HotelHinge · Hotel transaction intelligence
What a Hotel's Public Record Reveals: A Worked Example
Quick answer: A single hotel's public record holds far more than an address. Using one real property, the Boston Marriott Burlington, you can read its physical specs, its assessed value, the exact price it last sold for and the entity that bought it, how it compares to nearby hotels, and the news about it, all from county and municipal sources you can verify yourself.
Most people assume hotel deal data lives behind an expensive subscription. In reality, the spine of it is public. To show what that means in practice, here is one hotel decoded layer by layer. Every figure below comes from the public record, the same way HotelHinge assembles it for every property in the database.
The property
The Boston Marriott Burlington is an upper-upscale, full-service Marriott at 1 Burlington Mall Rd in Burlington, Massachusetts, in Middlesex County and the Boston-Cambridge-Newton metro. It is a suburban hotel: 419 rooms across 9 floors, 265,827 square feet, built in 1982. None of that requires a private feed; the physical characteristics come straight from the municipal assessor's record.
What it is worth
The municipal assessor carries a current assessed value of $62,077,700. Assessed value is not the same as market value (assessment practices vary by jurisdiction), but it is a public, consistent anchor, and it is the figure most buyers start from before layering in income and comps. For how assessed value feeds a full valuation, see How to Value a Hotel.
The recorded sale, and who bought it
The deed record shows the hotel last sold on January 26, 2021, for $68,980,782, to an entity recorded as RB Hotel Burlington LLC. That is a clean, useful data point: the sale price ($69.0M) sits just above the assessed value ($62.1M), which is what you would expect from a real, arms-length trade of a stabilized hotel. The named buyer is the grantee on the deed, which is where an ownership trace begins; from a single-purpose LLC like this one you work toward the sponsor through state business filings, as covered in Who Owns That Hotel? The source for the sale is the Massachusetts municipal assessor record, linked from the property so anyone can confirm it.
How it compares
A single sale means little without context. In the same Burlington submarket, the public record shows a small competitive set, three hotels across Hyatt House and Marriott brands, with two arms-length sales between 2014 and 2021 ranging from $25.2M to $69.0M. That range is the start of a comp set: similar assets, similar market, recent dates. The full method is in How to Find Hotel Sale Comps from Public Records.
What is happening to it
Finally, public news fills in the operating story. For this property, trade and local coverage documents a multi-million-dollar renovation completed in phases (reported by PR Newswire and Patch). A renovation reshapes both the cost basis and the competitive position, context a buyer wants before underwriting.
The whole record, in one place
Put together, here is what the public record holds for this one hotel, and where each layer comes from:
| Layer | What the record shows | Public source |
|---|---|---|
| Identity | Marriott, upper-upscale, full-service | Brand directories |
| Physical | 419 rooms, 9 floors, 265,827 sq ft, built 1982 | Municipal assessor |
| Value | Assessed $62.08M | Municipal assessor |
| Last sale | $68.98M on Jan 26, 2021, to RB Hotel Burlington LLC | Recorded deed / assessor sales |
| Comps | Submarket sales $25.2M to $69.0M (2014 to 2021) | Recorded deeds |
| News | Phased multi-million-dollar renovation | Trade and local press |
That is one property. HotelHinge does the same for every hotel it can, then lets you filter the result. The point is not that the data is secret; it is that assembling it property by property is the work, and that work is what a property-first database does for you.
Frequently asked questions
What does a hotel's public record include?
Typically: the property's identity and brand, its address and submarket, physical characteristics from the assessor (square footage, year built, and where available room and floor counts), the current assessed value, the recorded deed history with sale dates, prices, and parties, a link back to the source record, and any public news about the property. Each item comes from a county or municipal source you can verify.
Are hotel assessed values and sale prices public?
Yes. The assessed value is set by the county or municipal assessor and is public. The sale price is recorded with the deed (or, in some jurisdictions, in a public sales file) when the property changes hands. Both are public record, which is why a property-first database can assemble them without any private feed.
Can you see who bought a hotel?
Usually yes. The recorded deed names the grantee, which is the buying entity, often a single-purpose LLC. In the example here, the 2021 sale names the buyer entity. From there you can look the entity up in state business filings to work toward the people behind it.