Thursday, October 8, 2009

300 California Hotels in Foreclosure or Default, More to Follow

Green shoots continue to grow and the smell of recovery is in the air, except in the sunshine state, where 300 California Hotels in Foreclosure or Default.

More California hotels are being pushed into foreclosure as tourists and businesses alike scale back their travel plans and owners are unable to pay their mortgages.

Statewide, more than 300 hotels were in foreclosure or default on their loans as of Sept. 30 — a nearly fivefold increase since the start of the year, according to an industry report released Tuesday.

The list of troubled properties includes the St. Regis Monarch Beach in Dana Point, the downtown Los Angeles Marriott, the Sheraton Universal and the W hotel in San Diego.

Most struggling hotels remain open, but industry experts believe many properties are likely to be closed down in the months ahead, even if they are not in foreclosure, because they are losing so much money.

We are often told to look at government issued economic statistics like GDP as an indicator of economic health, but rarely do mainstream media sources point out the real leading economic indicators. In our opinion, the fact that vacation related businesses around the country are going bankrupt, and hundreds are lined up to follow in their footsteps going forward, is a sure sign of a continued contraction. Other real leading indicators we like to consider when trying to understand where we are in this economic cycle are the transportation industry, specifically train, truck and boat cargo, all of which are significantly down from the boom-times of just a few years ago. The smell of this recovery is peculiar — rotten eggs maybe?

No comments:

Post a Comment