A Year in Review: South Florida’s Hotel Lending Climate
ByThis year offered a challenging lending climate for the hotel industry, prompting developers such as Rodrigo Azpurua, the founder & CEO of Riviera Point Development Group, to search more proactively for alternative financing options. The EB-5 investor program, private equity and crowdsourcing have proved to be some of the most successful alternative lending sources.
In primary markets, conventional loans have been the most difficult to obtain due to an overall low demand for new hotel developments, while in secondary and tertiary markets such as Orlando, Fla., alternative types of financing have spurred a variety of projects. Azpurua, who has more than five years of experience raising capital through the EB-5 program for hotel developments in South Florida and Orlando, shared with Commercial Property Executive his perspective on the lending environment in 2017 and his expectations for 2018…
