Access Point Financial (APF) today announced the release of a far-ranging hotel industry report targeting the construction loan sector. Entitled, “I Will Gladly Pay You Tuesday for a Hamburger Today: The State of Hotel Construction Loans,” the document provides a historic overview of hotel construction loans before delving into the current situation and outlining paths APF sees on the rise.

“With continual market fluctuations, economic uncertainties and rising costs, we wanted to provide hotel owners and developers with truly useful information to make future growth plans,” said Dana Tsakanikas, chief investment officer, APF. “While researching this project, we learned a few things ourselves. Hotel development remains sluggish nationwide, but we are seeing meaningful exceptions in certain segments and locations. Perhaps least surprising, it quickly became obvious that hoteliers remain a resilient and creative bunch.”

The five-page report commences with a historic overview of hotel construction loans from the start of the 2000s, featuring a decade-by-decade recap of events. “I Will Gladly Pay You Tuesday” then delves into a current review of market conditions before eventually making predictions and offering suggestions for tomorrow.

Key Highlights

  • With constantly rising costs, hotel developers today have shifted focus from ground-up development to “flips and PIPS,” investing in brand conversions and renovations to entice guests. “Like-new” comes with a lower price tag, as renovations bypass expensive construction loan costs required for new builds.
  • Extended-stay products are an anomaly for new development, as owners appreciate lower operational overhead costs and resilient customer demand.
  • Record early-stage pipeline activity, particularly in luxury, reflects developers’ response to the current undersupply. As of the close of the 2026 first quarter, the luxury hotel segment has 59 hotels currently under construction.
  • The Turner Building Cost Index, which tracks U.S. non-residential construction costs, surged 8.0% in 2022 and another 6.0% in 2023 after averaging just 1.9% growth in 2020–2021, and reached an index level of 1552 in Q2 2026, up 5.15% year-over-year.
  • Maddeningly for hoteliers, hotel-specific debt is meaningfully more expensive than other CRE asset classes. As of July 2026, 10-year fixed CMBS rates for hotels run 5.85%–6.85%, wider than multifamily or industrial (5.50%–6.30%) — and hotel construction/bridge financing runs materially higher still, roughly 8%–10%+ depending on structure and leverage.
  • U.S. hotel supply growth fell from a pre-pandemic year-over-year average of 1.3% to just 0.5% as of early 2025, with rooms under construction still below pre-COVID levels. That gap between the cost of building new hotels and acquiring existing ones has fueled a wave of M&A activity, as hotel companies increasingly expand through acquisitions and partnerships rather than new construction. However, that activity is proving to be an exercise in “testing the market,” as a material gap still exists between seller and buyer price expectations.
  • Roughly $48 billion in CMBS-era hotel loans are maturing in 2025–2026, often refinancing at debt service ~40% higher than the original loan — which pulls lender and sponsor attention/capital toward rescuing existing assets rather than funding new construction.
  • Margins haven’t recovered as much as revenue has, so even where ADR/RevPAR appears healthy, gross operating profit per room remains near 90% of 2019 levels — leaving a thin cushion to absorb higher construction and debt costs. Costs matter, but it’s really a stack of cost-of-capital + tighter lender selectivity + margin compression, with construction/material cost inflation (Turner Index) as one input among several rather than the single cause.
  • Already this year through the first two quarters, dollar volume for hotel loans rose 85% year-over-year in the first quarter and a further 19% year-over-year in the second quarter.

“Based on the success rate of our existing client activity of late, we remain bullish on the ‘Build, Baby, Build,’ strategy,” Tsakanikas noted. “With historic product undersupply, our owners and developers are realizing a distinct market advantage bringing new hotels into areas with otherwise aging and outdated competition.”

For a full copy of the report, please visit https://app.box.com/s/zzu0tb5qlbhauwpfzz4uwv9v1lkhfhkp.

About Access Point

Founded in 2011, Atlanta-based Access Point Financial (APF) is a multibillion-dollar real estate private credit firm focused on the hospitality industry, offering bespoke investment and direct financing solutions (senior debt, construction debt, mezzanine and preferred equity) to experienced hotel owners and franchisees of all major hospitality brands and independent boutique hotels throughout the United States. For additional information and key contacts, please visit www.accesspointfinancial.com

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