The Dynamics of Credit Spreads in Hotel Mortgages and Signaling Implications

We use a vector autoregression framework to investigate loan pricing in a market with short-term leases (hotels) relative to longer-term leases (office properties), studying how news on the economy and capital markets are incorporated into the relative pricing of risk. We examine the impact of economic variables on the incremental risk premium and establish its informational content. Relative loan prices reflect systematic risk: an improvement in the general economy, an increase in forward looking corporate profitability, an increase in capital availability, and an increase in industry demand forecast a decline in the risk premium differential. We then examine how loan pricing adjusts to expected delinquencies. The spreads themselves contain important economic information and can help forecast delinquencies. Lenders are forward-looking in the pricing of risk and appear to set interest rates in anticipation of future delinquencies.