Ted Leines
Founder and CEO, Leines Hotel Advisors Inc.
Ted Leines, a veteran hotel broker and adviser, got his start in the hotel business on the operations side. He once took a night job at a hotel to make ends meet while looking for work. The hotel had been recently purchased by Minneapolis-based Hotel Capital Management and was in a transition stage. Leines jumped right in.
"I was the type of person where if there were problems, I'd solve them, so I worked my way up in that organization," Leines says. "You kind of get hotels in your blood." He climbed the ladder at Hotel Capital Management to regional director of operations focusing on distressed hotels.
He transitioned into brokerage in 2001 by joining the Minneapolis office of Colliers Turley Martin Tucker. He launched his own hotel brokerage firm — Eden Prairie-based Leines Hotel Advisors Inc. – in 2009. He markets hotels for sale primarily in the Midwest.
Q: Why did the hotel business get in your blood?
A: It's constantly churning 24 hours a day. There's always something going on or a problem to solve. It can get very intense. Some people absolutely hate that but some people really love it, and I just happen to be one of those who love it.
Q: How has your experience in operations helped sell hotels?
A: I know the operations side. I know what it's like to work at the front desk and interact with the customer. Most real estate people are familiar with bricks and mortar and can talk about square footage and office space, but there are none that I know of in the area that can really know the detail of operations and work with buyers in that fashion.
