trend: if RGI is drifting down from even higher prints, you're catching a falling index at a full price.
SpringHill Suites Houston Sugar Land (RGI 98.29, ask $9.0M). At fair share, $2.02M YE 2025 revenue on 94 keys (STR 60801, per RPP deal_references and the RPP hotels table; this acquisition target is a different property from THM's owned SpringHill at Medical Center/NRG Park, STR 9971 per PORTFOLIO.md), this is the one deal where THM's own book is the diligence: it runs two SpringHills in Houston already and knows exactly what this flag does in this market. No share story here and none needed at this size; underwrite it flat on the index and let the house's operating playbook find the margin. Still want the STR trend and the compset roster confirmed, fair share against the wrong comps is not fair share.
No index, no LOI. That's not caution, that's just knowing what you're buying.