:( Thank You DRI-SVM

After a review of the latest Maintenance fee adjustment, Scottsdale Villa Mirage, managed by Diamond Resorts International has now taken top spot of all my timeshares as "The Most Expensive Maintenance Fee" charged. Coupled with the fact this timeshare is the least attractive with the least amenities of the other timeshares I own, I am extremely disappointed.
The Management company argued last year for extremely severe increases and yet again this year they argue the same. Yet when I srutinize where the increases are reflected on the Income Statement, the document indicates once again MANAGEMENT FEES is the main contributing factor. This year increase is 28.56%. Last year increase was 49.33%. When I look at the increase over the past two years, the Management Fee increase is 92% over the 2007 rate. Wow, just how many managers will it take to manage this Resort? I can understand operating costs and Refurbishment reserves increasing but why would the Management Fees be the largest single contributing factor for our increase in Maintenance Fees. Can anyone, please try to explain this to me.

Biafrate, Can you check your private message

Because DRI wants to make at least a 15 percent profit margin-if only OUR investments were being so well managed. Is that too much to ask? It's time to see who sits on your BOD and who's interest they represent. IMHO DRI has been making some nice acquisitions and done some improvement to their on-line system however, as you point out, for these management fees they should be approaching perfection! P.S. Are the fees even higher than the MP (factoring in renovation, etc)?

funny, i had the same conversation w/ my wife this morning going over the bill....management fee's typically would be based in some form on a total % of revenue. and usually it's a base line revenue, in our case, "Maint Fee Rev", so as to exclude unusual stuff. anyway, when doing a comparison, my starwood managed resort was charging an 8% fee, while still higher than i'd like, i think it's somewhat reasonable considering we're at their mercy. Villa Mirage, on the other hand, comes in at a whopping 16.3%!!! As someone who is familiar w/ the real estate industry (my experience is in retail property management, and specifically the auditing of, so I'm familiar w/ these numbers)......this is absolutely rediculous. Any board who voted to accept a 16% management fee is either a) just little pawn's of DRI, and certainly not looking out for the best interest of the owners or b) so ignorant they truely belive this to be a good value for the owners. I'm leaning towards A here, and while it's hard for me to complain as I didn't make it to the board meeting, I have lost all faith in said board. There is no excuse out there that could ever make a 16% management fee at a property like this even approach being reasonable. It's sad there's nothing out there to protect us owners from something that is at best suspicious, and at worst flat out fraud (ie, knowledgeable bod members accepting this fee even though they are aware we could and should do better for the owners)....or is there?

At the end of the day this management fee makes up a relatively minor component of the overall budget (14% of expenses), but it honestly makes me suspicious of the whole BOD and budgeting process. If I thought I could get a dime for this unit right now I'd be tempted to sell.

On the bright side, we've been able to turn our 2 br l/o unit here into 2 wonderful vacations this year (a 2BR in Sanibel and a 2BR at Royal Haciendas), so at least we're experiencing good trade power, I just wish it didn't have to come w/ such an unreasonable maint fee

As if this comes as a surprise

2009 Election Results
Dear Scottsdale Villa Mirage Resort Owners Association Members,

The Annual Meeting of the Scottsdale Villa Mirage Resort Owners Association was held on October 23, 2009. At the meeting, incumbent directors Troy Magdos and Jason Toste were re-elected to the Board of Directors.


The only non-employee Board Candidate was not elected yet both of the incumbents, who, by the way, work for DRI, were elected.
Now how is that for transparency.