Tampa-based Franklin Street has purchased a storied Atlanta-based hospitality brokerage firm.

Franklin bought Hodges Ward Elliott and plans to incorporate some 20 brokers from the smaller firm into its roster of 400 employees, CoStar reported.

HWE, which helped sell $17B in hotels over the past five years, will continue to operate under its brand name while offering a deeper pool of services in insurance, project management, leasing and property management, according to Franklin Street’s press release.

Terms of the sale were not disclosed. HWE will close its own office space, and employees will work at Franklin Street's offices in Atlanta, Dallas and Nashville as well as in Tampa and Orlando, Florida, CoStar reported.

HWE completed $1.5B in transactions in 2025, including the sales of the Crowne Plaza and Staybridge Suites dual hotel buildings in Downtown Atlanta for $35.5M and the Hayes Street Hotel in Nashville for $19M.

The deal comes as the hospitality sales industry exits a muted 2025 in terms of activity. Transaction size fell by 55% on average in 2025, PwC stated in a report.

Deal activity did pick up in the second half of 2025 as interest rates fell and financial conditions improved investment clarity. Deal volume was at least 40% higher in Q3 2025 when compared to either Q1 and Q2, according to PwC.

The second half of 2025 was an also active time for M&A with brokerages. Between September and mid-November, there were six major brokerage acquisition deals, according to a Bisnow report. The largest of the six was Compass agreeing to pay $1.6B for Anywhere Real Estate, the parent company of Coldwell Banker, Corcoran and Sotheby’s International Realty.

While revenue per available hotel room in the U.S. fell by 10 basis points in the third quarter, luxury rooms gained nearly 3% in rental increases during that same time, Bisnow previously reported.