Building Manhattan Hotels Beats Buying as Development to Surge | businessweek.com

Building a hotel in New York City is becoming more affordable than buying as demand from publicly traded investors helps drive a surge in property prices. Increased competition for purchases has led developers to plan the opening of about 50 new hotels this year through 2013 in New York, more than triple the number in Washington, the next-busiest U.S. city for construction, according to hotel- consulting firm Lodging Econometrics.