Life's Short. Live Better.

Earn an iPad for FREE - for Aviawest Team Members

Dear Aviawest Team members,
We are really excited to be nearing the completion of Aviawest's "iPad and iPhone app" We have created this "app" for a couple of reasons:

1. To allow existing owners easier access to the benefits of Aviawest ownership.

2. To utilize technology (iPad) as a way to better communicate with potential new owners the value Aviawest ownership offers.

Some of the Aviawest app features are:

• Bonus time availability and touch to call
• Contact info
• Vacation value calculator
• Video of the properties/resorts
• Images Gallery
• Special Offers
• Frequently Asked Questions
• ...and more features to come in V2

Here are some images of the app:

              


We think it would be great if we could give all our staff like you, an iPad. But we can't. However, we got thinking that there must be a way we can get an iPad into each of your hands - for free.

Check out what can you do on an ipad They are truly amazing devices.

When we market Aviawest Resort Club, we have a marketing budget. So, if we can redirect some of those marketing dollars toward purchasing an iPad for you, then that would be great.

So, with that in mind, we are piloting a new program. When you refer a friend, family member or colleague that purchases Aviawest Points with us, you get an iPad. Yes, as simple as that. More than one referral buys Aviawest points? We'll credit you $500 towards travel and other Aviawest Team lifestyle rewards to be announced.

How do you participate? All you need to do is refer the people you think would be a good fit to for Aviawest, and we will make sure they get the information they need.

What's in it for your friends and family to participate?

• 10% off the purchase price, because they are your referral
• 2 free nights at an Aviawest property
• A $50 Prepaid Visa Card

How do you participate? 1, 2, 3

1. Make a list of people that may be suitable. An easy way to think of people to refer is to ask yourself:

Who's my son or daughter's teacher? Neighbor? Family Doctor? Those with families and children at home seem to get the most value from Aviawest ownership, but retirees also are huge advocates because of all their free time to travel and flexibility. 

2. Talk to the people you would like to refer. They don't have to "be interested" in purchasing at Aviawest, but they do need to have the ability to purchase. 

3. Simply email your 3 best suited referrals to referrals@aviawest.com  with the following information:

Subject line of email you send "Aviawest Team Referrals"

• Their Names
• Phone number
• Email
• City they live in
• Best time to contact them
• Preferred days time to visit with us. 

We're trying this program on a trial basis, so thanks for your help in smoothing out any bugs along the way. Questions? Contact gayle.miller@aviawest.com or suzanne.taylor@aviawest.com or 1.866.769.6377

Jim Pearson - CEO, Aviawest Resort Group

P.S. - We'll pay for the WiFi 16 Gig iPad for you when a referral purchases, but if you would like the 3G or larger memory models, we'll gladly arrange that and simply do a payroll deduction for the additional amount. 

New York, New York.

I returned from a business trip to New York a few days ago. I was there for meetings with one of our supplier partners. I had never been to NYC before last Thursday. Although I have traveled to a number of large world cities in North America and Europe, NYC was different. 

The energy was amazing. The architecture was historical and over the top. Times square was vegasesque in its lights and oversize commercial signs. Where else can you go to an Apple store 24x7x365 to get your fix?

We stayed at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel on the south end of Central Park in the Time Warner building, in 'midtown'.

I will definitely be back to New York, and although the hotel was great - truly a great hotel, it was a hotel. When we go back, we'll be making an vacation exchange into the Manhattan Club or the HGVC vacation ownership suites through our Aviawest ownership. A  $200 exchange for a week, is sure a lot more appealing than $800 a night ($5600+taxes). Apparently that's what our supplier paid for our hotel room. 

Aviawest has had hundreds of our owners exchange into New York City and it demonstrates the exceptional value one can realize from owning vacation ownership.

Insurance... Fear of Loss VS. Planning to Make Great things happen

We are really good at planning to make sure that all sorts of terrible things don't happen to us, or our families. It's classic "fear of loss" mentality.

• Life Insurance. Benefits us when we die. Necessary, but hard to enjoy it.
• Health Insurance. Benefits is when Sick. Ditto.
• Fire Insurance. Benefits us when house burns down.
  
• Earthquake Insurance. Benefits us when the earth cracks and our home falls in.
  
• Liability Insurance. Benefits us when we screw up.
• Dental Insurance. Benefits us when we get our teeth kicked in, or have cavities.
• Auto Insurance. Crash, and you're covered.
  
• Theft Insurance. People steal our stuff, and it's replaced. Grrreat.
  

What about the rest of the time? Why don't more people plan to make sure that good things happen each and every year of their lives?

How about Lifestyle Assurance. That's what over thousands of our owners at Aviawest and Parkside Victoria Resort & Spa have bought. It's a lot more fun than the ones listed above and even makes financial sense. But that's for another post.

Tough times? Fractional Ownership makes sense.

A few months sure can make a difference. The condo market in Dubai has been red hot for about 5 years. The outlook was positive by those involved at Cityscape in October.

Now? There are reports of the Dubai market falling up to 60%. What changed? Yes the economy, yes the credit crisis. There were undoubtably a lot of speculators. 

Did people stop wanting to go to Dubai? Unlikely. 

Fear. Fear of what? Losing money, and or not being able to pay for their vacation home. Or worse, people are worried they may not be able to afford to use the home they bought.

If you're not a speculator, or pure investor, it almost never makes any sense to purchase an entire second home outright. It's one of those emotional things that people do, but generally doesn't make sense. Add up the maintenance costs, time and worry and it makes less sense than it appears. 

Fractional ownership has the ability to do very well in 2009. People are dropping out of the whole ownership market, but they still want to own a vacation home. Or two.

And they can. When the fractional ownership "lightbulb" finally comes on for the masses, people will wonder why anyone every bought a whole ownership vacation home. 

Here's an example. 

Whole Ownership= $1,000,000

1/8th Ownership= $180,000

If you can only use it 6 weeks a year, why buy more? 

Take a look at Aviawest or Parkside Victoria for more information. 

Revolutionary for RCI? Yes it is.

RCI, Resort Condominium International, just released a new way to search for timeshare and vacation ownership vacations on their website. So what's the big deal? Companies release new websites all the time right? 

Well sort of. First, a couple of clarifications for the uninitiated. There are two types of Vacation exchange with RCI. The original system called the "RCI Weeks" system - because you exchange a week from where ever you purchased your vacation home, for another week in the RCI system (choose from 4600 properties globally). This system is dynamic - vacation owners are "depositing" their time into RCI every hour of every day, and subsequently requests for vacations are continuously being fulfilled, in an ongoing basis.

There's also the "RCI Points" system. The main difference being that you can exchange your annual allotment of "points" for one, two, three etc - up to 30 nights in one destination, in one transaction. Also importantly, the Points system works similar to a hotel reservation style system. So, if the space is available, you book it. 

...so back to the "new way to search"... One of challenges with the "old weeks RCI website' was that it was like finding a needle in a haystack. You had to match your search, to exactly the inventory in the system. Without knowing what was in the system, this was sometimes tough to do online. (millions of people used the call center to make their exchanges each year, but the website presented challenges)

In November of 2008, RCI launched their new technology which is an "aggregator"  - it shows the user ALL the weeks inventory available in real time, and then you narrow your search via filters. This is truely revolutionary. Before you could search a few times and get NO results. Now? it starts with showing me 112,000+ vacation options (the actual number of resorts depends on where you have your home week, and the trading power; size, time of year, demand etc)

I understand the RCI Points site is coming out with similar revisions in 2009. This new technology is something that will demonstrate true transparency with shared ownership exchange, and create an even higher degree of satisfaction among owners. 

Below are some screenshots of the search process, which demonstrate the filters and tens of thousands of choices vacation owners have.

And importantly, one can narrow their search based on size of unit, only with full kitchens, 2 bedroom + etc...it's all there. The numbers in [Brackets] represent individual weeks to secure for a 7 day vacation. Interested? Our company, Aviawest, offers some of the best RCI Points value available, anywhere.

         

Ragatz Fractional Conference Executive Summary

I recently attended Dick Ragatz's Fractional interest conference in San Francisco in March. Here's an executive summary for download, courtesy Ragatz & Associates.  I had not attended in a few years, and was impressed to see the increased attendance, and higher level of expertise and organization.

In 2004 it felt like "this could be an industry". This year, it was clear with speakers from mainstream media like the Robb Report, and over 700 attendees - that fractional ownership has arrived, and is here to stay.

Timeshare or Fractional Ownership...What's the Difference?

Recently I've heard many people falsely claim that "you don't really own a timeshare and that's the difference between fractional ownership and timeshare".  It's a common misconception that “timeshares” are not deeded property. Some are, and some are not. Billions of $$ of deeded timeshares are sold each year.

Our company sells 1/4 interests and timeshare. We started selling fractional ownership in 1991,  1/10 interests.

The confusion is due to the 3 general ownership structures of timeshares.

1. Deeded 1/51st interests in real property - IE Marriott Vacation Club (great product, but very expensive) We originally sold this at Pacific Shores and I refer to it as vacation ownership, but its also timeshare.

2. A "right to use"  a vacation suite or condominium for XX amount of years. - many in Mexico are based on this style. Usually this form of ownership has a term of 30 or 40 years, and some offer "accelerated usage".

3. A vacation club, which is structured very much like a co-op. A purchaser is alloted an annual points based on a one time investment.  The deeded real estate is held in trust by on behalf of the group of purchasers. Its held free and clear of any encumbrances or mortgages.*  Our vacation club www.aviawest.com operates this way. We switched from "version 1" deeded weeks, to allow us to transfer title once, instead of 51+ times and it allows owners far more flexibility. Wyndham Vacation Ownership’s Trendwest operates in this manner as do many others.

Fractional ownership is always deeded ownership. If it's not, then its not fractional ownership.  The accepted definition ( Northcourse Consulting)  is  - “Any deeded interest in real property that is 1/12 or larger” - so a 1/17th or 3 weeks a year would be considered a timeshare. Fractions are often 1/12 , 1/10,  1/8 and 1/4 interests.

Typically the larger the fraction the larger the component of real estate value you are purchasing. Marketing and sales costs rise with smaller fractions, and the product loses some of its potential investment qualities.

Our fractional projects are located in Victoria BC Canada and on Vancouver Island, in Nanoose Bay. The laws and legislation have similar qualities and controls to those California, New York, Hawaii and Florida regarding fractionals and timeshares.

*Each vacation club has different legal structures. Ensure you do your own due-diligence.  Investing in a timeshare, vacation ownership and Fractional Ownership comes with risks. Ensure that you receive a disclosure or prospectus document if available. Different regions have different legislation and some provinces or states may have no legislation. 

What's Better...?

OK...first, yes I could be biased. I'm involved with a company that sells fractional ownership.

I read an article in today's globe and mail about one of our competitors. The article is about their new Resort Hotel located in Victoria BC. It looks to be a great project, in a good location - waterfront in Oak Bay. Downtown Victoria is a better location, but waterfront.

The thing about the article that caught my attention, is how the developer is quoted: "When people began asking for quarter ownership, we used our past experience with fractional ownership to come up with what we feel is a better opportunity."

I would be very interested to hear how Mr Walker feels that his opportunity, a non equity club,  is better than Quarter Ownership or fractional ownership in general.  The inherent problem with a "non-equity" club is that the purchasers basically don't have any security.  So you pay $150,000 or more, for the hope that the developer will provide what he says he will.

I've seen many inexperienced developers implement unrealistically low maintenance fees. It's annoying. The Globe article may not cover all the aspects of the fees, but it quotes "$2700 for 25 -90 nights." I'm not sure how all the costs can be covered for as low as $30 a night. My experience is that's impossible.

Fractional ownership is deeded real estate. If it's not deeded real estate, then its not fractional ownership. It's impossible to "lose your fractional interest" unless you mortgage it and don't make the payments - just like your home. The new "Discovery  Club" at the Oak Bay beach hotel is not fractional ownership.

Recently a high profile non-equity club went out of business.   The Tanner & Haley Club in the US has just undergone restructuring and sought chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

If you are interested in a private residence club take a look at the helium report.  Fractional ownership is more secure and (our fractionals) offers more flexibility and value than a private residence club. Caveat Emptor

Fractional Ownership Conference - San Franscisco 2008

I attended this conference in 2005, and it was good.

For 2008 it's March 18th - March 20th at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco.

Fractional VS Timeshare

Here's an article on fractional ownership from the Miami Herald.

The information about timeshare isn't accurate however. Why does every article on Fractional Ownership seem to have inaccurate and negative information about timeshare?

Most articles on Fractional ownership include the statement "you actually OWN fractional ownership whereas a timeshare you don't" - that's simply not true in many cases. Some of the world's largest sellers of timeshare sell a deeded 1/51 interest in real property. The world's largest seller of vacation ownership product is backed by real property held in trust for the owners as a group.

Why not just say what's good about Fractional Ownership? Timeshare owners in general love their product, and the products are simply more the same than different.

Why have timeshare sales doubled in the last 5 years? why are existing owners of timeshare re-purchasing more timeshare?

Not everyone can afford a "inexpensive fractional" at $150,000.

Simply put, both are "second home alternatives. " Some people require/can afford 1 or 2 weeks a year, and others 5 -10+ weeks a year.