While name-brand resorts are often the most talked about timeshare products, the independent resort world is a vibrant and diverse community of owners and resorts. Many of these independent resorts that have been in use for decades – also known as legacy resorts – face their own unique set of challenges, including maintaining competitive marketing efforts, delivering reliable service, and navigating financial sustainability.
When it comes to effectively guiding independent, legacy resorts into their next phase, it’s essential that HOAs and their Boards have an intentional, well-researched plan that reflects the true state of their resorts.
Creating an Intentional Plan
Oftentimes, the path forward for a legacy resort involves several potential avenues. For example, repurposing all or part of the resort, bringing in an in-house sales team, or other creative solutions can provide new ways to generate revenue or enhance the owner experience.
The path forward might also involve more difficult decisions, like winding down a resort. Knowing which avenue to take, and how to act in the best interest of the impacted owners, can be daunting task for these HOA Boards.
How MVP Can Help
MVP is a family team committed to creating resort plans that ensure the best use of legacy timeshare resorts. MVP understands that legacy timeshares face unique challenges for HOA Boards and their constituents, and that there are numerous proven options available to these boards to help take their ownership into the future. This means offering time-tested alternatives and education to stakeholders to help them achieve their goals.
As timeshare veterans, MVP has the expertise to provide a variety of services, including onsite and virtual sales solutions. The decades of timeshare experience that the MVP team has is evident in the work they’ve accomplished in tandem with resort staff at several legacy resorts. From forming hospitality brokerage for timeshare owners/weeks, to finding innovative solutions like making GMs licensed brokers so that they can both provide listing/sales services to owners and also manage their resorts, MVP makes the most out of a given situation to provide the best solutions to their clients.
When it’s time to wind down a resort, the MVP team provides expert guidance on how to do so and has helped over 1,000 owners relocate to another resort.
MVP Client Testimonials
Tom Pearson, President of the Indian Wells CondoShare, enlisted MVP to repurpose the Southern California resort. He says, “When I began serving on the CondoShare board the association was experiencing a decline in Owners with a consequent decline in revenue. This of course resulted in increases to annual dues and a decline in the quality of the accommodations due to budgetary constraints. Our GM did an excellent job of keeping us afloat but with Airbnb and similar travel options, interest in timeshare purchase was declining at least for us. Based upon the demographics of our Owners it was the Board’s belief that the association was trending to bankruptcy and there was not a great deal we could do about it. We also had many owners on fixed incomes and we were concerned that they would share the liability if the association went bankrupt.
“With that background, the Board, after much discussion, decided that a total wind-down of the timeshare was our best option. As you can well imagine, there were Owners who were very attached to their slice of heaven, but when the realities were presented, the vast majority agreed that it was time to shut things down. Our choice of TOWB (a Takacs company) offered what we thought was the perfect solution; no costs to owners, no risk to the association and in the end, money to be shared. TOWB’s commitment to service and communication was everything we could have hoped for.
“When we looked into organizations that could help us repurpose and market the timeshare condominiums as whole units, we did not find a lot of choices in the marketplace. One was TOWB, (now MVP). They took all the risk upfront, had the financial depth to carry the risk, and they had experience with other similar projects.
“In conclusion, MVP has helped our Owners to properly exit their timeshares and avoid future costs and potential liability, and allowed this Board to fulfill its fiduciary obligation to Owners.
Kurt Wuelper, former Crown Ridge New Hampshire Resort President, echoes Tom Pearson’s praise: “We were in dire straits with no staff and no money when we contacted them. They were wonderful. Somehow, in spite of the fact that all but one of our staff had quit, they managed to staff the place, practically overnight, and we hired them for only that while we, the board, searched for other partners to repurpose.
“For the next year and a half, MVP guided us through the necessary actions to make ready and sell all our units. It was important to us that the Board stay involved and that is exactly what they did. Every step of the way, from negotiating the initial repurpose contract through the final distribution, we always knew exactly what each of us had to do.”
To learn more about plan creation, visit www.mvpatakacscompany.com
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