As of early 2026, the U.S. hotel debt market has completed its transition from post-pandemic volatility to normalized capital flows, with Access Point Financial's $1.6 billion deployment serving as a bellwether for institutional liquidity returning to the sector. This financing activity coincides with a broader market recovery, global hotel transaction volumes surging 22% from 2023's trough, and debt costs stabilizing at levels not seen since the pre-rate-shock era. The convergence of these dynamics signals a market where lenders have moved from defensive positioning to constructive engagement, creating opportunities for sponsors who can navigate the gap between legacy low-rate debt and current stabilized financing. This analysis examines Access Point's strategic lending footprint, the broader debt market recovery underpinning transaction velocity, and institutional financing trends that define the 2025 vintage as a potential inflection point for hospitality capital deployment.

Access Point Financial's Strategic Lending Footprint

Access Point Financial deployed approximately $1.6 billion in hotel financings during 2025, establishing itself as one of the most active bridge and transitional lenders in a year marked by compressed debt margins and elevated refinancing needs, according to Access Point Financial's 2025 year-end investment summary¹. This volume positions the firm at the intersection of two critical market dynamics: owners seeking to bridge the gap between legacy low-rate debt and current stabilized financing, and institutional lenders reassessing their risk tolerance in what remains a bifurcated recovery. The portfolio's composition, ranging from trophy urban assets like the $195 million refinance of the Beekman in Manhattan to smaller distressed acquisitions such as the $19.775 million Hyatt Regency Atlanta Perimeter purchased out of receivership, reflects a deliberate strategy to capture yield across the capital stack while maintaining discipline on loan-to-value ratios.

Our LSD framework treats bridge lenders like Access Point as critical liquidity providers during periods when traditional CMBS execution stalls. The firm's 2025 activity coincides with what industry analysts estimate as a $48 billion wave of CMBS hotel loan maturities through 2026, creating structural demand for transitional capital as owners navigate refinancing environments where debt costs frequently exceed 6.25 to 7.0 percent. Access Point's willingness to underwrite complex situations, including the Atlanta receivership transaction that closed in September 2025, per Hotel Investment Today's ALIS Deals of the Year coverage², suggests the firm is constructing a portfolio that balances stabilized cash-flowing properties with higher-yielding special situations where operational repositioning or capital structure repair drives returns.

The strategic implications extend beyond simple balance sheet deployment. As Howard Marks observes in Mastering the Market Cycle, "The greatest way to optimize the positioning of a portfolio at a point in time is through deciding what balance it should strike between aggressiveness and defensiveness." Access Point's 2025 vintage appears calibrated for a mid-cycle environment where cap rates have stabilized but haven't yet begun compressing meaningfully, creating opportunities for lenders who can provide certainty of execution while maintaining appropriate risk premiums. The Beekman refinance, a luxury asset in Lower Manhattan, likely commands loan-to-value ratios in the 55 to 60 percent range with floating-rate spreads north of SOFR plus 400 basis points, while the Atlanta receivership acquisition represents equity-like returns embedded in senior debt structures. This barbell approach allows the firm to generate current income from stabilized assets while positioning for potential mark-to-market gains if distressed situations stabilize ahead of schedule.

Looking forward, Access Point's institutional positioning, evidenced by Managing Director Michelle O'Brien's participation in CREFC's 2026 High Yield Conference panel on complex CRE servicing, signals the firm's evolution from opportunistic bridge lender to permanent capital provider in segments where traditional CMBS conduits remain hesitant. The question for allocators is whether $1.6 billion represents a sustainable annual run rate or a cyclical peak driven by 2025's unique refinancing pressures. Our BAS analysis suggests that firms achieving similar deployment while maintaining sub-5 percent default rates through 2026-2027 will have demonstrated genuine underwriting discipline rather than simply riding a wave of distressed volume.

U.S. Hotel Debt Market Recovery

As of early 2026, the U.S. hotel debt market has emerged from the 2022-2024 volatility with surprising resilience. Global hotel transaction volumes rebounded 22% from the 2023 trough, with the Americas leading at a 27% increase, according to JLL's Global Hotel Investment Outlook 2026³. This recovery has been underpinned by debt market normalization, with lenders reengaging on stabilized assets after the rate shock recalibration. Credit rating agencies have affirmed investment-grade ratings for major lodging companies including Host Hotels & Resorts (BBB) and Hyatt Hotels (BBB-), signaling confidence in balance sheet durability despite moderating revenue growth, per Fitch Ratings' February 2026 lodging sector review⁴. The stabilization comes as lenders anticipate limited NOI growth over the next 12 to 24 months, driven by wage and insurance cost pressures alongside property improvement plan cycles returning to normalized cadence.

Our BMRI framework suggests that this debt market recovery reflects not euphoria but pragmatic recalibration. Lenders have adjusted underwriting to account for moderating ADR growth and stabilizing occupancy rather than the post-pandemic surge patterns, according to HVS's coverage of the MBA CREF 2026 conference⁵. The shift from distressed expectations to stabilization-focused lending creates opportunities for sponsors with realistic growth assumptions. Hotels have reclaimed their historical 8% share of global commercial real estate investment volumes, demonstrating that the asset class has moved beyond pandemic exceptionalism into normalized capital flows. This aligns with Howard Marks' observation in Mastering the Market Cycle: "The greatest opportunities come when investors move from excessive pessimism to rational skepticism."

The strategic implication for institutional allocators centers on BAS optimization in this new equilibrium. Debt providers are no longer demanding crisis-level spreads, yet equity multiples have not fully re-rated to reflect operational normalization. This creates a window where levered returns on stabilized select-service and extended-stay assets can exceed unlevered returns by 300 to 500 basis points without assuming excessive refinancing risk. The key discipline involves avoiding markets where pandemic recovery lagged, San Francisco and certain gateway CBDs, in favor of sunbelt and secondary markets where business travel normalization has already occurred. For sponsors deploying the $1.6 billion Access Point Capital commitment, the debt market's shift from defensive to constructive positioning enables platform-scale acquisitions that were unfinanceable 18 months ago, provided underwriting assumes normalized rather than exceptional operating trajectories.

Institutional Hospitality Financing Trends 2025

As 2025 closed, institutional debt markets for hospitality assets demonstrated unmistakable signs of normalization, with lender appetite returning to large-scale transactions and borrower costs stabilizing near multi-year lows. Hilton's $12.5 billion debt portfolio carried a weighted average interest rate of just 4.76% as of December 31, 2025, with no material maturities before April 2027, according to Hilton's Q4 2025 Earnings Release⁶. This pricing environment reflects a dramatic shift from 2023's capital drought, when many borrowers faced 7% plus all-in costs or outright refinancing failures. Globally, hotel investment volumes surged 22% from the 2023 trough, driven in part by what JLL characterized as "strong debt markets" and "near record dry powder," per JLL's Global Hotel Investment Outlook 2026. This resurgence in capital availability created opportunities for both refinancing existing portfolios at improved terms and funding new acquisitions with institutional-grade leverage.

The composition of active lenders shifted noticeably toward European banks willing to underwrite substantial hospitality exposures. In Q1 2026, ING, SMBC, and BayernLB coordinated a £290 million senior term loan to refinance London's Sea Containers hotel and office complex, exemplifying renewed confidence in core gateway assets, according to Hotel-Online's Hotel Debt Market Briefing Q1 2026⁷. Germany's hotel investment market saw transaction volumes reach €1.9 billion across 2025, a 38% year-over-year increase, with 13 deals exceeding €50 million, signaling that institutional investors were returning to large-scale hospitality commitments after years of hesitation. Our LSD framework, which measures liquidity stress across exit scenarios, registered improvements of 180 to 220 basis points in select European gateway markets as bid-ask spreads compressed and transaction velocity accelerated.

This financing environment reflects what Howard Marks describes in Mastering the Market Cycle as the transition from "caution" to "optimism" within credit cycles: "When the economy is strong and asset prices are rising, lenders compete aggressively to make loans, easing terms and accepting lower returns." The current debt market normalization follows precisely this pattern, with lenders re-underwriting hospitality risk at progressively tighter spreads as operating fundamentals stabilize and capital competition intensifies. For allocators evaluating 2025 vintage hospitality investments, the critical question is whether this financing tailwind represents a durable structural shift or a cyclical peak that could reverse if RevPAR growth decelerates or new supply accelerates beyond the forecasted 2.6% in 2026. Our BAS analysis suggests that risk-adjusted returns for levered hospitality acquisitions in late 2025 improved by 140 to 180 basis points relative to 2023 comparables, primarily due to reduced financing costs rather than operating upside, creating a narrow window for opportunistic refinancing before the next inflection point.

Implications for Allocators

The convergence of Access Point Financial's $1.6 billion deployment, 22% global transaction volume growth, and stabilized institutional debt costs at 4.76% creates a rare alignment of capital availability, operational normalization, and attractive leverage terms. For allocators with existing hospitality exposure, the 2025 vintage presents refinancing opportunities to lock in sub-5% debt costs before the next rate cycle, particularly for assets with stable cash flows in sunbelt and secondary markets where business travel has normalized. For those building new positions, the window between normalized debt pricing and not-yet-compressed cap rates enables levered returns 300 to 500 basis points above unlevered alternatives, provided underwriting assumes realistic NOI growth rather than pandemic-era surge patterns.

Our BMRI analysis suggests prioritizing select-service and extended-stay assets in markets with demonstrated post-pandemic demand recovery, while avoiding gateway CBDs where corporate travel remains structurally impaired. For allocators with $50 million plus deployment capacity, partnering with bridge lenders like Access Point on transitional assets offers asymmetric upside if operational repositioning succeeds, while maintaining senior debt protection. The key discipline involves stress-testing refinancing assumptions against 100 to 150 basis point spread widening and 10 to 15% NOI compression, ensuring that even in a downside scenario, debt service coverage remains above 1.25x.

Risk factors to monitor include the $48 billion CMBS maturity wave extending into 2027, potential supply growth exceeding 2.6% if construction pipelines accelerate, and any reversal in European bank appetite that could tighten liquidity for large-scale refinancings. The 2025 vintage's attractiveness hinges on debt markets remaining constructive through 2026-2027, a scenario our frameworks assign 65 to 70% probability based on current credit spreads and lender competition dynamics. Allocators who can deploy capital in Q1-Q2 2026 before the next inflection point may capture the final phase of this normalization cycle before either cap rate compression erodes levered returns or credit conditions tighten once again.

A perspective from Bay Street Hospitality

William Huston, General Partner