The starting point
A former branded hotel in the Rhine-Main region, with more than 200 rooms, was to be sold. The problem lay not in the building but in the operation: the previous operator could no longer sustain the agreed lease with a classic hotel concept. A property whose operation no longer covers its lease is hard for a buyer to value — and correspondingly hard to sell.
The idea
Instead of cutting the price straight away, we first rethought the operation. We brought the building together with an operator from our network specialised in long-stay and project accommodation — guests who stay for extended periods and use apartments with a kitchenette (for example, staff from personnel-services firms). This model delivers consistently high occupancy and a predictable, low-operation business. Crucially, the same operator was willing to buy the hotel himself in the medium term.
The result
With the new concept, the building was well occupied throughout — and the operator moved from lessee to future buyer. For the owner this solved two problems at once: the property again carried its lease, and the sale could be completed without a lengthy buyer search — to someone who already runs the hotel successfully and knows its earning power first-hand.
Why it works
A buyer who already operates the hotel buys with knowledge rather than hope: he knows occupancy, costs and earnings from the ongoing operation. That lowers his risk — and makes bank financing far simpler than in a purchase where the buyer must still find an operator and secure that operator's lease payments. A difficult sale thus becomes a natural transaction.
What transfers
When no buyer can be found for a hotel, price is rarely the real problem — often it is uncertainty about the operation. A strategy in which the right operator first stabilises the property and then develops into the buyer reverses that order. With patience and a clear plan, even a sale that at first seemed stuck can be carried through.
The details are anonymised. On request we will name the specific hotel — subject to release by our clients. A separate enquiry is all it takes.