Extended stay hotels now make up 40% of the U.S. hotel construction pipeline

Four in ten hotel projects in the U.S. development pipeline are now extended stay. Lodging Econometrics counted 5,901 projects, or 692,999 rooms, in the total U.S. pipeline at the close of the third quarter of 2026. Extended stay hotels stood at 2,352 of those projects, or 236,219 rooms, according to Hotel Dive.

The pipeline as a whole is getting smaller. Project counts were down 4.9% from the same quarter a year earlier, though new announcements still outran groundbreakings: 195 projects were announced in the quarter against 152 construction starts. Extended stay is holding its ground in a shrinking pipeline. For a development executive or asset manager, the more useful question is where in that pipeline the segment's projects sit. The stage breakdown answers it.

Close to breaking ground, thinner further out

At quarter's end, 424 extended-stay projects were under construction, 1,006 were scheduled to start within 12 months and 922 were in early planning. Back then the segment had 420 projects under construction, 976 due to start within a year and 1,077 in early planning.

Five quarters apart, the two near-term stages grew slightly and the early stage shrank.

Midscale holds, luxury sets records

Middle-tier extended stay brands made up the majority of the segment in Q3 2026, representing 1,628 projects, or 152,287 rooms. As of the second quarter of 2025, the middle tier featured 25 brands that accounted for 1,625 projects and 152,557 rooms in the pipeline, according to Hotel Business. Marriott International, Hilton, IHG Hotels & Resorts, Hyatt Hotels, Wyndham Hotels & Resorts and Choice Hotels controlled 11 of those middle-tier brands, and the six companies collectively operated 20 extended-stay brands across the various tiers.

Across all segments, the year-over-year growth sat at the top of the chain scales. The upper midscale chain scale had the largest project count in the Q3 pipeline, at 2,206 hotels.

In luxury, the pipeline grew 19% by rooms and 14% by projects year over year. That could point to larger projects at the top of the market, a different kind of building from the middle-tier extended-stay hotels that make up most of that segment.

Conversions as the shortcut

Brand conversions rose 3% year over year to 1,516 projects, or 146,544 rooms. That's growth inside a pipeline that shrank overall. At The Lodging Conference in Phoenix earlier in October, hotel development executives said hotel conversions, as well as the extended stay category, remain an important source of growth for brands. As of the second quarter of 2025, 177 properties were undergoing conversion to extended-stay brands, contributing another 13,876 rooms to the pipeline, according to Hotel Business. Those conversions included existing extended-stay hotels transitioning between brands and traditional hotels being repositioned as extended-stay properties.

Trend by My Place, from My Place Hotels of America, is built in three tiers. It offers independent hotel owners, along with candidates who want to convert into a franchise, a route there that avoids large capital requirements, Hotel Dive's Noor Adatia reported, citing a news release. Trend Hotels targets owners of modern select-service properties. Trend Hotels & Suites serves owners of transient and extended stay properties, and Trend Inns & Suites is meant for owners of "well-located" upper economy and midscale properties. My Place CEO Ryan Rivett said the company created Trend for owners who have put years into building up a property and would rather not turn it over to a brand that handles it like a template.

For an independent owner, a conversion skips the stretch where the extended-stay funnel is thinning. The building already exists, so there's no early-planning stage. That's where a shrinking ground-up front end and a growing conversion count fit together: one path to adding branded extended-stay rooms is narrowing while the other widens.

The economics owners are betting on

Douglas Artusio, who founded the Extended Stay Lodging Association and serves as chairman and CEO of Dellisart Hospitality, laid out the operating case in Hotel Management earlier this year. When guests stay longer, a hotel needs fewer people on payroll and spends less overall, so profit rises. He argues that a well-run property in this segment earns the highest returns in the business. Even so, the operator must work out payroll and supply costs in detail and still meet the service level its brand requires, and those requirements differ widely between flags.

Purchasing follows cost per occupied room and departmental norms. A checkbook accounting system ties each general manager's spending limits on payroll, supplies and hours to how far revenue runs over or under forecast, in percentage terms. Monthly variance reports flag every line that runs over or under budget. Mordor Intelligence's market research makes a similar point about why developers like the format: less labor, lighter food service and standardized layouts than full-service hotels. In its global estimates, mid-range properties held 46.52% of extended-stay market share in 2025, which fits with the U.S. pipeline's heavy middle tier.

That case has conditions. Artusio puts sales first and argues that no amount of operating skill rescues a property whose sales effort doesn't fit the long-stay model.

Dallas first, then the Q4 count

Dallas led all U.S. markets with 184 projects and 23,646 rooms, followed by Atlanta at 154, Nashville at 122, Austin at 112 and California's Inland Empire at 110. Phoenix had the most openings in Q3 with six. Dallas, the Inland Empire and Atlanta had four each.

There were 407 U.S. hotel openings through the third quarter, and 191 more are expected by year-end. That would make 598 for 2026, a 1.2% increase in supply. Lodging Econometrics projects 668 openings in 2027 and 775 in 2028, or supply growth of 1.3% and 1.5%. That rising curve could reflect a pipeline with many projects already under construction or scheduled to start.

The figure to watch in the fourth-quarter report is extended stay's early-planning count. If it falls below 922, the segment's growth could lean more on conversions like Trend than on new ground-up projects. A rebound would mark the past five quarters as a pause.