Mumford Company, a full-service hospitality brokerage advisory firm celebrating its 45th anniversary this year, has so far managed to avoid much of the economic potholes of 2023, including fluctuations with interest rates, executives said.
Speaking on the firm's most recent accomplishments, Mumford Company Managing Principal Steve Kirby said a lot of the business his team booked last year came to fruition in the first quarter of 2023.
"We were able to hold it together through the ups and downs of the interest rate increases," he said during an interview at the 2023 Hunter Hotel Investment Conference.
Transactions that Mumford closed in the start of the year were for the Hampton Inn Lexington/Georgetown and Hilton Garden Inn Lexington/Georgetown in Georgetown, Kentucky; a Quality Inn in Beckley, West Virginia; a Quality Inn in Weston, Virginia; and Comfort Suites Atlanta Airport.
"We've been very pleased with the deals we've been able to close. Particularly [it's] mostly been regional banks that have done the loans, other than some of the government-assisted lenders," Kirby added.
Ed James, managing principal at Mumford, said when the U.S. banking crisis hit in the past month, a dramatic decline in transaction activity didn't occur.
"The underlying strength in the economy is going to keep us going," he said. "We do need more listing inventory, which we're currently working on. Demand remains high and ... cautious optimism reigns for now."
Kirby added that the banking crisis felt like more of a blip than a disruption to the marketplace.
"We have a lot of buyers with a lot of cash, and they're looking to deploy it out there," he said.
James said the guidance his team provides to buyers closing on hotel transactions remains rooted in industry fundamentals, not as much in economic conditions.
"The fundamentals of transaction analysis and our guidance to our customers really doesn't change based on the conditions in the market. The fundamentals always remain steady in [a market's] revenue, projections moving forward, financial markets — all of that plays a role in how we go through the process, the advice we provide and also how we design the approach we're going to take to get the property into the hands of the right people who want to buy it," he said. "It doesn't really shift too much depending on economic conditions."
Both Kirby and James are also celebrating 40 years of working in the hotel industry.