The listing cost for three ten-day appearances on eBay.com was $150.  The combination of the Hotel-Online.com classified and the listing on eBay.com drew approximately two-dozen e-mail inquiries and a dozen site tours of the 81-room hotel.  The Hotel-Online.com classified was critical, as hotel buyers might not have otherwise known to look to eBay for hotels for sale.  Press releases resulted in some press coverage including the Wall Street Journal.

Vicki Richman, the company�s CFO and a friend purchased the hotel, which was managed by American Hospitality Management, LLC, seven years ago for $667,000.  The equity was $68,000.

Real Estate listings on eBay.com are not handled as actual auctions but rather by negotiation.  EBay.com essentially was a way of giving the hotel very broad exposure in the market place.

American Hospitality Management, LLC originally managed the hotel in foreclosure for a lender and then subsequently upgraded it for the new owners.  A portion of the company�s business remains the management of distressed hotels for lenders both as a receiver and during the repositioning and disposition period.

The act of listing a hotel for sale on eBay was a first and was noted in the Wall Street Journal and various trade publications.  �This sale, so far as we know, is the first sale of a hotel directly attributable to a listing on an internet auction site,� said Kirby D. Payne, CHA, President of the management company with offices in Minneapolis, St. Cloud, MN and West Palm Beach, FL.

The proceeds from the sale are being held in escrow pending a 1031 exchange.  American Hospitality Management, LLC currently is involved in 13 hotels including three opening in the next 45 days, two of which its development arm has brought to fruition.  Equity partners are currently being sought for five projects including a second one with a themed water park in the mid-west and an upscale boutique hotel in a unique location in south Florida.