4 Reasons to Add Host Hotels Stock to Your Portfolio Now

Host Hotels & Resorts HST owns a diversified portfolio of luxury and upper-upscale hotels in major urban and resort markets, supporting rate-led growth from leisure, group and business travel.

Analysts seem bullish on this Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) stock. The estimate revision trend for 2026 adjusted funds from operations (AFFO) per share indicates a favorable outlook, with estimates moving north over the past month.

Over the past six months, shares of Host Hotels have increased 15.1%, outperforming the industry’s 2.8% growth. Given its solid fundamentals and positive estimate revisions, the stock is likely to maintain its momentum in the quarters ahead.

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What Makes Host Hotels a Solid Choice?

Demand visibility: Host Hotels benefits from a diversified mix of urban, resort and convention properties across top 21 U.S. markets, supporting leisure, group and business demand. In the second quarter of 2026, transient room revenues increased 6.9%, while group room revenues rose 7.4% as both rates and room nights advanced. Definite group room nights on the books for 2026 reached 3.8 million, up 8% since the first quarter of 2026, and total group revenue pace was more than 5% above the same time last year.

In the second quarter of 2026, comparable hotel revenues per available room (RevPAR) rose 7% year over year and comparable hotel Total RevPAR increased 5.9%. Management raised full-year 2026 comparable hotel RevPAR and Total RevPAR growth guidance to 4.75% to 5.25% and expects mid-single-digit RevPAR growth for the remainder of the year. With new supply across Host Hotels’ markets and chain scales near historic lows, the demand mix should support continued rate-led growth beyond event-driven periods.

Accretive capital recycling: Host Hotels continues to sell lower-growth assets with elevated capital needs and redeploy capital toward higher-quality hotels and portfolio reinvestment. In the second quarter of 2026, Host Hotels sold the Sheraton Parsippany Hotel for $12 million.

From 2021 through 2026, dispositions totaled $2.9 billion at a 16.5x EBITDA multiple compared with $3.3 billion of acquisitions at 13.3x. Over that period, Host Hotels disposed of 17 assets and avoided an estimated $710 million of near-term capital spending while acquiring 12 fee-simple assets in six new markets with no notable near-term capital needs. This discipline, combined with Host Hotels’ liquidity and all-cash buying capacity, should preserve flexibility to pursue opportunities without weakening return standards.

Balance sheet flexibility: Host Hotels maintains an investment-grade balance sheet that provides capacity to reinvest and return capital. As of June 30, 2026, total debt was about $5.1 billion, with a weighted average maturity of 4.7 years and a weighted average interest rate of 4.8%. The company had no debt maturities in 2026.

Adjusted for the $630 million regular and special dividend payment in July 2026, total available liquidity was about $3 billion. Net leverage was 2.2x on a credit facility basis after the July 2026 dividend. The consolidated portfolio remained 99% unencumbered. This liquidity profile should allow Host Hotels to fund its 2026 capital program while retaining capacity for acquisitions, dividends and share repurchases.

Capital return through dividends: Host Hotels continues to return capital through regular and special dividends. In July 2026, the company paid a 20 cents-per-share regular quarterly dividend and a 72 cents-per-share special dividend tied to the taxable gain from the Four Seasons dispositions.

Since reintroducing the dividend in 2022, Host Hotels has paid about $3.1 billion in dividends through July 2026. Together, these dividends demonstrate the company’s continued commitment to returning excess capital to shareholders.

Other Stocks to Consider

Some other top-ranked stocks from the broader REIT sector are Digital Realty Trust DLR and Welltower WELL, each carrying a Zacks Rank #2 at present. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for DLR’s 2026 FFO per share is pinned at $8.40. This indicates year-over-year growth of 13.67%.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for WELL’s 2026 FFO per share is pegged at $6.42. This calls for a year-over-year increase of 21.36%.

Note: Anything related to earnings presented in this write-up represents funds from operations (FFO), a widely used metric to gauge the performance of reits.

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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

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