A recent report from Jones Lang LaSalle Hotels affirms what many in the industry believe is finally happening: The transaction market is loosening up. Days after the real estate and hotel investment services firm brokered the sale of the Marriott Downtown Los Angeles, it announced that $1 billion in hotel real estate has transacted in the Americas region during the first quarter of the year. It’s a massive turnaround from the decade-low $2.2 billion transacted in the U.S. all of last year.

“First quarter U.S. transaction volume rose from $583 million in 2009 to $1 billion in 2010, demonstrating the increase in market liquidity,” said Arthur Adler, managing director and CEO-Americas for Jones Lang LaSalle Hotels, which tracks transactions $10 million and above. “Investors are beginning to pursue hotel asset and debt investments more aggressively as it is clear that fundamentals have bottomed. We expect transaction activity to accelerate throughout the year as more product becomes available. As in years past, we expect that the last three months of the year will show higher transaction activity.”

Jones Lang LaSalle Hotels closed the $63 million sale of the Marriott Los Angeles Downtown to China-based Shenzhen New World Group, Limited for owner Leeward Strategic Properties. The 469-room hotel was bought in 2007 for as much as $115 million by Namco Capital Group, according to the Los Angeles Times, before lender GE Capital foreclosed on the property last summer. It’s the third West Coast property to be sold to Asian investors in the past year, following the W Hotel in San Francisco and the L’Ermitage Beverly Hills hotel.

“The limited stock of quality assets available for sale is creating a synthetic sellers’ market, whereby there is significant equity competing for property, which is resulting in assets trading at low cap rates, albeit at deep discounts to replacement cost,” said Adler. The report from Jones Lang LaSalle Hotels says international investors, Asian capital in particular, will continue to become more prevalent.

At the end of last year, Jones Lang LaSalle Hotels forecasted transaction volume to reach $3.5 billion this year. After the quick start, and the belief that the last quarter will have even more activity, that number looks to be a conservative estimate.