Vacation Club

Marriott Vacation Club is expanding their Florida timeshare properties with a new Singer Island resort, the Oceana Palms, located in the Riviera Beach – Palm Beach Shores area.

In the company’s official press release Stephen P. Weisz, president of Marriott Vacation Club International, said, “Marriott Vacation Club has enjoyed being a member of the Palm Beach Shores community for the past ten years through our Marriott’s Ocean Pointe resort.” The company believes the new Oceana Palms timeshare resort will offer more choices and more availability at this high-demand location.

When complete, the timeshare resort will include 169 timeshare condos in two 19-story towers, which will combine the relaxation of a beachside vacation with the upscale lifestyle of Palm Beach, Florida. The timeshare condo décor will blend contemporary furnishings with tropical colors to create a relaxing atmosphere. Each of the timeshare condos will include a fully equipped gourmet kitchen, washer and dryer, multiple flat-panel televisions with DVD players, and spacious living accommodations.

If you are not familiar with Singer Island and Riviera Beach, this is the heart of Florida’s Gold Coast. The locale is distinctive with sun-soaked white beaches adjacent to restaurants, galleries, and boutiques that range from elegant to charming, but all in keeping with the “old money” ambience of Palm Beach.

Expected to be available in 2010, the timeshare condos are currently being pre-sold, at a starting price of $25,900 per timeshare week. What’s most important here, is for you to understand that you can also enjoy Marriott timeshare in the Palm Beach Shores community at a much lower price.

Timeshare Resales Offer Incredible Options

Sell My Timeshare NOW currently has an excellent inventory of Marriott timeshare resales and Marriott timeshare rentals available at Ocean Pointe, as well as other desirable vacation destinations. When you buy timeshare resales or vacation in timeshare rentals, you enjoy luxurious timeshare resorts, like the Marriott Vacation Club International properties, but you spend a fraction of what you pay when you buy timeshare from the developer.

In the end, whether you buy timeshare new or buy timeshare resales, you wind up sitting on the same beach and enjoying the same amenities, except that the timeshare owners who bought their vacation ownership property as a timeshare resale, have a whole lot more money still in their pocket than the people who didn’t.

In addition to the great deals on timeshare resales at Ocean Pointe, here are other Florida timeshare destinations where you can enjoy both the luxury and the value of timeshare resales:

• Marriott’s BeachPlace Towers in Fort Lauderdale
• Marriott’s Villas at Doral in Miami
• Horizons at Orlando by Marriott in Orlando
• Marriott’s Cypress Harbor in Orlando
• Marriott’s Grande Vista in Orlando
• Marriott’s Imperial Palm Villas in Orlando
• Marriott’s Royal Palms in Orlando
• Marriott’s Sabal Palms in Orlando
• Marriott’s Ocean Pointe in Palm Beach Shores
• Marriott’s Legends Edge at Bay Point in Panama City Beach

In my last two blog postings, I have talked about timeshare vacation property as a regulated industry, and also about upfront fees in the timeshare industry, and what those fees really mean.

Let’s look at one more topic that sometimes confuses both timeshare owners and people who are new to the world of timeshare: the many different ways to own timeshare.

Timeshare owned as “right to use” property means just what it sounds like it means. You don’t own any portion of the property, but you do own the right to use that property. When you buy right to use timeshare, you purchase the right to use the property (usually a specific unit) for a predetermined period of time, or for a predetermined number of uses.

Right to use timeshare does not provide the timeshare buyer with a deed or any ownership of a percentage of the resort, nor does it create any percentage of ownership of an individual timeshare unit. Most vacation club memberships are examples of right to use timeshare ownership.

Leasehold timeshare is similar to right to use, except it is actually “owned” (without a deed) for a stated period. In other words, leasehold is defined by the number of years you hold the lease. When the lease ends, so do your rights to use the timeshare. Leasehold timeshare is common for Hawaii timeshares, and in other geographic areas where leasehold ownership is frequently used by the real estate market in general.

Timeshare can also be held as a right to use property with no limitations on how long the timeshare owner can use the property. In other words, a timeshare can be a right to use ownership, where the rights extend into perpetuity (forever).

Many timeshares, especially in the US, are owned as fee simple real estate. Fee simple ownership is deeded timeshare ownership, and is typically structured very much like the way most people own their personal residences. Often, similar to the way people own condominium properties, a fee simple deed includes a date, on which the individual timeshare owners, stop being individual owners and become tenants in common. When that date is reached, the tenants vote on whether or not to continue the structure of individual ownership. For example, they may decide by majority vote, to sell the timeshare resort as a total property, in which case, each timeshare owner will receive his or her appropriate percentage of the total sale.

Don’t be overwhelmed because there are different options for timeshare ownership. The diversity of ways you can take advantage of vacation ownership is exactly what makes timesharing so attractive.

Before you buy timeshare from a developer or take advantage of the opportunities in timeshare resales, I recommend that you get in touch with people who know and understand the different ways to buy timeshare and sell timeshare, like the timeshare resale and timeshare rental specialists at Sell My Timeshare NOW. Ask lots of questions up front, so that you become an informed timeshare buyer or timeshare seller.

The bottom line is simply this: timesharing works and works well for a lot of satisfied owners. Research prepared for the American Resort Development Association (ARDA) shows that timeshare owners report high satisfaction rates with their timeshare purchase, and over three quarters of all timeshare owners say that owning a timeshare has increased how much they look forward to vacations.

You can become one of the satisfied majority, enjoying vacation planning ease, luxurious resorts, incredible flexibility, and all the benefits timesharing has to offer. And Sell My Timeshare NOW is the perfect place to start.

Sometimes, no matter how hard I try, I just can’t bring you the whole story. So I am sharing as much as I know.

The Mountain Press is an online news publication that covers events in the areas of Gatlinburg, Sevierville, and Pigeon Forge, Tennessee—all of which are excellent timeshare resort destinations.

On September 12, The Mountain Press ran a letter to the editor, from Marcus N. Bressler, president of the board of directors of Laurel Point Condominium Association, Inc. The link above, should take you to the letter.

In Mr. Bressler’s letter, he explains that The Mountain Press had previously printed a press release from Festiva Development Group, and that some of the points of the release were inaccurate.

I am going to summarize this, as best I understand it. According to Mr. Bressler, the press release dealt with the purchase, by Festiva Development Group, of timeshare intervals previously owned by Peppertree Vacation Clubs, Inc., as well as assets of various resorts previously belonging to Peppertree and its subsidiaries. He said the article “implied” that Festiva had purchased the management contract Peppertree once held at Laurel Point Resort in Gatlinburg.

As Mr. Bressler explains, Cendant Corp. did purchase the assets and management contracts owned by Peppertree Resorts Ltd., in 2002. RCI Resorts Management, was, at that time, a division of Cendant, and became the management agent of Laurel Point Resort. In 2003, the Laurel Point Resort Board of Directors hired Defender Resorts Inc, to replace RCI Resorts Management, for a period of 3 years.

In January 2006, the resort entered into a new management contact with SPM Resorts, Inc of Myrtle Beach. Except for 156 unit weeks that were assigned to Peppertree/Equivest Vacation Club and 17 weeks assigned to the Trust, there are no assets owned by Laurel Point Condominium Association Inc, which could have been purchased by Festiva Development without the knowledge of the Laurel Point Resort Board of Directors.

To get to the very bottom line here, based on Mr. Bressler’s letter: “Festiva is merely the controlling agent for those 156 unit week owners who still remain in their Vacation Club, as well as the 17 unit weeks still in the Trust, and have nothing to do with the business of the resort except to pay the maintenance fees due on Jan 1, 2008, and to vote those 173 unit weeks of the Laurel Point Condominium Association.”

Let me add that while I searched the archives of The Mountain Press, I was never able to find any press release or article referencing Festiva or Peppertree, published by The Mountain Press in the past two years. Neither could I find any other news articles on this topic. That’s not to suggest they don’t exist – I simply could never find the original referenced article.

So here’s my suggestion, if you own Festiva timeshare, Peppertree timeshare, or Laurel Point timeshare, or you are thinking about purchasing a timeshare or timeshare resale at any of these locations, take the time to ask the logical questions. If you have concerns about the homeowners association or the property management company take a little extra time, do your own due diligence and satisfy your own curiosity that you understand the situation.

I am not suggesting that there are any problems at ANY of these resorts, only that if something is unclear to you, make that extra effort so that you understand what you own or what you are buying. It’s good advice when buying or selling timeshare resales and it’s good advice in all your business dealings.

Travel company Abercrombie and Kent, has been around since the 1960’s and describes themselves as “the luxury safari specialists”.

Abercrombie and Kent is known for providing travel packages to the rich and famous. The TimesOnline lists Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Gene Hackman, Hillary Clinton, and Michael Crichton among A&K’s renowned clientele. Lately however, Abercrombie and Kent is making headlines for other reasons, problems brought on by their involvement in a vacation club-gone-bad, a type of timeshare deal.

According to Fox News, Abercrombie and Kent has been sued for allegedly duping people out of millions of dollars that the individuals investing believed were going into high-end vacation club memberships at resorts managed by Abercrombie and Kent.

The lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court on July 26, 2007 says that plaintiffs would not have invested in the clubs had they known the resorts weren’t operated by Abercrombie and Kent and it alleges intentional misrepresentation, negligence, and violation of the California unfair competition law. Members, according to USA Today, believed they were paying refundable membership fees for Private Retreats by Abercrombie & Kent, Distinctive Retreats by Abercrombie & Kent, and Andrew Harper’s Distinctive Retreats, a destination club. The first lawsuit included 96 plaintiffs. A second lawsuit, with 94 complainants was filed shortly thereafter. Membership in the timeshare travel club would have allowed timesharing of yachts, luxury resort residences, jets, and luxury automobiles.

Andrew Harper, is the pen name of an author who has for nearly three decades written Andrew Harper’s Hideaway Report, a newsletter targeted at the luxury travel market. Named in the lawsuits along with Abercrombie and Kent, Harper was quoted in USA Today as issuing this statement through his spokesperson, “We do not own Solstice and we are not in partnership with them, but we do advise them on destination sites for Solstice homes and assist them with marketing efforts.”

Only time will tell how this timeshare deal turns out. But rest assured, you do not have to pay high end prices (the vacation club owners in this lawsuit invested between $100,000 and $1.3 million each) to enjoy luxurious vacation ownership. Timeshare resales offer incredible—really incredible—opportunities to vacation at world-class destinations with fabulous amenities.