A bit of response to our work.
While there was no way we could have known about the type of buyer who would eventually pay record price for this property, our investment was based on a few strategic insights:
irreplaceable location in a high barrier to entry market
luxury level of fit and finish that fewer and fewer developers were building
part of the larger Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill metro that is one of the fastest growing, diverse economies in the country
By the time we exited this investment, we had reached the #1 position in market share (as measured by competitive RevPar) for the last four years running. Meanwhile, our partners at Hilton invited us to be part of their Owners Advisory Council and their Full Service Operations Committee.
And that bet we made back in 2009 - it paid off in the form of a top five price per key for all hotels ever sold in North Carolina, and the lowest cap rate of any full service hotel sold in NC in 2019.