This morning i was speaking with a dear friend that was one of my mentors in life and helped me get started in the hotel brokerage business some 35 years ago. He asked me how it was going for us?  I told him, (excuse me church friends) that it is like a damn dog fight every day. He laughed and said yea, it does feel that way.

Aside from the stock market, which continues to grow without any good reason, the greater economy is still struggling mainly because of the effects of high inflation and higher interest rates which has affected pricing for everything from labor and housing to toothpaste and everything in between. Today you spend close to 15 dollars for a burger, fry and coke. The last five years have resulted in the greatest (in my opinion) financial reset of my lifetime. It’s like everything just jumped permanently 30-40% in price. For many areas, housing prices have doubled and, in some cases, tripled.

In the hotel world, owners still think their beloved hotel is still worth what it was in 2019 and its just not. Couple that with the need for them to renovate their hotel and newly built hotels competing with them, and it is like a triple whammy in our business. Hence the dog fight example.

Add to all this, the civil unrest we see every day in the news, and we find ourselves living in a different world than just a few years ago. Well, the good news is that this, like all cycles, change, and this financial market and civil unrest will stabilize and settle down at some point hopefully soon.

So,,, in today’s financial market, you just have to put on your helmet, button your chin strap, cowboy up and poke your chest out and be determined to end the day better than when you started. It’s a dog fight out there so we need to be ready. KT