This San Francisco Landmark Hotel Could Sell For $450 Million

Oct 2, 2015

As the hot hotel market keeps room rates high, the Fairmont San Francisco could be the latest hotel scooped up in a high-price sale.

A Seoul, South Korea-based asset manager, Mirae Asset Global Investments, is in talks to buy the Nob Hill landmark for $450 million, The Korea Times reports.

The financial services firm, which is one of Korea’s largest, reportedly signed an agreement with the hotel’s current owners, Woodbridge Capital Partners and Oaktree Capital Management. Those two firms had purchased the hotel in 2012 for $200 million and shelled out another $20 million for renovations.

Fairmont Hotels Regional Vice President Thomas Klein said he can’t confirm or deny the deal but that the “ownership group has received some unsolicited interest in the asset and certainly in our city.”

Hotel experts say the high sale prices are due to a hot hotel market that is driving occupancy and room rates up. The city welcomed 18 million visitors who spent $10.7 billion in the city in 2014, up 13.7 percent over 2013.

And because hotels can cost more than $1 million per room to build, real estate companies that want a piece of the market are willing to shell out more to buy an existing property. That’s sparked a wave of high-value hotel transactions.