Stocks or Real Estate Crowdfunding? Two Different Ways to Invest in Hospitality

Investing in a hotel through crowdfunding and buying shares in a listed company operating in the hotel sector may, at first glance, seem like very different choices. In reality, however, they have one thing in common: the investor has to decide whether the value being acquired is greater than the price being paid.
In practice, the question is simple: what exactly am I buying, at what price, and how likely is that value to increase over time?
The fundamental difference lies in what exactly the investor is buying, the level of information available, the liquidity of the investment, the way the price is formed and, above all, how easily future cash flows can be estimated.
To make the comparison more concrete, let us assume that on one side we are considering an investment in a specific hotel project through a crowdfunding platform and, on the other, the purchase of shares in a listed company with significant exposure to hotels, such as Hilton Worldwide Holdings. In both cases, we are talking about exposure to the same sector: hospitality. The way value is created – or lost – however, is quite different.

Stocks or crowdfunding: where is the real difference?

First, in both cases the investor needs to engage actively with valuation.
The question is not simply whether a hotel is good, whether Hilton is an excellent company or whether Greek tourism has strong prospects.
The real question is:
“At what price am I buying, and what value do I believe I am acquiring at that price?”
An excellent business can be a poor investment if it is bought at an excessively high price. Likewise, an average project can be an attractive investment when it is acquired at a price below its underlying value.
This is perhaps the most important common feature of the two investments.

1. What are you buying when you invest in a listed hotel company?

If someone buys shares in a listed company, they have one important advantage: a vast amount of available information.
They can examine financial results, profit margins, debt, cash flows, company investments, share-price performance, acquisitions and analysts’ estimates.

The example of Hilton Worldwide Holdings

In the case of a company such as Hilton, there is another very important dimension: the value of the brand, the network, management/franchise agreements and the company’s global platform. These are essentially intangible assets that can create significant economic value. In other words, when you buy Hilton shares, you are not simply buying exposure to hotels. You are buying exposure to a global network of brands, customers, partnerships and contracts. According to Hilton’s 2025 Form 10-K, its network at the end of 2025 included 9,158 properties and approximately 1.35 million rooms across 143 countries and
territories. This alone shows how different the investment exposure is from a single hotel project.
Therefore, valuation is not limited to the value of the hotels the company owns or manages. The investor must try to estimate how the company will develop in the future and what cash flows it will be able to generate.

The market has already made its own valuation

When you buy a listed share, you are not the first person thinking about the company’s value. Thousands of investors, institutional investors, funds and analysts have already assessed the company.
The share price incorporates the market’s expectations for the future.
Therefore, the question becomes more demanding:
Can I estimate Hilton’s true value better than the investor on the other side of the transaction?
And, even more importantly:
If I have a positive view of Hilton’s future performance, is that view already reflected in the share price?
If you believe the company will grow significantly, but the market has already priced that growth into the current valuation, there may be little margin of safety for the investor.

2. What changes when you invest in a specific hotel project through crowdfunding?

In crowdfunding, the analysis is different, but the basic logic remains the same.

What should you look at in a hotel project?

• the specific hotel and its location,
• the business model and its historical performance, where available,
• the acquisition or development price and the total investment amount,
• debt and operating costs,
• projected occupancy, ADR and RevPAR,
• projected cash flows,
• the management team and the business plan,
• the potential exit value and, ultimately, the estimated return relative to risk.

There is, however, one potential advantage. You may be much more familiar with the specific product.

An investor who knows a destination may have a better view of demand, seasonality, hotel prices, development in the area, new infrastructure, competition and the quality of the location.

This local market knowledge can be genuinely useful. For example, someone who knows the Cyclades well may have a better view of whether a boutique hotel on a particular island can extend its season, raise its rates or differentiate itself more effectively from the competition.

A simple real-world example

Let us assume a small 20-room hotel on a Greek island. The investment case may not simply be based on the idea that “tourism is growing”, but on specific actions: renovation, better market positioning, more efficient distribution, higher ADR, better occupancy and a longer season.
If, after the upgrade, the hotel manages to increase both its average room rate and occupied room nights, this can flow through to revenue, EBITDA and ultimately the value of the asset. Of course, if rates or occupancy move below expectations, the result can move in the opposite direction.

3. The crowdfunding price does not change every day

In a listed share, the price changes continuously according to supply and demand. If the market believes today that a company’s prospects have improved, the price may rise before the actual financial results change.
In crowdfunding, during the offering period, there is a predefined issue price for the securities.
This means that, while the offering remains open, you can carry out your analysis and decide whether the specific price is attractive, without the price changing from minute to minute because another investor has become more or less optimistic.
So, in theory, you have more time to answer the question: “Is this investment really worth the price being asked?”

4. The major difference with stocks: liquidity

Here, the listed company has a significant advantage. If you buy a listed share, you can usually sell it relatively easily.
By contrast, an investment through crowdfunding or an investment in a private company has much lower liquidity. You may need to wait until the business plan is completed, the hotel is sold, a refinancing takes place or another exit event occurs.
Lower liquidity, therefore, is not a minor detail. It is something the investor needs to understand from the outset, because they may have to wait several years before exiting the investment.

5. How easily can you estimate the cash flows of a hotel project?

Another interesting advantage is that, in a specific project, you may know several of the investment’s key parameters in advance.
In both cases, you can use a DCF model or another method for valuing future cash flows. The main difference lies more in the nature of the assumptions. In a specific hotel project, there may be a predefined investment horizon and a specific business plan, with projected operations and a possible exit at a particular point in time. This can make the model more specific.
For example, if the business plan provides for a specific investment period, revenue, operating costs, CAPEX, level of debt and exit strategy, you can build a cash-flow model and calculate an estimated IRR.
IRR (Internal Rate of Return) is one way to estimate the annual return corresponding to a series of future cash flows, while NPV (Net Present Value) looks at the present value of those cash flows. They are useful tools for understanding an investment scenario, not guarantees of what will ultimately happen.

By contrast, in the case of a listed company, there is usually no predefined exit for the shareholder.
Valuation therefore relies more on estimating future growth, profit margins, reinvestment, acquisitions, dividends and free cash flows, as well as terminal value.

6. Management risk is different in each case

In a listed company there is also management risk, but you are usually investing in a company with a long track record, organised management, published financial statements, a large number of employees, internal-control systems and continuous market scrutiny.
In a smaller hotel project, success may depend much more heavily on a specific group of people. This can significantly increase key-person risk.
On the other hand, in a specific project you may have a more direct understanding of who is managing your money, what their experience is and exactly what plan they have.

7. Access to smaller and more specific hospitality projects

A listed company may give you exposure to hotel businesses, but not necessarily to the type of asset you personally consider attractive.
Crowdfunding gives you the opportunity to select smaller, specific projects that would otherwise be inaccessible to the smaller investor. In effect, this broadens access to investments that have traditionally
been closer to the private-equity model.
A small hotel may have greater room for improvement than a mature multinational company. This also means, however, that more things need to go right in the execution of the business plan.
For example, value creation may follow a chain such as: acquisition → renovation → repositioning →
increase in ADR → increase in occupancy → increase in EBITDA → increase in property value.
This is value creation linked to the operating development of the asset itself, rather than simply to a change in stock-market demand for a company’s shares.

8. What happens if the business plan does not develop as expected?

You should not look only at “How much can I make?”, but also at “What happens if things go wrong?”
In a specific hotel, you can examine in greater detail the value of the property (where the investment involves the acquisition of real estate), the construction or acquisition cost, debt, debt-to-value, land value, potential resale value, break-even occupancy and how far the value can fall before you begin to lose capital.
A simple sensitivity analysis can be very useful here. What happens, for example, if ADR or occupancy is 10% lower than the base case? If a relatively small deviation leads to a large fall in EBITDA or exit value,
then the margin of safety is small.
This is not a prediction of the future. It is simply a way to see how resilient the investment case is when
conditions do not develop ideally.

9. Are there more valuation “opportunities” in smaller projects?

Large listed companies are followed by a huge number of professional investors. A smaller private project has fewer people analysing it.
Perhaps. A smaller private project is not monitored every day by thousands of investors and analysts in the way a large listed company is. This does not mean it is automatically cheap or that it will deliver a better return. It simply means that its valuation has not gone through the same continuous price-discovery process.

Stocks vs Real Estate Crowdfunding: the key differences

So, which investment is better?

There is no single right answer. It depends on the investor’s profile, time horizon and tolerance for risk and low liquidity.
Investing in a listed hotel company is more suited to someone seeking liquidity and diversification across many hotels/markets, while also wanting the ability to increase or reduce their position easily.
Crowdfunding may be more suitable for an investor who wants to assess a specific hotel project and is comfortable committing capital for a longer period. Here, the focus is more on the location, the business plan, the management team and projected cash flows. The potential return may be different, but it is not guaranteed and is not necessarily higher.
Ultimately, the critical issue is not which form of investment is generally better, but in which of the two you can make a better valuation and invest at a price that offers an adequate margin of safety.
If you would like to go deeper, you can also read how real estate crowdfunding works, what crowdfunding is and the investor FAQs on Ovolus.

Ovolus View | About Apostolos Karananos

Apostolos Karananos is an executive with a strong background in finance, investments and hospitality. 

Since May 2024, he has served as Chief Executive Officer of Ovolus, while since 2017 he has been the owner of Kappa Hospitality Group, with active involvement in the Greek tourism and hotel sector and hands-on experience in hotel operations, financial management and the development of hospitality

investment projects. He holds an MSc in Finance from Alba Graduate Business School and a degree in Banking and Financial Management from the University of Piraeus.Apostolos Karananos is an executive with a strong background in finance, investments and hospitality.
Since May 2024, he has served as Chief Executive Officer of Ovolus, while since 2017 he has been the owner of Kappa Hospitality Group, with active involvement in the Greek tourism and hotel sector and hands-on experience in hotel operations, financial management and the development of hospitality investment projects. He holds an MSc in Finance from Alba Graduate Business School and a degree in Banking and Financial Management from the University of Piraeus.