Overview — 39 seconds, silent
Both platforms in under a minute.
Silent by design — captions are burned into the film.
Miles Greve · in my own voice
I have spent the last forty years studying the industry as a student. Occasionally, I learn something that I want to share.
This is written with one reader in mind: the independent motel or small-hotel owner nobody writes underwriting research about. Almost every study in this field is built for the institutional end of the market, and the smallest owners inherit whatever is left over.
So the questions here are their questions. Whether the answers hold up is exactly what I am asking about.
Chapter 02 — The orphaned deal
The deal this project follows: three million dollars, one motel.
A $3M motel loan rarely fits the institutional cost model — too small for the committee time, too idiosyncratic for the box. Nobody is wrong; the deal is simply orphaned. Five places that happens most often:
- 01
Seasoning
Two years of clean, stabilized statements — a reasonable ask that a renovated or repositioned hotel cannot meet by definition.
- 02
Debt-service coverage
A sound ratio, priced on a single trailing period — for an asset whose revenue moves nightly. Complete at scale; thin at $3M.
- 03
Property type
Hospitality priced inside commercial real estate policy — a reasonable shorthand that misses the operating business attached to the building.
- 04
Borrower profile
Global cash-flow and net-worth tests calibrated for diversified sponsors — a poor fit for the focused owner-operator whose capital sits in the sector they know.
- 05
Brand and PIP
Franchise obligations read as pure liability at closing — when they are also the capital plan that buys the asset its post-renovation revenue.
Chapter 03 — The method
Eight steps, in order, every time.
The Einstein Method adds an operator's read to the lender's file — and writes the reasoning down at each step, so a veteran can argue with it.
- E
Examine Market
Supply pipeline, demand drivers, and whether the submarket can absorb what is already under construction.
- I
Interpret Meaning
Pricing power and RevPAR resilience — whether the asset holds rate when the market softens.
- N
Normalize Financials
Owner anomalies, skewed payroll, related-party charges, and under-reserved FF&E, removed.
- S
Stress-Test Assumptions
Capital budgets and wage inflation tested against what actually happened, not what was projected.
- T
Test Downside
Recession-level occupancy troughs run straight against debt service.
- E
Evaluate Exit
Refinance and sale scenarios under cap-rate expansion, at a debt yield that would actually clear.
- I
Identify Risk
Franchise agreements, management contracts, PIP obligations, and ground leases, read in full.
- N
Name Decision
A documented posture, with the reasoning written down beside it.
Chapter 04 — The verdict
Analysis without a verdict is a memo. Every file ends on one of these, in writing — a courtesy to the owner and to the lender who referred it.
Fund
The asset, the operator, and the structure all clear. Capital moves.
Restructure
The asset works; the terms do not. The study documents how the terms could be rebuilt — on paper, as a research scenario.
Watch
One variable is unresolved. A date and a trigger are set.
Pass
Stated plainly, with the reason attached, so the owner knows what to fix.
Chapter 05 — The pathway
Finding the deal a home.
The capstone asks how a well-documented small deal could find its way to capital through the lending systems that already exist — a research design, worked out in the open. Nothing here sources, brokers, or finances a deal.
- 01
Acquisition
Owner-operators buying assets they already know how to run — read on operating reality, then placed with capital that prices that read.
- 02
Refinance
Maturities that arrive before a repositioning has seasoned — bridged to the lender whose horizon matches the business plan.
- 03
Renovation and PIP
Brand-mandated capital underwritten to the post-renovation asset — presented so a lender can price the value the spend buys.
- 04
Reserve
Held against the downside case the method already priced — and documented so the funding source can see the reasoning.
Chapter 06 — The ask
Tell me where this is wrong.
Forty years in hotel investment, research, and operations — CBRE, Hilton, the Las Vegas Strip, a Marcus & Millichap hospitality internship, and InnVest Hotel Brokers — now written up as a graduate capstone. This site exists to attract judgment from the people who do this for a living. If you have built, financed, or governed something in this sector, I would rather hear the flaw than the compliment.
Coda
I am asking for judgment, not applause. Read it, break it, then write to me.